This modern age, full of innovation, technology and promise is perhaps best known by its brokenness. Marriages split with increased regularity, families are in upheaval and society is in disarray. Watch daytime television for all the evidence you need. Tune in the evening news for further confirmation. And then look in your own heart to hear your own pain. Quite frankly, we are a mess.
When parents make bad choices, and that’s the model children have, there’s a good chance that dysfunction will be multi-generational. I recently read L.L. Barkat’s Stone Crossings. It’s one woman’s journey on how to reverse the tide.
At times, the book was uncomfortable to read because of her often vivid recollection. It was also difficult to read because her pain seems to have familiar echoes all around me. Her home was one marked by rotating step parents, alcoholism, anger and name calling. There is a common narrative here. The hurts she endured reverberate across the cross-cut of humanity.
Written in a narrative, memoir style, there’s plenty of white space where she reflects, regroups and sets a new course of action. The “Stone Crossings” are the stepping rocks made out of grace that she finds scattered across the raging stream.
Barkat names the stones of her journey across the waters and there are some ugly, yet familiar ones: Shame, resistance, doubt and fear. But she also names and explores other stones carved out of grace like responsibility, gratitude, healing, and completion.
The book is intellectually and mentally stimulating. I was impressed with her insightful illustrative material drawn from such diverse sources as the Old Testament, modern art, classical literature and the big screen. In the end, all the sources are woven together in a fabric of understanding and practical application.
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If it were just a book about a tough childhood, it would be merely a sad tale of a little girl lost. But this book is about the redemption of both her feelings and her relationships. The reconciliation with her father was especially moving. The man was far from functional, but Barkat’s outreach to him in Jonah-like fashion produces a healing salve to her broken heart – and his.
People from brokenness often model the behavior into their other relationships.Children of divorced parents tend to divorce. Children of alcoholics have a tendency toward drinking. In other words, rats beget rats. But Barkat is passionate about stopping that cycle, offering her husband and her children their own Stone Crossings to normalcy and grace.
This is a work that doesn’t sugar coat or ignore pain, but through personal transparency shows what it’s like to find a way to not only healing, but joy. If you’ve ever been hurt by people, you need to read this book.
Please, share with a friend if you feel moved.
Read all past issues at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidrupert
Read all past issues at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidrupert
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