Grieving God's Way, by Margaret Brownley

In my work as a bereavement chaplain for a hospice, I am always on the look out for helpful books concerning grief, recovery, emotional schtuff and topics around death & dying. So of course, I took the opportunity to browse through this new book from Thomas Nelson Publishing.

I've never heard of Margaret Brownley, but her author bio touts her as an accomplished writer of fiction. Her eldest son died, and from that experience came this book, Grieving God's Way.

I will not claim to be an expert on grief, recovery theory, or what most people, or anyone, particularly need when grieving the loss of a loved one. However, my job puts me listening to grieving people daily, and I am learning from them daily. THis is the background from which I comment on Brownley's book.

The book is not a through-reader. Meaning, you might read a page a day. It is written to the griever, and each page contains a Bible verse, a short topical reflection around grief, a haiku and a "Healing Way" (practical suggestions for healing). There are 90 days total.

In the reflections, it quickly becomes clear that Brownley is a gifted writer. Her tone is approachable, smooth, inviting and at times winsome. I can see why this book approved for publishing and may be attractive to many a bereaved person.

That said, it is unlikely I will ever recommend this book to a grieving person. Allow me to be a little nit-picky, only because, as I've said, I listen to bereaved people daily and I feel a little protective of them.

The first thing I noticed was the title. Grieving God's Way is pretentious. I don't like it. Are we supposed to think that there is a Christian way to grieve and/or a non-Christian way? Can we sin by grieving the wrong way? Or is the title suggesting that there's one way to grieve, and it's God's way, and that this book explains that "way"? I'm just not sure. So, I would've gone with a different title. However, the book does not attempt to explain God's way of grieving (whatever that is). It simply offers 90 reflections, haiku's etc. about grief. So, the book has a bad title that it's not trying to live up to. Whatever.

Call me a stickler, but she got Kubler-Ross wrong. A few decades ago Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote a ground breaking book called On Death and Dying. She interviewed dying people and published her findings. One of the things she talked about was "the stages of grief": denial/isolation, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance. Margaret Brownley, unfortunately talks about them in terms of what folks go through after losing a loved one (p17). But Kubler-Ross' stages of grief pertain to what dying people experience. There are plenty of similarities between these two groups of people; however, there are plenty of differences in their grief processes as well. Splitting hairs? Maybe. But I'd hope that someone authoring a self-help book on grief would appropriately handle the famed "stages of grief."

The book is a little to prescriptive for my liking. My approach when doing grief counseling is to take the posture of a companion to the griever. Walking side-by-side with one who is broken by loss, doing my best to offer the support of a friend while letting the griever find his/her own way. Many of the pages containing "Healing Ways" were wise and useful. However, there were also those places where Brownley seemed a little too pushy in the should department. Everyone's grief and processing of it is unique. I am wary of those offering any sort of should to someone else who is grieving.

I've spent considerable space discussing negatives of this book. Overall, I think there is a Christian population that will be helped by this book very much. But in my profession there are other better books that I will turn to before Grieving God's Way.