Books

“Lingle (Credulous), editor of the Missional Wisdom Foundation, mixes poetry, art, and theology to
reflect on life and faith after a stillbirth in this gorgeous memoir. After her fourth child dies in the womb, Lingle navigates a long process of aching, angry grief. A Christian, she finds that the comforts of her faith are suddenly meaningless, even offensive, in the face of tragedy. She reevaluates familiar stories like Noah’s ark and questions the goodness and existence of God: This is a crisis of grammar. “Not: Why, God? But: Why God?” Gradually, her faith and identity reform as she patches together new meaning from ancient sources, particularly the sacraments, and by drawing on the beauty of nature. The book itself becomes part of this patchwork as Lingle creates a space for grieving readers to explore and reconnect to their own spiritual beliefs. As she moves forward, she affirms a faith of doubt and joy mixed with tragedy, and celebrates the ongoing role of her lost daughter in her life: “If I choose to live in denial of the Divine, I will have to deny the divine within myself and within all my children and my daughter will truly die.” Lingle’s intimate, heartfelt story is a soothing balm for the loneliness and disorientation of loss.”

“Into a Reluctant Sunrise touches the heart of a human dilemma: love and loss will always be entwined. Lingle admits that it was not easy to learn to be the parent of a dead child, but feeling Gwyneth still near her, and hearing a small voice ask, “Can you love me like this?” her reply had to be, “Yes. I can.””

“A beautifully written meditation on the death of a baby and the grief of a family. Wrenching and wry, insightful and outrageously authentic. Andrea Lingle travels where grief takes her, grasping and releasing and ultimately cleaving to the hand of the invisible Holy One whose love reveals itself as so vast only a broken heart could possibly contain it.”

“Andrea Lingle gifts us with a soul-searing honesty about her life, faith, and grief that is rarely
exposed to others. If you know the depths of grief, especially the sorrow that accompanies the
death of a child, this book holds balm for your heart. It is treasure, born from the darkest of times.”

““This book, in the hands and words of Andrea Lingle, is a mother’s testimony written for Gwyneth, her stillborn daughter, and for many who grieve in death’s darkness. Through sadness and anger, Lingle writes fiercely to her unanchored self and faith: why did Gwyneth die, why am I still alive? She writes alongside her own children, alongside her friend who shared stillbirth, alongside Jesus and Lazarus and the mothers in Scripture whose children were massacred by King Herod. She writes about encounters in the natural world, the world of her local woods and waters, and the gifts of darkness that awaken space for light in her. With meditations, photos, drawings to shade and color, with poetry, memories, and a newborn faith grammar, Lingle offers a gift to us, too, in our communities and circles, as mothers, sisters, daughters, and members moved by grief, loss, and transforming mercies.”