Book Review: “When a Daughter Dies,” by Ben Witherington, with Ann Witherington

I had to check the date more than once.

Ben and Ann Witherington lost their daughter Christy on January 11, 2012. On March 15th—only slightly more than two months later—Ben and Ann released an eBook titled When a Daughter Dies: Walking the Way of Grace in the Midst of Our Grief.

Only a few months prior, there had been no need for this book at all. Christy shared Christmas with her family in 2011, just as I celebrated the coming of Christ with mine.

I came across this book on Christianity Today’s website via an excerpt that ran on April 11th, under the title “What Good Grief Looks Like When a Daughter Dies.” I was so moved by what I read that I could not help but want to read the book as a whole.

There is an urgency about Ben and Ann’s grief, and I mean that in a good way. This book was clearly written in order to pin down what losing Christy meant, and what it did not mean, in light of the hope of the resurrection in Christ. It was written out of necessity. They refuse to mourn as those who have no hope, and it is truly inspiring.

Christy was 32 when she died—only a year younger than I am now, which certainly is not lost on me. In October I became the father of a daughter myself, and I only have the vaguest sense of what losing her would mean. I hope and pray, as anyone who reads this book undoubtedly will, that I never have to bury my own child.

Like C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, When a Daughter Dies is written by the grieving, and with the intent of directing the flow of grief into channels that lead to life everlasting. It is a book that makes death a pupil in Ben Witherington’s classroom, where his theological expertise translates not into abstract lessons that have no application, but into knowledge necessary for surviving the loss of a loved one.

For the reader who is mourning, this is likely to be soulful medicine. It is also a poignant and powerful tribute to Ben and Ann Witherington’s faith, and to their beloved daughter Christie’s life.

Buy it from Amazon.com via the link below.

“Chad Thomas Johnston is an author, sonuva’ preacha’ man, PhD-dropout, singer/songwriter, music producer/sonic reducer, daydreaming doodler, gorilla/guerilla publicist, cinemaddict, & pop-culture obsessive. He is represented by Seattle, WA-based literary agent Jenée Arthur, who is currently shopping his debut manuscript to major publishing houses.

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