Just a plug for the book Room of Marvels by James Bryan Smith. My friend Steve Robbins of Robbins Nest Ministries (http://www.robbinsnestministries.org/) gave the members of the Pastors' Covenant Groups he's worked with in 2005 a copy of of Room of Marvels as an end-of-year present.
C.S. Lewis fans will find some distant echoes of The Great Divorce here (C.S. Lewis actually shows up as a character). Room of Marvels is a great book to put into the hands of anyone who's grieving (which I plan to do very shortly).
Smith tells the story of Tim Hudson, a man who has finally arrived at God’s address—at the end of his rope.
The writer of Christian books, Tim has a beautiful family and good friends. But the last two years have brought him to a crisis of faith. Tim’s best friend and kindred spirit Wayne, a famous Christian musician, was killed suddenly and tragically in an auto accident. Tim’s mother, that faithful saint who had been his touchstone and a gentle guiding presence his whole life, is also taken from him suddenly. And the hardest of all, Tim and his wife Rachel’s two-year-old daughter, Madison, who had been born with severe physical challenges, is killed in a senseless medical accident.
Now Tim, the one who turns answers into best-sellers, is looking for answers himself. During a desperate retreat to a spiritual center to seek God, God sends Tim on a guided journey to a glimpse of the wonders that await him, and that his departed loved ones now share.
What makes all this the more poignant is that Tim--in case you haven't figured it out--is a thinly veiled fictionized incarnation of James Bryan Smith. Like A Grief Observed, this is a book written first of all for the author himself. And we are grateful that he has shared his struggle with us all.
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