A Broken Candle Still Gives Light



Here come unabashed kudos for A Broken Candle Still Gives Light, a memoir that captures Pastor Chuck Lewis' lifework as Pastor, Counselor, and "Man of God."  The book presents vignettes of heart-wrenching yet hope-filled challenges that actually began at birth  A gut-wrenching "slice of life," it serves as a "cookbook" that resolves dilemmas and offers insights.  Most prominent are ways to invite the Holy One, the Supreme Being into your life. Significantly, also,  A Broken Candle Still Gives Light includes a grief manual that guides you on the journey from mourning to joy as well as all the detours that pockmark the way. (And yes, joy can prevail even on the "rollercoaster of grief.")

Pastor Chuck and I met when the senior Pastor where I worship gently suggested Pastor Chuck as a source who might help me through the throes of loss following the unexpected death of my daughter, Courtney. (Aren't all deaths unexpected, even when they may have been accurately predicted?)  Inconsolable, yet frozen in the rictus of the newly-grieving, I zombied my way through the first few weekly sessions.  I neither know nor remember when I woke up from my nightmare to hear revelations and insights that I certainly hadn't divulged or telegraphed to anyone. No one could have known because everything had been buried too deep to unearth.  Hmm.

Initially, I listened more than I talked, then the spigot opened.  Sometimes in a trickle and often as a gush of "knowingness," stuff poured forth; the door to dialogue swung open.  I won't recount the year of weeks Pastor Chuck and I spent together; as his uncanny discernment determined when to listen and when to speak. His is a life well-acquainted with grief, yet as importantly he is an overcomer! In fact, I continue my sessions with him; secure in his compassion and deeply rooted, God-given spirituality. Simply, he listens with a wide-open heart.  It can't get any better than that.

A Broken Candle Still Gives Light may be purchased through Amazon.  I highly recommend it, being the broken candle that I am.

I invite your response to this and any Blog through ordainedelder@aol.com, Facebook, or here.  Thank you.


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