Beyond the Darkness is a gift. It is a guidebook written for all who are confronted with a journey they never wanted to take—the loss of a loved one. In tender prose Clarissa Moll takes our hand and walks with us through the dreadful journey that is grief. She reintroduces us to our loving God, reminding us with awe that God, too, endured the grief of the death of his own Son and yet through that death has removed death’s sting forevermore. Add this book to your library. You may not need it now, but when you do, Clarissa Moll will be waiting to walk with you through your grief.
Rich Stearns, president emeritus of World Vision US and author of The Hole in Our Gospel and Lead Like It Matters to God
In Beyond the Darkness, Clarissa Moll comes alongside all who find themselves in the darkness of grief with a light that points forward toward healing and joy. In these pages readers will find someone who “gets it,” someone who has felt the loneliness and the fears that are part of grief, someone who knows what it is like to want the load of grief to lighten while at the same time relishing the way grief helps us to feel close to the person we love who has died. This is a book filled with wisdom and insight that will speak into the questions, the uncertainties, and the opportunities presented to us in the loss of someone we love.
Nancy Guthrie, author of Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow
Deeply practical and profoundly tender, this is a book that bandages the wounds of the grieving without rushing through the circumstances that put them there. Clarissa’s kindness toward her own grief will be a welcome friend to others who mourn, and particularly her insight into how to function through those first hours and days and months. This is a book that can nestle alongside casseroles, gift baskets, and potted plants for the grieving, lingering there still even when the doorstep becomes empty. An unassuming instruction manual for how to make it through the unimaginable.
Lore Ferguson Wilbert, author of A Curious Faith: The Questions God Asks, We Ask, and We Wish Someone Would Ask Us and Handle with Care: How Jesus Redeems the Power of Touch in Life and Ministry
None of us will avoid an encounter with death—either our own or someone we love. For many of us, that encounter will be what it was to Clarissa: “a mysterious landscape without a map.” Clarissa explored that dark landscape, saw to the light beyond, and brought back to us the map we need. She says this is a book she never wished to write, but thank God she did write it. It is a book that every Christian should read.
Warren Cole Smith, president of MinistryWatch.com
Clarissa Moll has earned this wisdom, trudging the hard road of sorrow. I’m grateful she has recorded her steps for the rest of us. She has found there Another walking before her. Reading her brave and luminous book can help you—yes, even you—see him walking with you, too.
Jason Byassee, professor at Vancouver School of Theology and longtime contributor to Christian Century magazine
Clarissa Moll is one of my dearest companions, and our grief stories have pulled us closer to Jesus and one another. This book has been fought for and is true and good. Beyond the Darkness gives us the hope we desperately need when we can’t see a thing, and I’m so thankful she bravely gave us the gift of her words.
Melissa Zaldivar, host of Cheer Her On podcast and author
In Beyond the Darkness, Clarissa Moll is an insightful and tender guide, a companion who speaks wisdom with gentleness in a place no one chooses to be—a place that is the end of our known world. Beyond the Darkness is a balm for the soul, a life raft for those who are drowning. It offers hope and help for the grieving and for those who are walking with them. And it originates from a deep well and provides comfort—especially because it is written by someone who knows of what she speaks. I am deeply grateful for this resource, though it certainly has come at a great cost.
Marlena Graves, author of The Way Up Is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself
Clarissa Moll allows you inside her brilliant mind and tender heart to guide you out of the debilitating pain and suffocating fog of overwhelming grief. I did not want to read about death or sorrow or someone else’s pain, but I could not put Beyond the Darkness down. I was gripped by the author’s raw honesty and deep spiritual insights. Gone are the platitudes and self-help steps you have heard too many times before. This work is filled with the rich wisdom that can only be gained in the house of suffering. Her gentle advice, beautiful prose, and steadfast faith will be a balm to your broken heart.
Chuck Bentley, CEO of Crown Financial Ministries and friend of Rob Moll
Clarissa Moll’s book is a beautiful expression of the power of the gospel to bring comfort and hope to those who experience crushing sorrow and unimaginable loss. I have read her book and observed her life. She and her children are members of our congregation who lost a loving husband and a wonderful father in the prime of his life. Most every time I see them, there are tears in my eyes and hope in my heart. Their loss was heartbreaking. Yet their lives are heart mending and hope bringing. All of us experience sorrow and loss. All of us need the hope to which Clarissa’s life and book bear eloquent testimony. It is indeed a book of hope, strength, and beauty.
Douglas Birdsall, honorary chair of the Lausanne Movement
Clients often wish that their therapist or counselor had gone through the grief journey themselves. Clarissa Moll’s Beyond the Darkness is a resource born out of personal experience of grief and loss, and she offers a paradigm shift of companionship in grief instead of disenfranchisement from its difficulties. Clarissa’s journey in the grief that accompanies her since the death of her husband, Rob, provides an evidence-informed lens for therapists, counselors, and clients in need of sharp and useful tools to survive and thrive in this new path. I highly recommend this resource for any and all who are living and moving in the world alongside grief.
Regina Chow Trammel, PhD, LCSW, associate professor of social work at Azusa Pacific University, licensed psychotherapist, and coauthor of A Counselor’s Guide to Christian Mindfulness: Engaging the Mind, Body, and Soul in Biblical Practices and Therapies
In Beyond the Darkness, Clarissa Moll provides a soft place to land for those grappling with the life-altering ramifications of death and grief. Moll combines thoughtful research, tender personal stories, and practical—but not prescriptive—grief support, with a resurrection-centered theology. She invites excruciating pain and stunning hope to coexist in our hearts, our homes, and our communities. Beyond the Darkness is a beautiful companion for anyone who finds themself in a season where light seems elusive.
Adriel Booker, author of Grace Like Scarlett and the forthcoming Tethered to Hope
In Beyond the Darkness, Clariss Moll offers tremendous wisdom and hope, even as she candidly explores the many layers of loss. A wise and tender guide, Moll bravely invites us into a journey through the shadows of grief—and into the healing balm of companionship.
Dr. Alison Cook, psychologist and author of Boundaries for Your Soul
As a sudden and unexpected widow myself, I resonate with all Clarissa has to say in her insightful book. She writes beautifully, observes carefully, and translates a dark passage of life into language we can understand and benefit by. As she courageously notes in her book's title—Beyond the Darkness—we do indeed come out the other side of darkness, death, and grief into light, life, and resurrection. I am so glad for that truth and thankful that Clarissa is pointing the way forward.
Carol L. Powers, JD, cofounder and chair of the Community Ethics Committee, Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics
