When Nothing Beats Anymore, by Ineke Marsman-Polhuijs 

Ostensibly a book about a death, it’s also a story about living, and the struggle of living well as a Christian

When Nothing Beats Anymore
By Ineke Marsman-Polhuijs
Faithbuilders Publishing
ISBN: 978-1913181888
Reviewed by Terry Young

This is a book I wanted to review and was also dreading reading. I’d read the prefatory remarks and was struggling to get into the main body of the text. 

Finally, one Sunday afternoon, I found myself at home on my own while my wife was looking after our grandsons. As I sat in the middle of a power cut caused by a storm the night before, with the winter sun streaming into our lounge, I got the gas fire going and sat down to read. The electricity came on just after 3pm, so I had light to power on through and here’s what I discovered.

Although this is ostensibly a book about a death as Ineke describes the loss of her fifth child, Susan Amanda, it’s also a story about living and the struggle of living well as a Christian. The trouble with being a Christian is the dual citizenship, with a passport in heaven (Philippians 3:20) and a heritage on earth: Ineke gives us a direct – searingly honest in places – attempt to capture what went into that mix for her.

The tragedy has added poignancy because Amanda, as she is most often called, dies before she is even born and emerges still but beautifully formed. In the Dutch culture where Ineke gave birth, Amanda goes home to say goodbye to family and friends before the burial.

When godly women wrestle with loss (I’ve reviewed Emily Owen, here, and Lysa TerKeurst, here), I’m always impressed by quality and intensity of their search for God in the situation as their lives unravel, and Ineke is no exception. 

Her recollections are a churn of events and emotions: Bible reading, other reading, wailing and theology. She talks long and hard with her husband, pastor, counsellors in the health system, clinical staff and social care workers. She has urges to get drunk, get a tattoo, make love, or veg out on films and box sets. Beside this is her worry over how she is caring for her other children, and the emotional elastic that keeps pinging her back to wondering who is caring for Amanda.

Anyone who has experienced any significant disaster will recognise this whirl around a void, of hope and commitment and comfort seeking and wishing and waking again. The depth and jeopardy of the whirlpool will vary from person to person, but the pattern is a very Christian and shared experience.

Music has been a constant in the maelstrom: her own compositions; the material she has curated as a worship leader at church; and the many links to songs that others sent her throughout her grieving and sensemaking. I only met Ineke online as part of a Christian songwriting community where I’m a newby and she’s an accomplished contributor, out of which I offered to review her book.

Although her life hasn’t stopped spinning, by the end of the book Ineke is integrating her grief into an active Christian life and she is singing once more. Her advice on how to help people in bereavement is articulate, well grounded, and resonates with Simon Thomas’ Love, Interrupted.

Was everything Ineke tried helpful?  I don’t know. I only have one other point of comparison, since my mother-in-law who passed away last year once lost a 21 month-old daughter. My wife’s recollection is that nobody talked about it, although she often heard her Mum crying herself to sleep. She and her brother discovered a lot of formally dressed people in the house one day and realised that a funeral had taken place. 

And so, the scars shaped family relationships for decades. I have no idea where the best place would be for anyone along the spectrum from buttoning up to sharing profusely – but I can see that we are talking of a legacy that lasts and lasts.

Two passages of Scripture occurred to me while I read. In a very different causal context, David speaks of a lost son (2 Samuel 12:22-23, NIV):

He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

We have to believe that David spoke prophetically as well as in human hope, but the promise of going to his child is one of the brightest lines in the Bible on this elusive theme. The other was Paul’s commentary (1 Corinthians 1:3-5):

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

This is perhaps the most exciting element of this book – whom will God comfort through Ineke’s story?  Maybe you?