Guy Delcambre, Earth and Sky: A Beautiful Collision of Grace and Grief (Springfield, MO: Influence Resources, 2014). Paperback / Kindle

By nature, I am a worst-case scenario thinker. Put me in any situation, and I’ll think of all the bad things that might happen. The scenario that worries me most—the situation that gives me nightmares—is the death of my wife or son.

Guy Delcambre lived my worst-case scenario. His wife Marianne died after a five-day hospitalization in the ICU, leaving him without a partner and their daughters without a parent. Earth and Sky is a memoir of his grief and the grace he found within it.

Three sentences within this short, beautifully written book capture its essence for me:

• “Healing is a process that begins with hurting. If you never fully hurt, you never fully heal” (p. 33).
• “Grief and loss imploded the life I knew; grace and love rebuilt it” (p. 151).
• “Grace is blocked when we play games and put on masks. It thrives when we find the courage to be honest with God” (p. 153).

Having suffered a months-long bout clinical depression nearly 20 years ago, I can attest the truthfulness of these words. Life leaves a mark. It wounds. It hurts. There’s no point in denying it. By the same token, God heals. There’s no point in denying that either. The key is to remove the masks of denial and despair and let God in.

If you’re looking for a book that outlines how to get through grief or one that defines the biblical perspective on loss, this is not the book to read. If you’re looking for hope, for the story of a fellow sufferer who lived to tell the tale, I encourage you to read this book.

(Full disclosure: I work for the parent company of Influence Resources, though not for Influence Resources itself.)

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P.P.S. The Kindle version of Earth and Sky is currently available for $0.99.