Choosing to SEE, by Mary Beth Chapman

"I have found - even in the awful pain of tears and grief so intense you think it will kill you - that my family and I can do hard. We'll never get over our loss, but we're getting through it." 
- excerpted from Choosing to SEE

Mary Beth Chapman's book Choosing to SEE (published by Revel in 2010) was such an encouragement to me. My friend, A, recommended it, and I wasn't at all disappointed. In the last several months I've read a lot of books on grief and loss, underlining like crazy because that's how I learn and it's also (evidently) how I heal. I think I dog-eared at least twenty pages in this book. Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman lost their five-year-old daughter, Maria, to a tragic accident in their own driveway a few years ago. I remember the first time I read about it in People magazine. I was in an airport gift shop on my way to who-knows-where and I felt like someone had punched me in the gut as I read their story. I felt such sadness for this family I had never even met. So, although this book was only partially about Maria's death, I was interested in how the family has coped with their deep loss (which now, of course, meant much more to me than ever). 

This book is an autobiography of Mary Beth's life, essentially, from her childhood (also filled with sadness and difficulty) to the death of Maria and beyond, outlining the places God has taken her that she never would have imagined. What I appreciated most throughout the book was its stark honesty. In the first chapter, Mary Beth admits that when people tell her how much her loss has made a difference in their lives, she thinks, "I want my children to be healthy, my family secure. I don't really care whose life has been touched or changed because of our loss!" (23) The author's words are filled with honesty and humility - just what anyone who has ever felt deep sorrow or loss needs to feel a little less alone. And yet, there is hope. Mary Beth ends with a quote from Hudson Taylor: "May this be your experience: may you feel that the Hand which inflicts the wound supplies the balm, and that He who has emptied your heart has filled the void with Himself." 

I would recommend this book to anyone who has lost a child in particular, or even just to those that have suffered with depression or any sort of loss (or knows someone who has). You'll read it in a day, and you'll be glad you did.