Even After Everything

The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway

By: Stephanie Duncan Smith

Narrated by: Stephanie Duncan Smith

A “special work” (J. S. Park) that honors life’s deep griefs, great joys, and unsettled in-betweens through every sacred season, assuring us that we are never alone

“Oh, I love this book. . . . Honest and hopeful, masterfully written, both a balm and a bolstering.”—Shauna Niequist, New York Times bestselling author

Exquisitely told and urgently resonant, Even After Everything is a love letter to anyone who has opened their heart only to be hurt. Stephanie Duncan Smith proposes that it’s not through grit or forced resilience that you will find a way forward, but through receiving the full spectrum of our lives, just as we receive the empathy of God-with-us in every moment.

Duncan Smith’s disorientation began when she lost her first pregnancy on the winter solstice, just as the world readied to celebrate its most historic birth on Christmas. Then a new yet uncertain pregnancy unfolded parallel to the pandemic, until nearly one year to the day of her loss, she gave birth to her daughter at the peak of mortality in their city. These contradictions compelled Duncan Smith into a desperate search for steadiness, which she found in the liturgical year as a grounding force and the promise that we are seen by God in every season.

In Even After Everything, Duncan Smith traverses the church’s circle of time and reorients herself and us in the sacred story told through Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Ordinary Time. She reveals the sacred year—through its endless interplay of love, loss, risk, and resurrection—as a mirror to the human experience, an anchor for turbulent times, and a womb strong enough to encompass every human care. At its heart lives the promise of God-with-us, inviting us into the spiritual practice of taking courage in the trust that we are accompanied in everything, and love will always have the last word.

©2024 Stephanie Duncan Smith (P)2024 Random House Audio

Wholehearted

This book gave rich language and concept to the loss and grief of losing a child too early and the forever different journey forward with embodied grief. Excellent read told with honesty and empathy

10/10 will read again!

I bought this book without doing any research on the contents. I follow Stephanie on Substack and felt confident that whatever story she was telling was going to be well worth my time to read, and I wasn’t wrong. I myself am going through some tough uncertain circumstances and found a lot of comfort in the connections, traditions, and experiences Smith recalls when looking back at her journey. It’s reminded me to keep my faith and my heart open to evolving in the most unexpected moments. It’s given me inspiration for traditions that I would love to put in place in my own life, it’s encouraged me to have conversations with others close to me who I know are struggling in different circumstances but still struggling nonetheless, it’s kept me honest with my own hopes for the future, pushing back the temptation to make my world small so I’ll endure less risks of getting hurt. 10/10 will read again!

Beautifully written and narrated

This was a great read and the author’s writing and narration flowed beautifully through her own experiences with pregnancy and motherhood, while weaving in elements of liturgy and Christianity. She offers a balanced perspective on loss, grief, pain, and making way for joy and peace in the wake of life’s difficulties. It was an uplifting experience that I’ll gladly recommend to others.