So how do you, in a couple hundred pages, capture the story of your oldest son’s near-death drowning and the ensuing years of recovery and healing? Throw in the combined grief and helplessness of enduring it as a family of five, maintaining your marriage, questioning God amidst a deep-rooted faith, and then somehow communicating it all with candor and sincerity and brevity and a quirky sense of humor.
Well, Jeanne Damoff did it.
Parting the Waters provides a captivating and refreshingly honest and unsettling front row seat for watching God create beauty through brokenness.
Jeanne describes her daily, sometimes minute-by-minute commitment of genuinely trusting the Lord in his ways and his provision, while concurrently aching with deep loss and broken dreams. Jeanne’s writing is an extension of her personality – interesting and creative and to-the-point and honest. Just like in person, her words propel you to laugh and cry and then laugh again.
In Parting the Waters, Jeanne relays Jacob’s accident and painstakingly slow recovery in detail, but even more important lets us in on her personal growth through the process – grappling with self pity and anger and frustration while learning acceptance and peace and satisfaction. And as God is in the habit of doing, he brings great glory to himself through Jacob and the accident and the miracles and provision throughout.
Enjoy, friends – I am enriched and educated and encouraged by reading this story.
For more reviews of Parting the Waters, check out these blogs.