Grief Undone: A Journey with God and Cancer

Grief Undone: A Journey with God and Cancer by Elizabeth Groves

adult, nonfiction

Grief Undone is the breathtakingly honest, yet hopeful account of how Elizabeth (Libbie) and Al Groves walked with God through Al’s terminal cancer. Their true story—saturated with in-the-moment Scriptural reflections, blogs, and fervent prayers—paints a stunning picture of how faith transforms the human experience of suffering.

But Grief Undone is more than the chronicle of one family’s courage in the face of cancer. At its core, Grief Undone tells a story about the God who is with his people through each and every circumstance in life. Grief Undone will inevitably display the beauty of Christ’s sustaining love for his people through trials that seemed too hard to bear. Though grief threatens to undo us, we find that we are not destroyed, but sustained by God’s presence.

Story-driven and real, Grief Undone avoids the usual traps of being preachy, gratuitous, or dismissive in the face of suffering and grief. Modeling rather than teaching about healthy and God-honoring grief, Grief Undone is uniquely practical for those who are grieving as well as the pastors, counselors, and friends who seek to help them.

“We want things to be perfect but they rarely are, and instead we can learn to look for and appreciate the surprising beauty God works into the broken world around us.” Grief Undone

A Story That Hit Close to Home

After my dad died, I decided to try to find some books that might help me work through my grief. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for or if anything would really help. I figured I would cry my way through some books and was hopeful that I would find some bits of wisdom to carry with me.

While searching the website in our local library, I stumbled upon Grief Undone. Of course, the physical building was closed due to the pandemic, but the online site was up and running. I think the subtitle caught my attention, A Journey with God and Cancer. I did not know that this book was an extension of the family’s blog during the last year of Al’s life.

“Losing someone is like losing an arm. If you lose a limb, you learn how to cope, how to compensate, how to do life one-armed, how to carry on. Eventually the new state of affairs even starts to feel somewhat normal. But you are still missing one arm.” Grief Undone

The most shocking part of the story was that Al was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer similar to that of my daddy. My dad went in for a routine physical and the doctor found a small spot on his lung. His doctor indicated that he would watch the spot but he did not think it was anything of great concern. Another scan showed that the spot had grown so the doctor recommended a quick procedure to conduct a biopsy on the spot.

Once on the operating table, the spot looked suspicious enough to warrant the surgeon removing the lower lobe of my dad’s left lung. My dad woke up startled that he was missing half of his lung. A week later when the biopsy showed cancer, he was in utter shock.

Reading this book brought up so many thoughts and emotions.

I actually had a hard time getting through the book and had to read it in many sittings. Not because it wasn’t well written, but because it was. I felt like I was there with the family, learning of the diagnosis and watching their husband and father die. In fact, Al’s last days were strikingly similar to those of my precious dad.

Though the book was emotionally challenging for me, I also found a lot of comfort. One aspect of the book that I found most comforting and encouraging was the inclusion of scripture. Throughout the book, Elizabeth and Al shared verses from the Bible that demonstrate God’s love for us and His hand in every aspect of our lives.  

“We share the need to know that when we are in the dark valley the Lord really will be with us and walk us through it, however long it will last.” Grief Undone

 I loved reading about the community of believers who joined together to love this family during the toughest part of their lives. Elizabeth referred to this community as the hands and feet of Jesus.

Jesus in the Flesh

People supported their family by preparing food, running errands, and cleaning laundry; all wonderful, tangible blessings. I loved how Elizabeth described the support one of her children received from a beautiful friend. She offered to sit with Elizabeth’s daughter while she worked on her homework so she had a warm body in the room with her. The family was also supported with loads of prayer.

All of these wonderful blessings took me back to the time when I was pregnant with my youngest child. I was actually pregnant with triplets (sadly, we lost two of the babies). The doctor said that my pregnancy was very rare. He described it as three separate pregnancies happening at the same time and in the same space.

When I was about 3 months along I was put on bedrest as I was considered high risk. A friend of mine mentioned to a friend of hers that I was on bedrest, with two young children at home. And her friend mentioned to her friend who mentioned to her friend and on and on. My family was blessed with meals, groceries, laundry, gift cards, diapers, endless prayer…the list goes on.

I can appreciate how blessed Al’s family felt during this extremely difficult time. Showing a bit of love and kindness goes a very long way!!!

Recommendation

I highly recommend this book to anyone experiencing loss, as well as anyone looking for a solid understanding of what the Bible says about death. The stories shared are encouraging and full of hope. The author does a wonderful job of drawing a beautiful picture of heaven and describing the joy believers will experience after death. Though the family in this story was in a battle with cancer, the lessons can be applied to any situation involving loss. This book will evoke many emotions so make sure you have some tissues handy.

Additional reviews of Grief Undone can also be found on the following websites.

Musings by Wendy

New Growth Press (a beautiful endorsement from Rev. Cephas T. A. Tushima, PD, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Jos ECWA Theological Seminary)