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A New Kind of Normal: Hope-Filled Choices When Life Turns Upside Down By Carol Kent Nelson 209 pp.; $19.99

Carol Kent's A New Kind of Normal is a book we might all hope we will never be qualified to write. Kent had her life turned inside out and upside down—permanently. Her only son was convicted of murder and now lives in prison, without the possibility of parole.

The book winds three strands into a strong braid. Carol and her husband, Gene, share their personal experience learning to live with a radically altered idea of "normal" life. Kent shares cameos of other believers whose lives have been shattered by a wide variety of circumstances and how they adjusted. Weaved into the mix is a brand new way of seeing Mary, the mother of Jesus: as an anguished mother dealing righteously with the suffering of her innocent son.

Refreshingly, Kent is perfectly clear that her own son is not innocent. Throughout the book she unflinchingly faces that her beloved son did in fact do the unthinkable. If you are looking for a storybook ending where "prayer is answered, problems go away, and everyone lives happily ever after," look elsewhere:

This book is about choices—not the kind we place on goal planning charts, but the choices we all need to make when our carefully developed life plan takes a U-turn or comes to a crashing halt … . Would we die too—emotionally, spiritually, and even physically—or would we choose life? We eventually came to a place of realizing we could not change the facts of what happened, but we could decide how we would live our lives in the middle of razor wire, sympathy cards, and deep disappointment. Choosing life, instead of a slow death, has been the beginning of rediscovering hope … . A new kind of living—harder, but better in some ways, than before. Maddening because we hate the process, but richer because of the pain. Life. Pure and simple. It's a choice. It's a new kind of normal.

Consider these chapter subtitles:

When despair tries to take me under … I choose life.
When I wonder what God could possibly be thinking … I choose trust.
When I desperately want relief from unrelenting reality … I choose perseverance.
When I feel oppressed by my disappointment and sorrow … I choose gratitude.
When I want to keep my feelings to myself … I choose vulnerability.
When nothing goes according to my plan … I choose relinquishment.
When I want to point the finger … I choose forgiveness.
When I want to give up … I choose purposeful action.

Sounds a bit like Augustine's famous prayer. But Carol Kent isn't a fifth-century bishop. She's here and now, living these choices out every day.

She sees, feels, and tells the truth about what a difficult process this is. At some points the book is so emotionally truthful, it is painful. Kent addresses the two-steps-forward, one-step-back, minutes-of-joy and hours-of-weeping reality of learning to live with crushed dreams. The result is honest, approachable encouragement for others who are experiencing that same struggle.

So whether she is highlighting specific passages from Scripture that have ministered to her through the ordeal of adapting, or suggesting studies that might be helpful to the reader, Kent always remains deeply grounded. She doesn't treat Bible verses as spiritual band-aids to stick on your wound and cover it up so you can pretend it's only a scratch.

There are questions at the end of each chapter, and they are flat-out wonderful. All alone they are worth the price of the book. They ring with the authenticity of someone who has been there and knows what to ask. They would make excellent focus questions for a small group journeying through pain and toward coping together. If you are reading alone, journaling through them could help you declare citizenship and begin to live in your altered world.

Few of us will face a crisis as devastating as the shock that crashed the Kents' world. But many of us—maybe all of us—at some point will encounter a challenging situation that permanently alters the rest of our lives. Kent is clear that "Pain is pain is pain." Whether the change is internal or external and whether it impacts our finances, health, or relationships, we will need to adjust to a new kind of normal.

O'Ann Steere is an instructor of psychology at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She has been involved in providing mental health care to missionaries for nearly 20 years.

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