Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

faith & spirituality

What to do in the depths: Review of How to Survive a Shipwreck by Jonathan Martin

I will admit: this is not the kind of book you want to have to read. Storms and shipwrecks, disasters of any kind are not the kinds of things I like to dwell on. Preparing for a disaster is not a priority for me. I prefer, instead, to pretend disaster won’t happen to me, even though it already has.

shipwreckI wish I had had this resource years ago.

In How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help is on the Way and Love is Already Here, Jonathan Martin uses his own experience with a crumbling life as the basis for a guide through the wreckage. It is more hopeful than it might sound.

But it’s also deep and a tiny bit painful. Martin does not provide easy solutions or sweet suggestions. It is a guide full of words like “death” as well “resurrection,” “letting go” and “holding on.” It is the baring of a soul who found out that he couldn’t keep his world from falling apart and he couldn’t put it together without help.

So many words moved me, but here is one passage that sets the tone for the entire book:

But it does not really matter how you got here or why; and it doesn’t really matter if it was God or the devil or yourself or some ancient chaos that spilled up from the bottom of the sea. What matters now is that you are drowning, and the world you loved before is not your world any longer. The questions of why and how are less pressing than the reality that is your lungs filling with water now. Philosophy and theology won’t help you much here, because what you believe existentially about storms or oceans or drowning won’t make you stop drowning. Religion won’t do you much good down here, because beliefs can’t keep you warm when you’re twenty thousand leagues beneath the sea. …

The shipwreck is upon you. And there is no going back to the life you had.

The waters that drown are the waters that save.” (p. 20-21)

I read this book while a series of minor storms hit, leading up to a more devastating one. Martin’s words offer comfort as well as encouragement to not be afraid of the fallout. Everything might fall apart, but that is not the end of everything. And, eventually, good can come from it.

The surprise on the other side of the shipwreck is that, while your capacity for pain proved to be far beyond your wildest reckoning, now you have a capacity to feel everything deeper. You are capable of a depth of empathy and compassion that would have been unthinkable before.” (p. 194)

Martin’s book is a must-read for anyone attempting to navigate one of life’s many storms, or for anyone who is helping someone else navigate one. Take it slow and let the words seep into your soul.

When the pieces don’t quite fit

Sometimes I think God’s will is like a puzzle that needs to be completed. Find all the right pieces, put them in the right order, and voila!: A completed picture of His plan and purpose for my life.

Digital Camera

Freeimages.com/Dorony John

Our family enjoys a good jigsaw puzzle. When my husband and I went on our honeymoon 9 years ago, we began collecting jigsaw puzzles as souvenirs. We’d pick them up at the places we visited as a way to foster togetherness and memories long after the trip was over.

It’s a tradition we’ve continued with the kids over the years. Most recently we collected some from Philadelphia, Williamsburg and the Chesapeake Bay, giving us numerous choices for family nights.

In reality, putting a puzzle together as a family is not as charming as it sounds. We all approach the puzzle with different styles and varying attention spans. What typically happens is the children help with the sorting of the outside edges and the inside pieces, and with the assembly of the frame. Then, their interest wanes, and before we know it, it’s bedtime. Over the next several days, I’ll sit down at the table where the puzzle is and put a few pieces in while I drink my coffee or finish my lunch. Maybe we’ll give it a second “go” as a family before we finish it, leave it on display for a day or so and then put it away.

The last couple of puzzles we’ve done have been tricky. Some similarly shaped pieces have seemed to fit in multiple places, and only when we place more pieces in the puzzle do we discover the error and have to move them.

The pieces seemed to fit, but the picture didn’t look quite right.

To read the rest of this post, visit Putting on the New, where I blog on the 12th of each month.