She wanted to die. God had other plans.
Overwhelmed by wave after wave of emotional trauma, Kristen Anderson no longer wanted to live. One January night, determined to end her pain once and for all, the seventeen-year-old lay across train tracks not far from her home and waited to die.
Instead of peace, she found herself immersed in a whole new nightmare.
Before the engineer could bring the train to a stop, thirty-three freight cars passed over her at fifty-five miles per hour. After the train stopped and Kristen realized she was still alive, she looked around—and saw her legs ten feet away.
Surviving her suicide attempt but losing her legs launched Kristen into an even deeper battle with depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as unrelenting physical pain—all from the seat of a wheelchair. But in the midst of her darkest days, Kristen discovered the way to real life and a purpose for living.
For anyone struggling to find the strength to go on, the message of this heart-wrenching yet hope-building book is a clear and extraordinary reminder that even when we give up on life, God doesn’t give up on us.
Life, In Spite of Me is the true story of Kristen Jane Anderson (it's written by her and Tricia Goyer). Filled with all sorts of emotions from pain to anger to peace, this book is about real life. The story is intriguing, Kristen's honesty is encouraging, and the conclusion—that God doesn't fail us when we trust in Him—is appropriate.
Starting this review, I wasn't sure how much I should say about some aspects of the book, considering this is one girl's very true life story. So, in order to remain courteous, I'm only pointing out one thing that I noticed.
In a book about suicide, the big question arises: Theoretically, would a professing Christian who committed suicide go to heaven? Kristen doesn't seek to answer this question in depth, and that's what bothers me. I can understand why: it would definitely draw a dividing line and, of course, some people might be offended. The only passing thing Kristen says is that she knows she would've gone to hell because she wasn't a Christian, not because she committed suicide. It's disappointing to me that in a book about a girl who has realized all that God is, she can't delve into the Bible to search for an answer to this. Who knows, maybe she has. Maybe she just didn't want to offend. It's a topic that's left unfinished, and I felt that gap in the rest of the book.
Life, in Spite of Me shows life at its worst; it also shows how trusting in God can change everything for the better. While I was reading it, I thought of
Psalm 139:13-16:
For you [God] created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Read an Excerpt |
Visit Kristen's Website |
Read The Parchment Girl's Review
I receive a complimentary copy of this book from Waterbrook Multnomah.
I'm going with a (hopefully) more modest list since I'm a bit preoccupied with school. (It's amazing how college can put a real downer on recreational reading.) One of these, Revolutionary Characters, is actually a book for my history class that I have to write a report on (though it looks really interesting to me). And because I have little time to read for recreational purposes, I'm attempting to be more purposeful in my reading.
Uncompromising: A Heart Claimed by a Radical Love by Hannah Farver. I won this on Carrie's blog, and I just had to start it, of course. It definitely looks like a good one!
While I enjoyed the story of this book, a few things detracted from it. First, the timeline was a bit hard to follow. In places the story backs up to tell another character's point of view; near the end it speeds up to an unknown date after 9/11, and I had to figure out the age of the characters. Second, the change in point of view is difficult to grasp since most of the narrative seems the same and not very personal to each of the three main characters. Third, some of the drama of the day is lost as well since the narrator makes it clear from the beginning that 9/11 began "like any other day." True, we know what happened, but the characters obviously didn't. And I could also add that the writing didn't flow as well as I would've have liked, and a few grammatical errors threw me off. (But, I am rather picky about those things.)
