“Eva not breathing. Pray.” That text message was Mel Lawrenz’s entry into the harsh reality of losing his thirty-year-old daughter. Things would never be the same. How could he and his family cope with this devastating loss? In this narrative of grief, Pastor Mel Lawrenz chronicles how his family struggled to survive the sudden death of their beloved daughter. In raw, vivid episodes, he describes the immediacy of the pain and the uncertainty of what comes next. In the agony of traumatic loss, Lawrenz apprehends the realities of love and life and offers insights on how to navigate our life priorities before or after tragedy hits. You are not alone. You too can find a way forward.
InterVarsity Press (July 21, 2020) ISBN-13: 978-0830837601
Paperback 168 pages; Kindle eBook; Audiobook
Mel Lawrenz trains an international network of Christian leaders, ministry pioneers, and thought leaders through the Brook Network. He served as senior pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, for ten years and now serves as Elmbrook’s minister at large, teaching in North America, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He holds a PhD in the history of Christian thought from Marquette University. His books include Spiritual Leadership Today and Life After Grief.
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REVIEWS
A Chronicle of Grief deserves to stand alongside C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, Gerald Sittser’s A Grace Disguised, and Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Lament for a Son as an experience of rawest sorrow transmuted into a testament of deepest hope. Profoundly moving and profoundly life giving.”
Mark Buchanan, author of God Speed
His transparent description of the overwhelming grief he experienced and the solace he found in the Lord and the community of faith is moving, instructive, and most helpful.Highly recommended.”
Jill Briscoe, founding editor of Just Between Us
This book is difficult to read—as any honest book about death and grief must be. But it is rich and indispensable to any on this hard journey or walking with another who is. . . . Mel is the guide we need for the journey we do not want.”
Scott Arbeiter, president of World Relief
Within the pages of A Chronicle of Grief, Mel Lawrenz bares his heart broken with grief, yet his story is sprinkled with hope. As I write we are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is ripping so many from the arms of their loved ones. When he wrote this book, the author would have had no inkling of what was to come. So much death . . . so much loss . . . so much trauma . . . so much grief . . . for so many individuals and families. A Chronicle of Grief could not be more timely.”
Heather Davediuk Gingrich, professor of counseling at Denver Seminary, author of Restoring the Shattered Self
READER REVIEWS
This book is extraordinary. It is raw and real and at times hard to read, but it is also full of insight and hope. I’ve heard much smarter people than me say this book surpasses C.S. Lewis’s “A Grief Observed.” If you know anyone suffering a terrible loss please give this book to them. I have given away multiple copies already and because of what the author has experienced, through this book he walks alongside and understands those suffering a deep loss. Those I gave the book to were deeply comforted. This book is not theory or teaching from someone who has not lived that about which he writes.. It’s also a small book with short chapters which is good for those in deep grief. Anyone will benefit from this book–those in grief, those who help those in grief (counselors, therapists), and those who just want to learn how help someone they love who is grieving (that was me–I have learned so much by reading this book and deeply grateful that the author was willing to share his painful journey.)