Parting the Waters

I have been looking forward to reading Jeanne Damoff’s book for years. It could have been as many as two years ago when I came across the opening chapters on her blog.

Parting the Waters: Finding Beauty in Brokenness begins as Jeanne reounts a normal day at the end of the school year. Her fifteen-year-old son Jacob calls asking her to bring a change of clothes to his friend’s house so that he could go to the lake with a group. This vignette will be familiar to any parent of a teen: last minute plans requiring mom’s assistance, foraging through a messy room to find the requested clothing, driving over and dropping them off with very little parent child interaction.

But later that afternoon, the Damoff’s life quickly drifts away from the norm when they are called to the hospital. One boy has drowned and their son Jacob was barely resusicated after being retrieved from the bottom of the lake.

Parting the Waters is the story of so many things. It’s an honest look at what having a child with special needs takes out of a family, a marriage, and friendships, but it also examines the hidden blessings that the Damoffs experienced in this town as their friends — and the entire town — come together to support Jacob and the family. But at the core it’s a spiritual memoir wherein Jeanne opens a window into her fears and doubts which are covered with a healthy dose of enduring faith.

Throughout the book, Damoff illustrates their story using water imagery — widening ripples, stormy seas, and calm waters.. Lives are changed because of what Jacob endures: Not only Jacob’s life, but that of his siblings and parents, extended family, the doctors and nurses who care for him, and the teenagers from his church and school.

I think that what makes this book so wonderful is the detail of the day-to-day decisions they had to make about Jacob’s care. The struggles are real, and the underlying theme is that they were never going to give up. Jeanne is as quick to share her fears and doubts as she is to marvel over the miraculous journey that her family took throughout this trial. Books like this tend to be either too sweet or too bitter. This book strikes the perfect balance.

The endorsement from Lisa Samson on the cover of the book sums it up so nicely, “This book is for anybody whose life didn’t turn out quite the way they expected.” Whether or not you’ve faced a trial of this magnitude as a parent, it is likely that at some point you’ve had questions during some point in your life: Why me? How can I handle this? What will I do now? If you’d like some encouragement from one who has been there, or perhaps just want to be able to understand a friend or family member’s situation better, this is a wonderful book.

If you have any doubts, check out the reviews on amazon — they are fabulous — as well as the reviews from other bloggers. View the book trailer video HERE.

Managing Editor Jennifer Donovan also blogs at Snapshot about life with her tween daughter and preschool son.