Book Summary (Amazon): It has been fifteen months since Eva and Angela lost their thrill-seeking husbands in a scuba diving accident. Both women are trying to navigate their way through the grief, but neither one is making much progress. Angela is barely making ends meet, angry at her husband for leaving her to raise three children on her own. Meanwhile, Eva is stuck, unable to move forward after losing the love of her life and her source of inspiration.
But then Eva gets a life-changing phone call. Before Brent and Wes died, they had signed up for a race of a lifetime—an ultra-marathon in beautiful New Zealand. Eva begs Angela to run the race with her in their husbands’ place, and Angela finally agrees, hoping to finally understand her husband's choices.
Training is exhausting, and the race is even more demanding. Their journey grows more complicated by the presence of two men—Marc is Brent’s best friend who is running the race with Eva and Angela, and Simon King is a writer who is covering their inspiring story. With every step, Eva and Angela must ask themselves questions that they haven’t had the courage to ask before. As the women literally put one foot in front of the other, they wonder: Is it possible to find their way forward in hope?
My thoughts...The timing of my reading this book was providential. This book is about grief. How different people deal with grief and how it affects us and our loved ones. Angela and Eva dealt with the grief of losing their spouses in very different ways. Some were healthy, some were unhealthy. It's also about joy...and hope. Hope that even though loss can devastate us and paralyze us, healing can happen. It can happen with the help of the Healer, who is the Lord. It can also happen with the love and support of friends and family. I can relate so well to this story as I've been dealing with the grief of losing several family members, including both of my parents, over the last several years. Some parts certainly brought back memories and also gave me a renewed sense of hope. That aspect of the book was beautiful and life-giving. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
"It took Eva a moment to form the words in her heart, 'You know, when you've loved deeply and lost deeply, it's okay to feel deeply.'"
"When some people have so much grief inside of them, it's hard to figure out how to release it. And it's easy for the rest of us to only see the prickles--the thorns--that happen as a result. But don't forget there's a rose there too. You sometimes just have to wait for it to bloom."
"Because joy isn't dependent on you or even the good things in life, like a wonderful husband. It's dependent on God, and on you being reconciled with him. It's rooted in a deep knowing that no matter what happens in life, you have someone you can hold on to even when you're drowning."
**I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in order to share my honest opinions, which I did."
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