My Son, John by Kathi Macias

When I picked up My Son, John, I expected a heart-wrenching novel. What I found was an invitation to walk in the shoes of someone whose life and family would never again be the same.

Elizabeth Peterson's world is turned upside down when she and her husband Charles receive the horrid news that her mother has been brutally murdered. The family numbly walks through a week of inexplicable grief, not knowing that the attack on their world has only just begun. A week after the murder Charles and Liz's twenty-three year old son John is arrested for the murder.

Kathi Macias takes her readers through a world of unimaginable grief. Most of the book is written from the perspective of Liz with glimpses into the minds of John and his teenaged sister Sarah as well. These glimpses make My Son, John more than a novel. It is a journey into the depths of grief. It is an awakening to the realization that living and breathing people - people who live in our midst - are forced into circumstances from which they firmly believe they will never recover. Their circumstances will not change. Their lives cannot be put back together. There is no return to normalcy. In truth, there is truly only one hope for restoration. That hope is in God and the restoration that only He can offer.

This book can be a great tool in the hands of believers who long to know how to reach out to a friend or loved one enduring inexplicable grief. It is a glimpse from the inside of a torn heart, giving us an idea of how to pray and persevere as we minister to that heart. It is a reminder that, ultimately, God is the One who brings about the restoration, but we must be faithful in prayer and love while He works His healing.