Here If You Need Me
A True Story
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Ten years ago, Kate Braestrup and her husband Drew were enjoying the life they shared together. They had four young children, and Drew, a Maine state trooper, would soon begin training to become a minister as well. Then early one morning Drew left for work and everything changed. On the very roads that he protected every day, an oncoming driver lost control, and Kate lost her husband.
Stunned and grieving, Kate decided to continue her husband's dream and became a minister herself. And in that capacity she found a most unusual mission: serving as the minister on search and rescue missions in the Maine woods, giving comfort to people whose loved ones are missing, and to the wardens who sometimes have to deal with awful outcomes. Whether she is with the parents of a 6-year-old girl who had wandered into the woods, with wardens as they search for a snowmobile rider trapped under the ice, or assisting a man whose sister left an infant seat and a suicide note in her car by the side of the road, Braestrup provides solace, understanding, and spiritual guidance when it's needed most.
Here if You Need Me is the story of Kate Braestrup's remarkable journey from grief to faith to happiness. It is dramatic, funny, deeply moving, and simply unforgettable, an uplifting account about finding God through helping others, and the tale of the small miracles that occur every day when life and love are restored.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It may take ingenuity to interest browsers in a memoir by a middle-aged mother who, 11 years ago, was suddenly widowed, then became a Unitarian-Universalist minister, and now works as chaplain to game wardens in Maine. But good memoir writing does not depend on celebrity or adventure who'd have thought that a self-confessed recovering neurotic like Anne Lamott or a monastically inclined poet like Kathleen Norris would make it big? and Braestrup's insightful essays are extraordinarily well written, mingling elements of police procedural and touching love story with trenchant observations about life and death. Alert to comic detail even in grisly circumstances (bears, for example, like to play ball with human skulls), she tells stories of lost children, a suicide, drunken accidents and a murder, always with compassion and a concern for the big questions inescapably provoked by tragic events. "Why did Dad die?" her children ask, and her response describes not only her theology but also her reason for being a chaplain: "Nowhere in scripture does it say 'God is a car accident' or 'God is death.' God is justice and kindness, mercy, and always always love. So if you want to know where God is in this or in anything, look for love."
Customer Reviews
Peace
I have not lost anyone unexpectedly. I have lost loves, but they were old, grandparents. I am not the target audience for this book but all the same it brought me peace. I would recommend it to anyone who is lost or frightened or confused. To those religious or not. This book is a beautiful read and Kate Braestrup's ideas of love and God are so much more connectable and real then they often feel. I will definitely be reading her other books.
Here if you need me
This was selected for our book club. Probably not a book I would normally have picked out on my own, but one that I found very meaningful to read. It is a loving story of loss and recovery and in my opinion, an honest story abut the nature of faith. It reminds us that love can provide some refuge when bad things happen to good people and is a reminder to be joyful for the simple things in life. I highly recommend this book.