BOOK REVIEW: THE HARDEST PEACE, by Kara Tippets
- Posted by Tony Huy
- 0 Comments
‘Dear heart, the purpose of life is not longevity.’ That’s what a friend said to me recently. The words slowly seeped into my soul. I digested them gradually. I hate them, and I love them (p. 152).
Perspective in life doesn’t come easy. Often, it’s forged in pain or failure, or in rare instances, through the glimpse given by the honesty of one who already has it. Having read Kara Tippetts’ book, The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life’s Hard, I feel in small part that I’ve lived the latter.
The book is an autobiography of Kara’s processing of cancer. Mother of four, pastor’s wife, in her mid-thirties. Kara fought breast cancer, brain cancer, all kinds of other cancer for two and a half years. The book is her thoughts, her story, her perspective in what she calls her “hard.”
There are few books I would recommend as much as this one. It’s not just a cancer book, it’s a book about life, about marriage, about parenting, about the humble reality that life is finite. How we live it, what we make of it, is the remarkable result of God’s grace in our lives. You will look at life differently after you read this book. You will process pain and suffering differently after you hear Kara’s voice. It is that good and worthy of your time.
FAVORITE QUOTES
Below are some of the moments that stood out to me in The Hardest Peace.
On growing up with a verbally abusive father –
No true solitude exists when self-control is bypassed and anger given full vent. It never accomplishes its goal. When I faced my towering daddy from my smallness, his beet-red face, the spitting words at a fevered pitch, the screaming that was meant to correct only broke my heart (p. 25).
On the reality her husband must face with her cancer –
I remember the moment Jason came home this year from an Acts 29 conference. He was quieted by a truth that had impacted him deeply. Before he left for this trip, tumors were found in my uterus, and we were expecting cancer’s return. He said someone was sharing how really loving God meant withholding nothing. I was in our bed looking at him, and he looked at me and wept. I didn’t need to ask him. I knew the deep question of his faith that was being asked. Would he open his hand and withhold nothing, even me? (p. 58).
On parenting your kids well through pain and suffering –
How do you speak to your young child of grace you struggle to have the imagination to behold? You just do. It’s the raw places of faith without sight. It’s the painful moments of preaching a sermon to yourself you know you struggle to believe. It’s the quiet prayer from Mark: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9: 24). How do you brave the impossible with children? How do you face these heartbreaking moments? You show up. You look at their faces and beg for God to give you His infinite imagination for the goodness of the days to come, the days for which you may not be present. You pray you will be courageous when the hard days come. You pray that, even as the end comes, there will be good days, good moments, that there will still be enough strength for love. You pray for the moments to continue. You pray for the grace in the raw edges to live well, embracing kindness you don’t feel. And then you walk back to your room and weep. Weep that your young child has to lie in bed at night and wonder if they will know their mama in a month, a year, a decade. You weep because you never imagined this would be the good story. You weep because your faith is so weak, but your weak faith is enough when coupled with God’s grace (p.135-136).
On what love looks like in community –
Friends came and quietly sat beside my bed and allowed Jason to take the kids out to dinner on my darkest days. My littles witnessed so much of my frailty that they needed time away. Having my feet rubbed distracted me from my nausea that was intense. So a parade of humble servants came to my bedside and loved me as they rubbed my feet and listened to my struggles while the family ran away to laugh and forget, if only for a moment. They needed the safety of one another and favorite things like Mexican food (p.72-73).
On perspective gained through suffering –
Before cancer, I waited on the big moments of life while trying to faithfully live through the small. That living feels foreign to me now. I now live in the large, open grace of the small moments and humbly expect the big moments to come. I may be in them, and I may not. My big moments now are not events or milestones, but appointments and treatment. The small moments have become enormous. The fire in the fireplace, the coffee in mugs, the rib tickles, the learning to apply makeup, the singing out loud and off-key— those are the huge moments. Those are the milestones (p.118-119).
On life empowered by the truth of the gospel –
When I open wide my hands to the truth of my life and allow grace and forgiveness to seep into the pain of my story, I can lift my face, walk in grace and forgiveness, and not dwell on the bitter moments that hurt so desperately. It never discounts the pain. But the redemption of my hard yesterdays gives me a softened heart to walk in my tomorrows (p.35).
GRACE IN PAIN AND GRACE THROUGH PAIN
One of the few certainties in life is that at some point, pain and suffering will be the air we breathe. Sometimes it comes sooner than we imagine, sometimes later, but it will come, and when it comes, nothing gives the world a window into the greatness of Jesus as much as a heart content in His goodness when pain is present. The Hardest Peace is a wonderful window. Read it. Soak it in. Let it shape your perspective. I doubt you will leave unchanged.
At one point Kara quotes Flannery O’Connor: “Give me the courage to stand the pain to get the grace.” She not only found that grace, but to the end, she helped those around her find it too. She closes out her book a letter to her husband and children, and in doing so, she writes this to her little ones:
Reflecting on my own heart, my own growth, my own embracing of truth, it came through deep hard, desperate hurt, and brokenness. I know, that I know, that I know, that this was how God grew beauty in me, but I quietly longed for your story to be different. I hoped the deep love your dad and I share and have for each of you would be enough to make your story amazing. It does, but ugly beautiful is part of your story as well. I pray your hearts do not grow hard, bitter, or angry at the hard that has entered your life…I love you. I love being your mama. I love each moment I was granted beside you. When you meet the edges of life, the hard moments, the suffocating realities, I pray you would look to Jesus. I pray you would know His goodness (p. 167).
0 Comments