The Box Must Be Empty

Book Excellence Award Winner—Christian Non-Fiction

By Marilyn Kriete

Release Date: April 4, 2023

What happens when buried grief rises two decades late, upending the life you’ve built on its coffin? When you add loss upon loss by constantly moving, serving a church organization—and possible cult—that expects unwavering sacrifice? How do you restore a devastated marriage, a crushed faith, and an endlessly broken heart? This is the crux of Marilyn Kriete's crisis. After losing her fiancé and first great love to cancer, she becomes a Christian and marries Henry, joining him in a worldwide ministry that leaves little time for family or personal reflection. When her old grief resurfaces, she’s shocked by the tsunami that rips through their lives. Intensive counselling fails to bring healing, and when Henry writes a public letter that decimates their churches and spins them out of the fellowship—and lifelong employment—she faces an emotional and spiritual reckoning that challenges her to the core. In this follow up to her debut memoir “Paradise Road,” Marilyn explores delayed and complicated grief in all its many disguises—dashed dreams, disenchantment, family troubles, and the guilt of being a former faith leader, now grappling with depression and dismay. With unflinching honesty, Marilyn shares the missteps and keys to recovering her battered heart, her faith, and her self-esteem. Multilayered and compelling, Marilyn’s story will resonate with anyone who’s stuck in grief, navigating a mid-life career crisis, or struggling with a spiritual life that’s lost its luster or lost its way.

Genre/category: Memoir/Women’s Biography

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023933472

Paperback ISBN: 9781950495313
$18.99

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Meet The Author

Marilyn Kriete

Goodreads

Reviews

“This profoundly moving memoir leads with vulnerability, communicates with grace, and delivers the kind of hard-earned wisdom that only comes with time. An intensely personal story of recovery, its lessons apply to any soul with unhealed wounds.” —Daryl Potter, author of Even the Monsters and Bitter for Sweet

“Marilyn Kriete states her reason for writing this book on its final page: There was none like it. I know of no one who captures the referred pain of an unmourned relationship like she does. I know of no one who captures the beauty and confusion and love and trauma of an unhealthy church like she does. And she does it with moxie and grace and clarity and wisdom and, above all, realness.” —Ken Guidroz, author of “Letters to My Son in Prison: A Memoir”

“Marilyn is an insightful storyteller who provides language for the most damaged parts of ourselves. She connects with the culturally specific ways that many people in churches experience grief. I recommend this book for anyone working through delayed and complicated grief and/or spiritual trauma.” —Kyle Spears, mental health practitioner, The Attachment and Trauma Center of Nebraska

“Do not make the mistake of thinking that Marilyn Kriete's book is a straightforward memoir; it is not. Rather, Marilyn mixes autobiography, ethnography, and testimony in a raw and candid manner that both captivates and illuminates. She gifts us the privilege of peering into her often-tortured inner world, unfurling her personal grief before us. Yet this suffering is intermingled with the travails of her controversial faith group. Her grief is constantly overshadowed by the multi-tentacled demands of ministry work and one imagines how she survived to write this book at all. A worthy read for anyone seeking the wisdom to understand how egregious losses emerge from a human soul while in the midst of a tight-knit God fearing community, I can't recommend this book highly enough.” —Sean St. Jean, PhD, MSW, RSW, director of field education at King’s University, Tennessee

“...a memoir about resilience and courage. The writer experienced not just sadness but overwhelming, prostrating grief that came close to destroying her. She offers no easy answers, no platitudes, no one-size-fits-all solutions, just her own account of how she fought her way to healing and growth after she was set upon by long-buried grief rooted in the early death of someone she loved with all her heart.” —Declan Joyce

“Anyone with unresolved grief, usually hidden down deep in their box of inner memories, will find it arises, as old and new tears, on the pages of this very stirring memoir! I highly recommend this follow-up to Kriete's first book, 'Paradise Road.’” —Laura Fizelle