Can You Just Sit with Me? Healthy Grieving for the Losses of Life

Reviewed by:

G. Connor Salter, Professional Writing alumnus from Taylor University, Upland, IN.

Title:

Can You Just Sit with Me? Healthy Grieving for the Losses of Life

Author:

Natasha Smith

Publisher:

Intervarsity Press

http://InterVarsity Press

Publication Date:

September 26, 2023

Format:

Paperback

Length:

208 pages

OVERVIEW

Everybody grieves, eventually. Yet it’s not a topic we discuss much in church. Natasha Smith encourages readers to understand that they need to grieve. The research shows that no one bypasses grief, and attempts to bottle it up only making things worse. Smith guides readers through stories about her own losses, using her as a framework to explain:

• What the medical science teaches us about grief
• What grief looks like for different people
• Spiritual and practice practices (like devotional prayers) that will help them grieve well.

Smith manages that hard balancing act of telling her story and then providing lessons from her story. Since Smith has written lots of Christian family content for sites like Focus on the Family, it won’t surprise leaders that she excels at a caring tone for explaining her ideas in simple language. She also adds a nice layer of extra substance to her advice by showing her research—the endnotes explain medical studies about grief that back her research.

Occasionally, it feels like there needs to be another layer, some history or sociology, to back up her other ideas. She provides gripping anecdotes about her experience with grief, particularly her experiences coming from an African American family struggling with grief. Mourning relatives who died younger than expected, sometimes in violent events. Grieving losses that a teenage mother feels when she has to give up her child for adoption. However, she doesn’t delve much into American history or studies on African American culture that this subject brings up: are African Americans more familiar with grief because of racism? Similarly, when she talks about why churches are often uncomfortable talking about grief, she connects to the broad stream of stoicism. A good point, but one could also argue that there are more specific factors (material prosperity and white privilege, for example) that make it particularly hard for American evangelicals to talk about grief.

This isn’t to say that the whole book needed to talk about race. It’s just that when Smith’s medical research is this good, it’s surprising that she doesn’t delve a little more into what’s been written (books like Gracism or Talking About Race) that could add another layer to her points. Smith’s medical research is great, her storytelling is good, but every so often, it feels like she’s skipping over historical or racial questions that directly affect her subject.

Missed chances aside, this book does deliver on its basic promise. It guides readers through why grief is unavoidable, in fact necessary, and how God is with us through every step of the grieving process.

A great guide to grief and a great vision for grieving well.

ASSESSMENT

Rating (1 to 5 stars):

Four stars

Suggested Audience:

Readers who have experienced a recent loss, or want to learn more about the grieving process.

Christian Impact:

Smith shows how Christians are not only permitted to grieve, but how Christianity provides the best vision for grieving in a healthy way.

Note: ECLA readers who enjoy this book may also enjoy:

https://eclalibraries.org/2018/05/04/book-review-pizza-with-jesus-no-black-olives-finding-hope-and-grace-amid-hardship-grief/

https://www.amazon.com/

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/