Review: Choosing to See

"Maria could write her name and little things such as 'I love you,' but she hadn't started writing other words yet. Since Stevey Joy was a little older and a year ahead of Maria in preschool, she had a list of words to learn. Steven's best guess is that Maria much have copied one of the words off the list. And the word she wrote was SEE.
SEE.
     Staring at Maria's artwork, Steven had tears spilling down his face. It was like Maria was speaking to him from heaven, from the very realm of  eternity, saying 'SEE? Can you SEE? Everything is going to be all right. I am here with Jesus. I am fine. Heaven is real, the gospel is true, you just have to SEE!'...I could only see a few feet in front of me. If I could see any farther than that, the journey ahead would be too scary . But He was showing me all that I needed, just a few steps at a time...giving me little glimmers of grace...if I would choose to SEE them."

 Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman lost one of their precious daughters a few years ago and in Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope, she takes us through the struggle that loss brought. Not a struggle of their choosing,  but one that they have been given to walk through and learn to see by.  Her ability to be honest allowed me to weep, laugh, and cheer her on, and to see how she lives with grief which has its foundation set on hope in Christ. As she writes, "Most people I know are quite fond of the apostle Paul, not because he was a super-achiever who spread the gospel throughout the known, world, but because he realized that his pains and limitations were what kept him dependent on Christ."   It is a gentle reminder that even without answers, and in the midst of pain,  we can live this life we've been given, that He has given us His people to surround and guide us, most of all the LORD is with us. It's a story of  how one parent's days are spent in learning to SEE and trust Him.