Mindy Withrow

Won’t Let You Go Unless You Bless Me

Won’t Let You Go Unless You Bless Me by Andrée Seu arrived in my mailbox a number of weeks ago, a special delivery from my dad. I think it’s safe to say that Andrée ranks up there with Charles Spurgeon and Calvin Miller in Dad’s list of authors-who-most-tickle-his-fancy. We were introduced to her work via World magazine, for which she is a senior writer, but my current relationship to her is as a satisfied customer of the café at Westminster Theological Seminary, which she manages.

The book is a collection of 30 essays originally published in her World column, written after the sudden death of her husband. (The volume is a limited edition available only through the magazine.) With frankness and vocabulary precision, she chronicles some of her struggles and blessings as a widow with four kids, a mortgage, a supportive church, and a spare room open to needy neighbors.

Notable essays include:

The Big Snow: “Sledding is the great democratizer. On the slopes no one knows your name, IQ, or proficiency with Windows 98—and no one cares” (11).

Depth Perception: “Depth perception is the single biggest thing I miss in marriage. . . . What causes me to lumber about and walk into walls these days . . . is the forfeit of a perspective other than my own” (55).

Triangular Truth: Christian journalists, take note. “I would submit to you that knowledge has a shape and that it is triangular”—the normative, situational, and existential perspectives, but—“you will never encounter, in the wild, a ‘situational’ running around without a ‘normative’ or an ‘existential’” (59).

Seventeen Minutes: A list of thoughts of a woman driving home from the store—ordinary, everyday, depraved thoughts about “nothing in particular,” proving that we need a Savior (106).

The Next Thing: God is sovereign and God is good, so why fear the future? “Granted, I am far too weak to go on with life—but I can do a load of laundry” (119).

All that insight, plus she makes a mean tuna-cranberry wrap!

02. September 2006 by Mindy
Categories: Reviews | 4 comments