Janine Urbaniak Reid - The Opposite of Certainty: Fear, Faith, and Life in Between

Praise for
The Opposite of Certainty

A beautiful sucker punch, like life. When the ground crumbles beneath your hopes, big dreams, and great expectations, what do you stand on and for? Where do you find the strength to keep going? You find it in this gem of a book.

RON FOURNIER, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR OF LOVE THAT BOY

Somedays its doughnuts and hot coffee. Other days its gurneys and scans. Thats true of almost every full life. Heres the good news: observant and warm, the writing of Janine Urbaniak Reid is the finest company on both kinds of days.

KELLY CORRIGAN, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR OF TELL ME MORE AND THE MIDDLE PLACE

Full of spiritual grace and shining with a kind of rare hope, yes, it brings you to your knees but miraculously shows you that this might actually be the best vantage point to see the stars. Extraordinary.

CAROLINE LEAVITT, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
OF PICTURES OF YOU AND CRUEL BEAUTIFUL WORLD

The diagnosis of life-threatening illness is one of the most terrifying challenges any family or individual can face. Anger, resentment, fear, and loneliness rise up ready to do battle with hope, and all are made more powerful by love. The Opposite of Certainty is a deeply personal memoir about such a journey, told with brutal honesty and so much grace it will touch your soul.

JACQUELINE WINSPEAR, AWARD-WINNING AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
OF JOURNEY TO MUNICH, A DANGEROUS PLACE, LEAVING EVERYTHING MOST LOVED,
AND NINE OTHER NOVELS FEATURING MAISIE DOBBS

2020 Janine Urbaniak Reid

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson.

Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Any Internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by Thomas Nelson, nor does Thomas Nelson vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Reid, Janine Urbaniak, 1964- author.

Title: The opposite of certainty : fear, faith, and life in between / Janine Urbaniak Reid.

Description: Nashville : W Publishing an imprint of Thomas Nelson, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: Janine Urbaniak Reid doesnt expect the chaos of an out-of-control life that begins when her young sons hand begins to shake. So she searches for a source of strength bigger than her circumstances, only to have her circumstances become even thornier with her own crisis. It is only then that Janine discovers hidden reserves of strength, humor, and a no-matter-what faith that looks nothing like she thought it wouldProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019046945 (print) | LCCN 2019046946 (ebook) | ISBN 9780785230595 (paperback) | ISBN 9780785230618 (ebook)

Epub Edition March 2020 9780785230618

Subjects: LCSH: Uncertainty. | Self-control. | Faith.

Classification: LCC BF463.U5 R45 2020 (print) | LCC BF463.U5 (ebook) | DDC 153.4dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019046945

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019046946

Printed in the United States of America

20 21 22 23 24 LSC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Alan, Austin, Mason, and Sarah,
and to those who live in uncertainty
and those who are willing to sit in the
unknowing place alongside them

The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.

ANNE LAMOTT

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.

PAUL TILLICH

Contents

T he Opposite of Certainty is the memoir of a woman who has managed to assemble a satisfying and safe life, with three children, a long marriage, a beautiful home surrounded by redwoods, several dogs, half a dozen (or so) cats, and a passion for spiritual understanding and union.

But they say that God comes to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable, and one day, her bright and charming young sons hands began to shake. This is the story of what happened next.

In this spiritual memoir, Janine Urbaniak Reid shares the deepest truths about life, beginning with how she kept it together (more or less) in the early days, and thereafter, through endless hospital stays while the family waited to learn whether Mason was even still inside his sleeping body. The journey takes her to the pits of despair, wild hope, and the day-to-day drama; but it also takes her deep into herself and the eternal questions we all ask ourselves. Who are we, really, way deep down, when everything we thought we knew turns out to have been conditional? Where do we land when the lifelong foundation from which we have lived seems to crumble beneath our feet? Where is faith in darkness and terror? Where can joy be found in uncertainty?

What is real and true, when what is going on cant actually be happening?

This is Janines brilliant, rich, and breathtakingly honest and sometimes very funny account of defying the gravity of her circumstances. It is a book about life with a capital L. About a marriage, motherhood, the unfathomable salvation we find in friendships and nature. It is about grave doubt and faithno-matter-what faith.

Its relatively easy to know who you are and what is true when things are going well and the details of your life are nicely in place, but as the old joke goes, If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans. The Opposite of Certainty takes us from a perfectly planned and executed life, a secure and happy home, to the chaos of intensive care, from churches to brain institutes, bed (with her head under the pillow at three a.m.), and to a long, long and unlikely stay in the last place Janine ever expected to find peaceTexas.

Its the story of how a self-identified control freak learned to let go and let God (with whom she was barely speaking), and how she found the courage at her shakiest to do the deep dive into her precarious childhood, to find her authentic self and unearth new seeds of strength. This is a handbook for how we might all come through impossible times, transformed and yet more ourselves than wed ever allowed ourselves to be. In these pages, the reader will find a strong and vulnerable new voice, a kindred soul, and bread for the journey.

F rom one breath to the next, we exist in a place where there are no guarantees. We buttress against uncertainty and resist its gravitational pull. People like me try to control everything we possibly can to be safe. Sometimes, were able to pretend that the ground underfoot is bedrock and the sky above predictable.

This book is for anyone who is tired of clenching against circumstance (or the news). Its not a how-to book or a how-not-to book. Oddly, in this story of my anything-but-predictable life, there is solace. Because there is good, and I often call it God, that illogically shows up in surprising forms, and in the most exhausting and terrifying moments, beauty can be revealed in the imperfect terrain.