by Laura Sumner Truax
IVP Books. Downers Grove, Ill. 221 pages.
The author asks, “What do you do when life starts coming apart?” Then she proceeds to offer a response from her own life that is compelling for anyone who is experiencing the “coming undone” of life. Truax cites Isaiah, “Woe is me! for I am undone” as the moment when failure strips away all pretension. It is the death moment that ironically may be the opening to something new. When everything is stripped away, she asks, what comes next? One might mistake this as a typical self-help confessional. It is not. It is real testimony from a pastor who knows the utter depths of failure and has summoned the courage to testify that there is grace in that place. Jesus’ “Rejoice and be glad” seems a strange response to persecution unless that hardship is precisely the shattering event necessary to be a whole new person. This is a memoir of shredding what is false, sentimental, cliché-bound to become honest, real and fully present. This courageous pastor describes her former self as a chameleon, reflecting the colors around her with no sub- stance. “Being real is a good place to start” she says, as she describes the turning moments. Coming undone is the path to becoming real.
