From grief comes faith, hope, healing

Friday, June 1, 2018
How a ministry leader coped with the sudden death of his wife

Tears to Joy: One Man’s Journey Through Grief (Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2018)
Mike Tucker


As well as his role as presenter and director of the Faith for Today ministry, Pr Mike Tucker has worked for many years as a pastor and chaplain, often counselling people and teaching classes on grief recovery. But everything he had taught and recommended was put to the most extreme test when Gayle—his ministry partner and wife of 40 years—died in April 2016 just three months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Tears to Joy is partly the story of his experience of loss, including excerpts from his journal over the year following Gayle’s death. But the book is also a confirmation of his previous understandings of coping with grief: “The things I had taught are true, the methods of dealing with the loss are useful, the philosophies are reliable, and recovery is indeed a possibility.”

While acknowledging each of our experiences and circumstances of grief are unique, Tears to Joy sets out these road-tested principles and methods in short chapters. Following his own recommendations, Tucker describes how he practised deep and early grieving as the most effective way of absorbing and healing the worst of the pain.

But Tears to Joy is not only for those in the midst of grief. Most of us carry the lingering burdens of past griefs—and future losses are among life’s inevitabilities. Death and grief also come with serious questions of faith, which we all face. And the book includes a section on helping others who are struggling with grief, making this a book to read and to share.

Honest grief writing explores some of the most difficult experiences of our lives, but Tucker’s experience and reflections in Tears to Joy also point us to the possibilities of faith and hope, healing and even joy amid the realities of grief.

Tears to Joy

Tears to Joy is available from Seventh-day Adventist bookshops in Australia and New Zealand.

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Nathan Brown
Author

Nathan Brown

Nathan is Book Editor at Signs Publishing. He is a former magazine editor, a published writer and an author or editor of more than a dozen books. He is also a co-convener of Manifest, a community exploring, encouraging and celebrating faithful creativity.

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