North of Hope by Shannon Polson

When I was offered the opportunity to read and review North of Hope by Shannon Huffman Polson I could not have known that my ailing mother was soon to take her last breath.  I am certain that God did know, and this was not circumstantial timing.

North of Hope is a story of pain, an adventure through the Alaskan wilderness and the barrenness of loss.  The author skillfully shares her journey to find healing after the senseless and brutal deaths of her father and his wife.

There was much here for me to digest and learn from as I began my own travel through the shadows of death.  Polson writes:

I envied cultures that have mourning traditions, wearing black or rending garments.  Then people would know; they would understand.  Why had our culture done away with all that?  To spare the majority the discomfort that each of us must one day face?  And by doing so robbing every one of us of the space to grieve and neutering society's ability to mourn with the bereaved, our chance to appreciate life more for knowing death?  I felt cheated.  And it occurred to me that grief is something imposed, but that grieving is something that must be learned and, like anything of consequence, would reveal its realities slowly, over a lifetime.

There is hope.  There is light.  There is life.  In the telling of her tale, Polson leads us along the way.


I received a complimentary copy of this book from Zondervan. The opinions I have expressed are my own.