Upheld

Christine Farenhorst

Reviewed by: Lawrence McHargue

Upheld: A Widow’s Story of Love, Grief, and the Constancy of God, by Christine Farenhorst. Christian Focus, 2025. Paperback, 258 pages, $15.99. Reviewed by OP elder Lawrence McHargue.

Christine Farenhorst wrote Upheld after the sudden death of Anco, her husband of fifty-three years. It is autobiographical, in contrast to some of her other writing. This work is a strong testament of her sustaining Christian faith. Hope and grief are recurring themes throughout the book. Grief is real, but we do not grieve as those do who know not Christ (1 Thess. 4:13).

The book’s chapters are short, and they provide an overall view of Christine and Anco’s lives together. Numerous vignettes relate to aspects of their faith and marriage as Christian believers. There are extensive citations and applications of Scripture throughout the book.

Christine lived through what Christians experience in the face of death. I experienced many of the same thoughts and actions myself after the death of my first wife.

The book is aptly titled Upheld. Christine took great comfort in the sovereignty of God when the Lord took her husband Anco. She knew that was in God’s plan. She trusts that it was the Lord’s will to take him. She knows that she will see him again. She knows that death is the last enemy to be conquered (1 Cor. 15:26). The Lord gave her the very real comfort of 2 Corinthians 1, as he did to me. She recounts various ways in which the Lord in his love and providence sustained her through her loss. She experienced both grief and joy in the Lord. They can occur simultaneously.

Being a Christian is more than a matter of having objective knowledge of the gospel, though that is necessary. It also deals with relationship. We relate to God collectively as a church and as individuals. Christianity is supremely personal! We have been given the seal of the Spirit (Eph. 1:13–14). The personal nature of the faith as a gift from the Lord is exemplified in Upheld.

Upheld is a book in which Scripture is rested upon and applied. It is a book that demonstrates the work of the Spirit in a Christian believer in a time of extremity and sorrow. It has been said that we never really :get over: the death of a loved one. Instead, we grow into it. I think that the saying is true, I see evidence of it in Upheld, and I commend this book to the readers of New Horizons.