A Personal Grief: Finding Faith Through Loss When a profound loss or tragedy of any kind enters into our lives, it’s not unusual for the event to knock us down in the totality of our body, soul, and spirit. We’ve suffered loss beyond what we feel capable of surviving. A child’s death, for example, is a major change in life which can cause some bereaved parents to re-evaluate everything, including their religious convictions. Likewise, after trauma of any kind, whether it’s a great personal tragedy of another sort or a natural disaster of some kind, such as a hurricane in Florida or a tornado in Missouri or a raging wild-fire in California, whatever the event, we’re startled into realizing our profound need for stability and assistance in our lives. And that’s because sometimes we have to suffer great loss before we can wake up and respond with joy and gratitude to the good news of the incredible mercy, grace, and purpose for our lives of the One who made us This is the message to which N. E. Kurz turns in this book. She notes that in our attempt to deal with our life after any great loss, we'll actually need to dig into all facets of our existence. We must persevere in all areas of our lives in order to regroup and to obtain complete healing. We must take care of the earthly, the physical and emotional part of our temporal being, as well as strive for an understanding of the spiritual aspect, the Ultimate Reality. But how are we to do that? We have to gain strength physically and emotionally to get on with what really matters, our understanding of the spiritual part. But where does that lead us? Great loss in our lives may provoke either a strengthening of faith or, conversely, a crisis of faith. Even persons who previously held strong religious convictions may sometimes find themselves struggling with religious concepts that do not seem to match up with the sorrows of life. On the other hand, for an agnostic person, profound loss or crisis may result in a search for, or a confrontation of, various areas of doubts and questions in order to clarify the meaning and the relevance of personal faith. However, in trying to make a search for spiritual truth of this sort, individuals may run into an assortment of modern problems which loom as serious barriers to faith, making it difficult for them to actually find truth. Although a majority of men and women in our day struggle with tough questions such as these, most Christians downplay the importance of religious questioning. Thus, seekers of truth are often reluctant to ask the awesome questions lurking just beneath the surface. Understanding first-hand the current deemphasis on religious questioning, N. E. Kurz has published this work--the first book of her "Window of Opportunity Trilogy"--both to call attention to the seriousness of the situation and to provide a context to help those struggling with both the temporal and the spiritual aspects of recovery from loss. The second book will be: A Reasonable Faith: Finding Belief Through Rational Evidence (Forthcoming, Spring 2025). And, the third will be: A Perilous Time: Keeping Faith During Periods of Adversity (Forthcoming, Summer 2025). In part one of A Personal Grief, the author shares the story of her daughter Karen’s untimely death, which awakened her to the realization of her need to search for objective truth. But then, miraculously, the Lord helped her to find answers to her questions, lead her to faith, and call her to write. Hence, she discovered faith through loss. But in part two of her book, she shares vital material that can assist others in their confrontations with both the temporal and the spiritual aspects of their loss. First, the temporal, by sharing with them about overcoming such things as shock & denial; emotional pain; depression; panic; guilt; anger; health aspects; life changes; and so forth. Then, the spiritual, by helping them in their search for answers and Ultimate Reality.