The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

I don't remember how I found Tara at Mundane Faithfulness. I'm guessing it was Facebook, but my brain just doesn't remember all of life's details. Before you continue reading here I would like you to click on the link to get an idea of who I am talking about and the book I am reviewing. Tara caught my heart because not only is she a wife and mother, she is a fellow pastor's wife...and I love women who love a pastor...well we should all love our pastor...but I have a special place in my heart for pastor's wives.I began reading her blog earlier this year not realizing she has been waging war with cancer. Big time cancer. At the same time I was following her story and praying for her, there were several in my fellowship of believers who were battling their own war with this dreaded disease. I stopped reading for awhile, but was drawn back to her battle because it is very unique in the sense that she is not wasting her cancer.When I found my way back to reading about Tara's cancer story, I found she was writing the hardest peace~~expecting grace in the midst of life's hard. She wrote this book because we all experience 'hard' in our lives. Whether it is cancer ravaging your body in Tara's case, a difficult marriage, financial hardship, the death of a dear loved one or whatever you may be facing, this book is for everyone facing 'hard.' She wrote to convey her journey of a broken woman wanting to know peace in the midst of hard.This is not the easiest book to read, but I could not put it down. The author does not mince words in all of the 194 pages. Because her childhood was marked with anger, she and her siblings became people pleasers. As the stress of trying to win the approval and love of her parents, she "walked away in stages" from her family. She admits she struggled to tell the story of her early years, but it is the "story which brought her to the end of herself." She lovingly tells of a grandmother who was joyful and full of peace and loved Tara unconditionally. Not until Tara had met the Savior did she come to understand the power of her grandmother's love was Jesus.This book is a page turner as the author bares her soul in telling of her cancer story. Authentic and transparent are words that come to mind as she and her husband seek to live in the midst of very hard cancer. Tara is a mother of young four children who are walking this road with their mother, and a community of loved ones. She talks of 'big love' and not wanting to waste a moment of daily living as she makes it her goal to fully participate in life. Whether it is in the 'simple moments of cooking or dancing with her kids in the kitchen', or taking her kids to school, Tara has chosen to live for today, to enjoy what today brings not languishing in self-pity because she knows her days are numbered. As are all of our days. Cancer has found new 'corners' as she calls them, to take up residence in her body. Surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation have taken a toll on her body, but she continues to pursue grace and Jesus Christ in the midst of hard.She says she is "getting far too much credit for faith when all I'm really doing is sharing my weakness with honesty. I'm not the only one facing these hard moments, I'm just writing about them."Towards the end of the book she poses these questions. "In the most painful fear and hurts of our lives, will God be good? Not just the simple: God is good, indeed, always good. Not the rote, recited, memorized answers we have been trained to give in the edges of life. But the asking: Is Jesus really good in awful of cancer, fire, heartbreak, and devastation? In the face of all that is broken, is God good?"I was also impressed by the fact the author is not only telling her cancer story, but at the end of each chapter she has taken the time to ask the reader very important questions. This is NOT just another story about a woman with cancer. Tara is walking through the fire with her husband and children and has not been burned or consumed by the flames. Not because of any special effort of her's, but because she trusts the One she is walking with and knows beyond a shadow of a doubt He will see her through to the other side.Words in this space do not do this book justice. You need to read it for yourself to be encouraged to seek breathtaking grace and the hardest peace from the Only One who can give it during the hard in our lives. I highly recommend this book and Tara's blog.

This is a book about a woman, who from a little girl, was on a path to find love- the truest, purest meaning and embodiment of love. Like all of us, her hidden passion was to be known and loved for herself, and like Kara discovered, this path can be hard, beautiful, dark, exciting, passionate, reckless, stubborn, vulnerable and create mountainous contradictions in ourselves. Sometimes we spend a lifetime on this quest. But Kara found this love surprisingly in a man who lived over 2,000 years ago -Jesus Christ. He gently led her into an understanding that He was and is the embodiment of love-for God so loved the world that HE GAVE his son....and He gave himself to Kara and ended her search. But discovery didn't end there. In fact it began and took on a new perspective. Kara's story tells us what she learned about love through Him- what love required, what it didn't require, what substitutes she was tempted to put in loves place. It's a story about a quest before faith that set up in her longings and questions. It's her story after faith, the days of creating family, mundane days, and the days of caring for four little hearts, how to know and love well those hearts of her children. It's a story about how she and Jason moved toward love in their marriage, how to fight fair, how to love right. And intertwined throughout the book she tells us of her now hardest days, her days living with cancer, but the book is not a book about terminal cancer. It's really a book about life. It's about living life with faith, in love and through hard sharp places. And the surprise of it all is as we read and get wrapped up in her amazing story of love-the love of a wife, a mother, a friend and writer, she draws us in to look at our own journey, our own quest, our own story by asking at the end of each chapter revealing questions to answer-questions that help us understand ourselves. If we answer these questions honestly then we have not only read Kara's tenderly beautiful story but through her questions she teaches us a way to see ourselves, honestly and know more about our own story that is being written. The Hardest Peace is an amazing book, a book to be read in one day -a book to be studied perhaps in a group and savored for weeks and weeks. It's just a big bite of life, the life of a courageous woman that nourishes, amazes and reveals. You will fall in love with Kara Tippetts. And from reading her blog, you will see that all she really asks is that we pray for her, her husband, her children and her continuous beautiful, heart-wrenching, grace filled, hard edged story. It's one I think everyone should read.

The Hardest Peace by Kara Tippetts is a beautiful, heart wrenching book. Kara is a young mum of four children. She has a loving husband. She knows a loving God. And she has cancer. The Hardest Peace is her story. How she copes. How she does life. What she learns. How she grows her relationship with God.Kara Tippetts did not have an easy childhood. Her life was hard. Her life was messy. Then Kara met God and she learnt about grace and forgiveness. "I was met in my hurt and loved." Kara opened her life to God. She realised her sins and the need to be forgiven. She found "it was more than intoxicating, the thought of living forgiven." Kara began to know God and to walk in relationship with Him "God met me in my messy." She realised that she wanted God in her life. God does not mind how messy our lives are, He wants to love us and walk beside us.Life seemed good for a few years. Kara had a husband Jason and they had a family. Then Kara got her diagnosis of cancer and life became very hard. Kara "was fighting to believe the goodness of our story that seemed anything but good." Kara talks candidly about her battle with cancer. Her chemo, her hair loss, her hopes and dreams for the future, her thoughts of heaven, her desires for her husband and children. Through it all Kara keeps her eyes fixed on God. She had to believe that inspite of everything, God is good.Kara describes her relationship with her children... how they each coped with her illness and just how much she should tell them. There were beautiful moments inspite of the harshness of life. Kara talks about the things that really matter. "Life mattered more than tidy living", some things are just not important in the big scheme of things. Making memories with her family was important.Kara talks about her trust in God. "If the answer isn't yes, trust God that the story is still good." Not once is Kara ever bitter. Her trust in and love for God never wavers. She talks about the sin that sent Jesus to the cross. "My sin put Him there, but His love saw me." Kara recognises that whatever happens God loves her and she loves God.Kara is concerned that her children will still know and love God throughout her cancer and beyond. She realises that in hard times sometimes "we meet the scary of life and forget to turn to God... we scramble to control, fix and protect from hard." She wants her children to always turn to God in all circumstances of life.The Hardest Peace is an incredible book. Kara is an amazing lady, so brave and so loving. It is a book filled with many Godly truths. Kara lays her life open for us all to see. In her honesty and in her courage, the reader draws closer to God. One realises that at times the only thing to do is to cling on to God and to trust Him for His promises. And we must believe that in all situations, God is still good.The Hardest Peace was very powerful. I urge you to pick up a copy today. Your faith will be stretched as you read Kara's story.

This book is beautiful. It is challenging in its subject matter (terminal cancer in a young mother of 4 young children) but it is breath-takingly honest and refreshing. Kara gives her life story, how meeting Jesus has changed her life; how Jesus brings ongoing transformation and challenge in her living and now as she faces death. A book that makes you smile and cry in equal measure. I would recommend this book to anyone, and particularly those who are having to face difficult times - God's grace is amazing and is available even at those "impossible" times.

This is an exceptional life-impacting book not only for those who find themselves in situations similar to hers, but to all Christians. Kara shares humbly and transparently, highlighting both the pain and the beauty of her journey. I cannot recommend it enough.

An amazing read. I was expecting this to be a powerful book, but was not prepared for how life-changing and inspirational it would be. A book to keep and re-read, especially at times when I'm feeling sorry for myself.

This book full of honesty - pain laid bare - yet saturated in faith, could not earn any less than five stars! Read it for yourself and see if I'm right