Waiting for Morning

I've read a great many books in my time, but not many that kept my heart in anguish the entire way through. Waiting for Morning is a book by Karen Kingsbury about forgiveness. Starting in the very beginning of the book until the end, I found myself fighting the tears. The story is about Hannah Ryan, wife and mother. She has lost her husband and her daughter at the hands of a drunk driver. But not just any drunk driver. A drunk driver who'd been in more than one drunk driving accident. Not that those details really mattered. They just fed fuel to the fire that burned in Hannah the night they died. Over the next year of her life, hatred and bitterness wrap their deathly tentacles around her heart and begin to destroy her. She is so blinded by her bitterness that she fails to see her surviving daughter slipping through her fingers.

Jenny, suffering from the loss of her father and sister (and best friend), feels the loss of the accident accutely. To make matters worse, her mother has decided God doesn't exist, and the pain of losing God in the home leads Jenny down a path of depression. At a loss of what to do, all her friends abandon her. Her mother is caught up in fighting to get revenge, and Jenny. She lives in a world of complete loneliness and despair, until finally, she realizes the only relief is death and plans to commit suicide the same day the verdict of the drunk driver is read. She convinces herself her mother will be happy then with all of it behind her, including Jenny herself.

Though Hannah has had warnings from the teachers at the school and others, she stubbornly refuses to acknowledge her daughter might be in trouble and is sure things will be better when the trial is complete. Of course, things don't get better. Trial date comes, Jenny attempts suicide, Hannah has no peace from the guilty verdict...Jenny's life is miraculously saved. And when it ends, Hannah realizes the only way to have peace again is to forgive. That's the short of it.

The truth is, painful things happen in life and it is so easy to be overtaken by bitterness. Have you ever seen Spiderman 3? Well, its like that black stuff (whatever it was) in the movie. It wrapped its fingers over spiderman and threatened to destroy him and would have. If we allow unforgiveness to remain in us, we are the ones who remain in prison.

Oh God, That I would be daily reminded of the grace you offer through forgiveness and offer the same gift to my offenders. The book references lamentations quite a bit and anyway, in the end I'd have to say it was a good book. Not one that left me with this "that's ridiculous and unreal" feeling. It is one that challenged me. One that pointed to the hurts in my life and reminded me of the need to continually forgive. One that showed me again a picture of what bitterness does to people. One that I would recommend.