by Tim Challies
2022 / 199 pages
Nick Challies was just 20 years old when he died. He was involved in a dorm activity, playing a game along with his sister, fiancee, and other college students when he suddenly fell to the ground, never to get up. He was just 20.
Nick’s dad is Tim Challies, a blogger known to many in Reformed circles. This book covers the year – the four seasons – that followed Nick’s death, as his father turned to writing to figure out what he was thinking and feeling about God’s decision to take his son now, and not the much later that Tim, his wife, family, fiancee, and friends, had anticipated and hoped for.
The gift Challies gives here is that in his struggles to articulate his loss, he gives his readers the words to express their own. Like Job, he knows God’s ways are best, so he can echo, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). He trusts that even as he can’t understand why God did this, it was somehow for his good, and that of his whole family. But Challies also expresses his fear of the Lord – not the holy sort of fear that is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7) but just the downright afraid sort, because if God has taken one son from him, what might God have planned for him next?
It’s this back and forth that I found the most helpful. Challies is trusting the Lord, but that doesn’t keep him from expressing his doubts too. He’s comforted by God’s promises, but that doesn’t leave him any less devastated. He has all sorts of questions, and finds many answers in the Psalms and in the writings of Christians who have wrestled with loss in ages past, but he doesn’t find all the answers he’d like.
Over the last two decade, Challies has made a name for himself as a discerning Christian leader. In laying open his broken heart for us all to see, I think his example will help dispel any “peer pressure” that might have some grieving men thinking that enough is enough, and it’s time for me to get over it now. Challies speaks of the need for getting on with things, but is sure there’ll be no getting over the loss of his son.
At one point Challies worries that he may be making an idol of Nick. When he thinks of heaven, he’s anticipating his reunion with his son more than meeting Jesus face to face. Again, this openness gives voice to a feeling I think many wrestle with, but maybe haven’t even thought or dared to put into words. I found it helpful too when Challies shared a prayer he continues to offer up to the Lord, that he himself doesn’t understand. He’s asking the Lord to give him sons. His only son has died, and he and his wife are too old to have more children. He does hope and anticipate that his two daughters will bring a couple of good Christian young men into their family one day, but that is not what this prayer is about. He loved being the father of a son. And so he brings that desire to God still, not even sure what he is asking of God. And yet he comes to his Heavenly Father with his confusion and deepest longings.
Seasons of Sorrow will be an impactful book for anyone who has experienced loss themselves, but the best time to read this might be before you ever needed it.
