Aftermath: Growing in Grace Through Grief By Margaret McSweeney Blog Tour and Book Review

Aftermath is a book written to aid people who are grieving the tragic loss of a love one. Many times we spend a tremendous amount of time asking why we had to lose them and why they couldn’t have stayed when we needed them still. Margaret McSweeney has firsthand experienced the pains and hurting of grief. In her book, she has provided readers with the different stages of grief and they are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She lost her father suddenly right before she was supposed to be getting married to the love of her life. That is enough throbbing pain in itself to burden and weight anyone’s soul and body down. Her mother wrote numerous of poems to deal with the grief of losing her husband. A few years later she lost her precious mother to cancer and later she also lost her brother to a heart attack. Margaret has had to endure and embrace her pain of losing three people she loved deeply. Her book will walk you through the valleys of grief and bring you encouragement.

 

I have personally have lost an aunt to the deadly disease of cancer. It was extremely hard watching someone grow weak and weary with the cancer taking over their body.  Then I witnessed her only son going through the emotional pain of losing his mother when he was a teenager. Another painful time was when I was a teenager and my parent’s house received a phone call at 3 a.m. and it was my father’s mother saying she woke up and saw her husband with his head on the table. He was found dead. I can’t tell you the fear I feel now when you hear the phone ring when you’re a sound asleep in the middle of the night. And now the first thought you begin to think is that someone you love has passed away even though sometimes it’s just a wrong number calling your house. We rushed over there and the coroner still hasn’t removed the body yet and I still have that image of seeing my grandfather on the floor. This book has helped me into learning how to heal and accept the death of my loved ones.

 

I would recommend this resource for anyone who is experiencing the effects of grieving the lost of loved ones. No one is luckily enough to escape having to encounter the stages of grief and losing someone you love. At some point in our lives we will have to face and receive the dreaded news. The process might be stressful, discouraging, and depression might settle in but our hope comes we will see our loved ones again. I immensely enjoyed the discussion questions at the end of each chapter they will benefit in writing down what you are feeling. The scriptures that Margaret shared were such an accommodating feature of the book.  The Bible verses had the impact of bringing personally recovering and healing from the trials and heartbreak of grief. If you’re struggling to find hope again after losing someone you profoundly loved and care for this book will supply much needed comfort.

 

“I received this book for free from Litfuse Publicity Group/ New Hope Publishers for this review”.

 

If you would like to purchase a copy of Aftermath check it out on Amazon.com:

 

http://ow.ly/cOiNu

 

About the Book:

 

Growing in Grace Through Grief

 

Loss is a four-letter word that grips our hearts and gridlocks our lives. Grief can hold us captive until we surrender it to God. How do we find the necessary grace to journey through the mourning process?

 

Juxtaposed to the outpouring of her mother’s words about grief, the author shares her parallel journey from the emotional abyss of grief after becoming an adult orphan. With candor, the author shares her own emotions experienced along the spectrum of loss after her parents’ deaths: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—adding interactive options for readers.

 

Five sections cover these common emotions and provide:

 

• comfort Scripture lists

 

• counsel sections from grief experts

 

• chronicling sections with detailed helps

 

• tangible handles on dealing with grief during holidays, capturing loved ones’ legacy, and more.

 

About Margaret:

 

Margaret McSweeney is a well-published author often writing online articles for Make It Better (the former North Shore Magazine) and freelance articles for the Daily Herald, the largest suburban Chicago newspaper. In addition, she has authored and compiled several books including A Mother’s Heart Knows; Go Back and Be Happy; Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace and most recently, Mother of Pearl.

 

Margaret has a master’s degree from the University of South Carolina in international business. As is the founder of Pearl Girls, Margaret collaborates with other writers on projects to help fund a safe house for WINGS, an organization that helps women and their children who are victims of domestic violence, and to build wells for schoolchildren in Uganda through Hands of Hope. For the past 10 years she has served on the board of directors and leadership advisory board for WINGS. Margaret lives with her husband and 2 daughters in the Chicago suburbs. Learn more about Margaret and the work of Pearl Girls at www.margaretmcsweeney.com.