Lament for a Son
- Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Published: 1987
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Publisher's Description
Well-known Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff has authored many books that have contributed significantly to scholarship in several subjects. In Lament for a Son he writes not as a scholar but as a loving father grieving the loss of his son. In brief vignettes Wolterstorff explores with a moving honesty and intensity, all the facets of his experience of this irreversible loss. Though he grieves "not as one who has no hope," he finds no comfort in the pious-sounding phrases that would diminish the malevolence of death. The book is in one sense a narrative account of events--from the numbing telephone call on a sunny Sunday afternoon that tells of 25-year-old Eric's death in a mountain-climbing accident, to a graveside visit a year later. But the book is far more than narrative. Every event is an occasion for remembering, for meditating, for Job-like anguish in the struggle to accept and understand. A profoundly faith-affirming book, Lament for a Son gives eloquent expression to a grief that is at once unique and universal--a grief for an individual, irreplaceable person. Though it is an intensely personal book, Wolterstorff decided to publish it, he says, "in the hope that it will be of help to some of those who find themselves with us in the company of mourners."
Endorsements (3)
“Lament for a Son is a simple, honest, and poignant expression of one man's grief, but it is more. By sharing the depths of his grief, not in trite phrases but honestly, Nicholas Wolterstorff helps open the floodgates for those who cannot articulate their pain. . . This little book is a true gift to those who grieve and those who, in love, reach out to comfort. Wolterstorff's words are, indeed, 'salve on our wounds.' Thank God he did not remain silent.”
“Read him, and again I say unto you, please read him.”
“Wolterstorff inquires as Job inquired. He is honest and utterly resistant to the cheap answers about death: finally, to any answers about death at all. . . He looks, without foolish giddiness or delusion, but in faith, to the day that Death and this death shall be overcome—and he takes his place beside all who suffer. . . A miracle.”
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