Peanut Butter and Dragon Wings by Shari Zook
I saw this book on NetGalley and was immediately intrigued. Why? Because I recognized the author's name. Right away, I went to Shari's blog to see if it was the Shari I am acquainted with. Sure enough. That was all the impetus I needed to pick the book up right away and start reading. The message of the book and the style of writing kept me spellbound through the entire book. My only regret is that it is not published yet so I cannot hold a paper copy in my hands, flipping back and forth, and drinking in the words. For me, reading a digital copy, it is harder to go back and forth and fully take in the language and the emotion of the words in front of me. So I eagerly await the arrival of the paper copy in July.
Life has dealt me some blows and I have dealt with depression in a small scale. Reading Shari's words opened up depression for me in a much bigger, more real way. Listening to her fight against the darkness and then finally take the plunge to open up to people, to seek community, to seek medical help, to seek a loving mentor makes the journey more real, more heartbreaking and yet more hopeful. It takes courage to risk openness, to risk being vulnerable, to risk asking for help. We have been raised in a strong culture where you put a smile on your face and say you are doing fine even though your heart is shattered in a million pieces and your brain can barely process the immediate needs of the day and you are merely surviving each moment, but feeling hopeless through it all. Shari opens up a different way. She models what it means to be vulnerable, what it means to say "I need help". She shows us that we don't have to be strong on our own, we can't be strong on our own. We need community.
"I confess there are times I cannot find the hand of Christ, and I find him only when I reach for his people. I the child, and they the middleman."
"I often feel that I owe it to God to be a success story. I tell you the truth. The greatest heartbreak of Christian womanhood in my time is isolation, when we are so busy keeping our smooth images intact that we don't even notice we are imprisoned behind them. We may be lonely and inadequate and terrified and empty. But ooh we are looking good.
"Solitude is what kills us."
Along with her journey with depressions, Shari talks about her joys and sorrows and grief of fostering, of losing children you thought were going to be yours for forever. She shares about mothering struggles. I so greatly admire Ryan and Shari's willingness to admit that they couldn't be everything for their second child, for their willingness to seek help. I think that is so powerful because so often we think we have to be everything for our children and, sometimes, we simply cannot be and that does not mean we are a failure. We are a success because we are willing to seek help, because we know our child needs what we can't give.
One more thing I admired about Shari's honesty is her honesty with and about God. She is honest about her struggles with doubt and faith and she is honest with God. She tells Him how she feels and when grief has sucked her dry, she is honest about her silence with God and how she allowed her community to carry her to God. There's so much I want to quote here, but I will try to do it briefly.
"To be honest, I rarely find God when I scream into the sky, though I have done this many times in my life, but afterward, when my grief and outrage are spent and I am blown wide open, when I turn in despair at his silence to find he is at my elbow, in the river with me. Afterward is where I find him. He is always quiet then, and his eyes are steady. He is soaked through, and I cannot tell if it is river water or tears on his face, but it is all one."
"He wants me on my knees, my hands held out. He wants this word from me. Anything. Not the limp acquiescence of non-desiring, but the passion of needing and giving and surrendering and yearning all at the same time. To long without demanding. To surrender without discarding. To break without falling. Anything, my Lord. He wants me trusting when I don't know. He wants me worshiping. This is my posture."
On my knees, hands held out saying anything. This is my desire, but it is hard and I am grateful for those who have walked the road before and are willing to share their stories so I can see the beauty that can come out of this surrender.
And finally, this: "It has taken me forever to learn that brokenness and need are the believer's intended posture. That the cracks also are sacred. That the scars on the hands of Jesus are holy flesh. And that resurrection is always on the near horizon."
As you can tell, I greatly enjoyed this book. Enjoy hardly feels like the right word, it is so much more than that. It is a book that wrings your heart out dry and then fills it back up with hope as you journey with Shari through the emotions and heartache of life. It makes me stop and wonder how well I would have done if faced with the same hard things. And yet, that is not what matters. My journey will not look like hers, so what matters is how I handle my own hard things, to pour them out to God, to allow myself to be broken and scarred, to surrender to His all-knowing ways. It's okay to be honest, but it's also okay to worship in the midst or to allow others to carry us for awhile when we can't walk by ourselves.
I received this book from Herald Press via NetGalley and was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed in this book are my own.
Comments
Post a Comment