Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way »

Shauna Niequist lives in Illinois with her husband Aaron, who is a worship leader, and their son Henry. She grew up at Willow Creek, then studied English and French literature at Westmont College, in Santa Barbara, California. She worked in Student Ministry at Willow Creek for five years and as the Creative Director at Mars Hill for three years. Shauna’s first book, Cold Tangerines, is a collection of essays about the extraordinary moments in our everyday lives.

In her follow-up book to Cold Tangerines, author Shauna Niequist shifts her gaze to the challenges and blessings of change in Bittersweet. Drawing from her own experiences in a recent season of pain and chaos, she explores the bits of wisdom and growth we earn the hard way, through change, loss, and transition, and offers her own reflections on what brought her hope along the way.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

Niequist (Cold Tangerines) returns with an often humorous and always contemplative series of personal essays on bittersweet experiences, illustrating through her own life that "rejoicing is no less rich even when it contains a splinter of sadness." Spiritually, the book bravely sets out to decipher the paradoxically co-dependent nature of happiness and grief. But Niequist's title should not be seen as simply a convenient theological metaphor; i t is also a literary device. Impressively, many of Niequist's perfectly concocted chapters weave in culinary themes, evoking the sensory, physical experience of the bittersweet along with the spiritual sense of it. When writing of deep friendship and the loss that sometimes accompanies it, her narrative often revolves around a dinner table, a cooking club, or a farmer's market. Niequist's ability to describe the sensation of eating a peppery arugula salad punctuated with sweet blueberries is just as evocative as her ability to express the intricacies of love, loss, hope, and doubt. Readers of all faiths will find this book courageous, sincere, poetic, and profound. There's nothing bitter in this sweet treat of a spiritual memoir.
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Contents

prologue: bittersweet....................11
learning to swim....................15
the blue house....................23
the closer you get....................29
what we ate and why it matters....................35
heartbeat....................41
on desperation and cold pizza....................47
things i don't do....................53
alameda....................61
what we left in south bend....................67
feeding and being fed....................71
sea dreaming....................75
grace is new math....................81
twenty-five....................85
thin places....................91
gifts, under the tree and otherwise....................97
coming home....................101
what might have been....................107
happy mother's day....................111
say something....................117
on crying in the bathroom....................123
headlines and lullabies....................131
san juan....................137
the table....................141
eight for eight....................147
a blessing for a bride....................153
love song for fall....................159
ravenous....................165
whole heart....................171
join the club....................175
princess-free zone....................181
the home team....................187
aurora....................191
my patron saint....................197
knees or buns....................203
evergreen....................209
the middle....................213
steak frites....................219
blueberries....................225
phoenix....................231
your story must be told....................237
epilogue: spring....................243
acknowledgments....................251