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How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is on the Way and Love Is Already Here
Life is turbulent. On that, we can all agree. Disappointed dreams, broken relationships, identity crises, vocational hang-ups, wounds from the past—there are so many ways life can send us crashing up against the rocks.
In this deeply personal book, Jonathan Martin draws from his own stories of failure and loss to find the love that can only be discovered on the bottom. How to Survive a Shipwreck is an invitation to trust the goodness of God and the resilience of your soul. Jonathan’s clarion call is this: No matter how hard you’ve fallen, no matter how much you’ve been hurt, help is on the way—just when you need it most.
With visionary artistry and pastoral wisdom, Jonathan Martin reveals what we’ll need to make it through those uncharted waters, how we can use these defining experiences to live out of our depths, and why it will then become impossible to go back to the half-life we once lived.
In this deeply personal book, Jonathan Martin draws from his own stories of failure and loss to find the love that can only be discovered on the bottom. How to Survive a Shipwreck is an invitation to trust the goodness of God and the resilience of your soul. Jonathan’s clarion call is this: No matter how hard you’ve fallen, no matter how much you’ve been hurt, help is on the way—just when you need it most.
With visionary artistry and pastoral wisdom, Jonathan Martin reveals what we’ll need to make it through those uncharted waters, how we can use these defining experiences to live out of our depths, and why it will then become impossible to go back to the half-life we once lived.
224 pages, Paperback
Published June 7, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
April 24, 2018
I bought this book after reading a quote or two from it because the topic was timely and from what I'd seen, it looked good.
I will say, although this book was written from the perspective of a self inflicted shipwreck, and that didn't relate to my situation, the first few chapters were still empowering and encouraging, and I found myself highlighting a ton. With that kind of start, I was pretty excited to read the rest.
However, I felt the book took a bit of a nose dive almost half way through, and I found myself not feeling quite right about a lot of his philosophy.
It was hard to glean from the book after I kept encountering area's he stated things as FACTS about God or how God thinks, but clash with what scriptures says. I'm open to new perspective and ways of doing things, but when they don't even line up with God's Yes's and No's in the bible, I pass.
I sadly wouldn't recommend because of that. Some good quotes on grief and acknowledging and dealing with it, but unfortunately, the things that didn't feel right outweighed the stuff that did.
I will say, although this book was written from the perspective of a self inflicted shipwreck, and that didn't relate to my situation, the first few chapters were still empowering and encouraging, and I found myself highlighting a ton. With that kind of start, I was pretty excited to read the rest.
However, I felt the book took a bit of a nose dive almost half way through, and I found myself not feeling quite right about a lot of his philosophy.
It was hard to glean from the book after I kept encountering area's he stated things as FACTS about God or how God thinks, but clash with what scriptures says. I'm open to new perspective and ways of doing things, but when they don't even line up with God's Yes's and No's in the bible, I pass.
I sadly wouldn't recommend because of that. Some good quotes on grief and acknowledging and dealing with it, but unfortunately, the things that didn't feel right outweighed the stuff that did.
May 1, 2017
This book is exquisitely written, and the definition of what it means to be vulnerable. I think this book should be on everyone's shelf, whether or not you have experienced a shipwreck, because you will at some point, and this book may very well be your life preserver. One of the most memorable sermons I have ever heard was a few years ago when Jonathan Martin spoke at Elevation Church, before the "shipwreck". He talked about how we often want to hide our faults and failures from God (or point out the flaws in others to minimize our own) and yet when we are fully naked and exposed before God, only then can we truly experience the deep love He has for us, "to be fully seen and known in all of our brokenness, and yet fully accepted." The kind of love that advocates not just for the innocent, but for the guilty as well. The kind of love that "wants to comfort Israel's waste places" and "restore Eden to her deserts." Perhaps this message was prophetic in a way, a precursor to what Jonathan was about to experience in this agonizingly profound way. Buy this book. You will not regret it.
June 21, 2016
For those of us who have felt the storms of life pick us up, toss us around and deposit us in whereabouts we would never have chosen, this is the book you’ve been waiting for.
This is no memoir of escapism or survival techniques. Neither is this a book filled with clichés or an attitude that diminishes the brutality of the deluges and droughts which we experience. The words here are honest and raw, taking a long hard stare into the eye of the storm.
Reminiscent of great spiritual writers such as Richard Rohr, Brennan Manning and Barbara Brown Taylor, Martin pours out his soul with courageous vulnerability. Sharing from his own driftwood inspired pilgrimage, *How to Survive a Shipwreck* encourages us not to brace ourselves against the torrents but to let ourselves go within them. In return we’ll receive a perspective that is both beautiful and profound: There is actually life to be found in the unfathomable, hope to be salvaged within the flotsam and jetsam, and a cascade of grace in the falling. And although the eroding elements may have stripped us of all that we thought we once were, something of who we are becoming is being birthed.
What Jonathan shows is that there’s a force at work within the storm -- not endorsing it or colluding with it, but usurping its attempts to sift and destroy us. There’s a divine power seeking to save us through the very waters that are attempting to engulf us. But this has always been the paradoxical beauty of the gospel: water becomes wine, sorrow gives way to joy, and death is swallowed up in resurrection through the power of Christ.
Once again, Jonathan Martin proves himself to be master of Holy Spirit steeped prose. I’d encourage you to drink deep and savour.
This is no memoir of escapism or survival techniques. Neither is this a book filled with clichés or an attitude that diminishes the brutality of the deluges and droughts which we experience. The words here are honest and raw, taking a long hard stare into the eye of the storm.
Reminiscent of great spiritual writers such as Richard Rohr, Brennan Manning and Barbara Brown Taylor, Martin pours out his soul with courageous vulnerability. Sharing from his own driftwood inspired pilgrimage, *How to Survive a Shipwreck* encourages us not to brace ourselves against the torrents but to let ourselves go within them. In return we’ll receive a perspective that is both beautiful and profound: There is actually life to be found in the unfathomable, hope to be salvaged within the flotsam and jetsam, and a cascade of grace in the falling. And although the eroding elements may have stripped us of all that we thought we once were, something of who we are becoming is being birthed.
What Jonathan shows is that there’s a force at work within the storm -- not endorsing it or colluding with it, but usurping its attempts to sift and destroy us. There’s a divine power seeking to save us through the very waters that are attempting to engulf us. But this has always been the paradoxical beauty of the gospel: water becomes wine, sorrow gives way to joy, and death is swallowed up in resurrection through the power of Christ.
Once again, Jonathan Martin proves himself to be master of Holy Spirit steeped prose. I’d encourage you to drink deep and savour.
June 4, 2020
A must read
is your life collapsing? Divorce failed plans loss of a loved one epic failure? This book is for you. Amazing and life changing.
is your life collapsing? Divorce failed plans loss of a loved one epic failure? This book is for you. Amazing and life changing.
September 10, 2019
Really appreciated the chapter called “God loves Monsters”. A good book to return to in periods of loss, and the reminder that God is at home in the chaos. I always appreciate Jonathan’s perspective and this one is personal.
March 12, 2017
Excellent, though if you haven't been through a shipwreck or at least dumped your rowboat in nasty, cold water, the book will not make a lot of sense to you. But if you have, you may find it a Godsend, and I capitalize intentionally.
Jonathan Martin does not pretend to tell you how to survive your particular shipwreck, but he writes as one who has been through the deep waters to find a life he did not expect to see, a life sustained by the relentless love of God.
Jonathan Martin does not pretend to tell you how to survive your particular shipwreck, but he writes as one who has been through the deep waters to find a life he did not expect to see, a life sustained by the relentless love of God.
July 18, 2020
Getting pulled into a new depth of my faith and understanding of Jesus through the metaphor of death and resurrection has launched me into a new phase of life, and I’m so thankful. The way Jonathan writes, with a phenomenal balance of personal story and truth from scripture, is so captivating and emotional. Crying my way through this book was one of my most comforting and freeing journeys I’ve ever taken.
August 28, 2016
I loved every page of this book. I appreciate how the author acknowledges God and Faith as a mystery, yet one he is willing to explore. There are some important, perspective-shifting ideas here. I will revisit this book.
September 12, 2016
Fantastic read, like a balm to my weary soul. It's a book about losing your life so you can find it, unconditional love, and finding you are loved in the depths.
SO good.
SO good.
August 30, 2025
I'm rarely as conflicted about a book as I am about this one. One part of me wants to roll my eyes at Jonathan Martin's preachy, melodramatic, pastoral tome. Another part of me - perhaps the part that grew up in a Southern Baptist church - resonates deeply with some of the things he says, and appreciates the Southern Gothic stylings of this extended sermon.
In partnership with his first wife, Jonathan Martin was a church planter and pastor. A third generation preacher, raised in the Pentecostal churches of the American South, it seems that Martin's identity became wrapped up in his ministry. At some point, his marriage fell apart, and Martin left his leadership position with the church. The exact details of this implosion are not divulged to the reader, so what storytellers might call the "inciting incident" feels ill-defined. Nonetheless, the rest of the book speaks of his process of rebuilding his life and, more importantly, the spiritual lessons he learned from that.
And the lessons are not insignificant. Each of the chapters in the book reads like an extended message, and I can easily imagine Martin delivering his exegesis, stories, and pithy anecdotes from behind a pulpit. He writes of how he needed to extract himself from his previous identity, accept failure, accept help from others, learn to move through life again, and embrace chaos and uncertainty. All of these are powerful concepts, and Martin ties them back to a theological reading of scripture that portrays a loving, but wild and even unpredictable God. I particularly liked the chapter on God loving monsters, which references the Leviathan in Job, and was one of the more creative pieces of exploratory theology I've read in a long while.
Still, it troubled me that Martin never got particularly specific about what happened to him, to kick off his own personal shipwreck. It felt as though he was being a little coy. Did he cheat on his wife? Did he embezzle money from the church? Did he develop some sort of addiction? Or was he merely a victim of the hubris that comes with being in a leadership position, and starting to believe your own press? I don't think my curiosity is merely prurient - without this context, it becomes harder to connect with the man behind these words, and thus, harder to trust that he knows that of which he speaks. And the fact that he is now preaching again and married to a woman who looks like a Barbie doll (thanks, Instagram) doesn't help. What happened to his first wife? I imagine he wishes to protect her identity and not cause her further hurt, but still . . .
So yeah, I have trust issues.
I also found it remarkable how unaware of his own privilege Martin seemed to be. A number of the things that occur for him as he gets his feet back under him after his shipwreck are possible only because he has an extensive network of friends and family, access to money, and even access to opportunities. If he had not been a well-heeled, well-known, white male, would these incidents have been possible? Imagine a single mother, working two jobs and living off of SNAP benefits, reading this book. Could my hypothetical reader and shipwreck victim be expected to go to a spiritual retreat in California, take months off of work, or travel to Sweden for a speaking engagement that will help her get her head straight? No, these are specific to Martin's experience. So we get details here, on the back side of the story, and all they do is make us realize that Martin is living in a world that most of us cannot access - a world of connections, wealth, and privilege.
I write this not to tell anyone not to read this book. There is much that I appreciated in it, and many of Martin's spiritual points remain valid. The prose has a certain amount of flair as well, and the combination of moody theology and epic language can be gripping. But the posture with which Martin sometimes offers his life lessons strikes me as lacking in a certain amount of self-awareness, despite the humiliations and self-doubt he claims to have experienced. If Father Richard Rohr is correct that the second half of our lives are about "falling upward," I guess I think Martin still has a ways to go before he reaches the bottom.
Here's another review of this book that I really liked. I think it expresses some of what I'm trying to say well:
http://www.beholdreflect.com/2016/06/...
In partnership with his first wife, Jonathan Martin was a church planter and pastor. A third generation preacher, raised in the Pentecostal churches of the American South, it seems that Martin's identity became wrapped up in his ministry. At some point, his marriage fell apart, and Martin left his leadership position with the church. The exact details of this implosion are not divulged to the reader, so what storytellers might call the "inciting incident" feels ill-defined. Nonetheless, the rest of the book speaks of his process of rebuilding his life and, more importantly, the spiritual lessons he learned from that.
And the lessons are not insignificant. Each of the chapters in the book reads like an extended message, and I can easily imagine Martin delivering his exegesis, stories, and pithy anecdotes from behind a pulpit. He writes of how he needed to extract himself from his previous identity, accept failure, accept help from others, learn to move through life again, and embrace chaos and uncertainty. All of these are powerful concepts, and Martin ties them back to a theological reading of scripture that portrays a loving, but wild and even unpredictable God. I particularly liked the chapter on God loving monsters, which references the Leviathan in Job, and was one of the more creative pieces of exploratory theology I've read in a long while.
Still, it troubled me that Martin never got particularly specific about what happened to him, to kick off his own personal shipwreck. It felt as though he was being a little coy. Did he cheat on his wife? Did he embezzle money from the church? Did he develop some sort of addiction? Or was he merely a victim of the hubris that comes with being in a leadership position, and starting to believe your own press? I don't think my curiosity is merely prurient - without this context, it becomes harder to connect with the man behind these words, and thus, harder to trust that he knows that of which he speaks. And the fact that he is now preaching again and married to a woman who looks like a Barbie doll (thanks, Instagram) doesn't help. What happened to his first wife? I imagine he wishes to protect her identity and not cause her further hurt, but still . . .
So yeah, I have trust issues.
I also found it remarkable how unaware of his own privilege Martin seemed to be. A number of the things that occur for him as he gets his feet back under him after his shipwreck are possible only because he has an extensive network of friends and family, access to money, and even access to opportunities. If he had not been a well-heeled, well-known, white male, would these incidents have been possible? Imagine a single mother, working two jobs and living off of SNAP benefits, reading this book. Could my hypothetical reader and shipwreck victim be expected to go to a spiritual retreat in California, take months off of work, or travel to Sweden for a speaking engagement that will help her get her head straight? No, these are specific to Martin's experience. So we get details here, on the back side of the story, and all they do is make us realize that Martin is living in a world that most of us cannot access - a world of connections, wealth, and privilege.
I write this not to tell anyone not to read this book. There is much that I appreciated in it, and many of Martin's spiritual points remain valid. The prose has a certain amount of flair as well, and the combination of moody theology and epic language can be gripping. But the posture with which Martin sometimes offers his life lessons strikes me as lacking in a certain amount of self-awareness, despite the humiliations and self-doubt he claims to have experienced. If Father Richard Rohr is correct that the second half of our lives are about "falling upward," I guess I think Martin still has a ways to go before he reaches the bottom.
Here's another review of this book that I really liked. I think it expresses some of what I'm trying to say well:
http://www.beholdreflect.com/2016/06/...
March 17, 2020
Sometimes you read a book that says exactly what you need to read at the moment you read it. What amazed me most about the experience of reading this book was that I read it over the course of several months, and every time I'd pick it back up again after setting it down for awhile, it would have words for what I was thinking through in that moment--not the moments in the weeks before or the weeks after, but that moment. I feel extremely grateful to have stumbled upon this book at the time that I did--and to have followed up on the hunch that it would be a book I needed to read.
January 31, 2019
Life is full of ups and downs; traumatic events leave us with heartbreaks that shatter us to our core. Quite frankly, it leaves us in a heap of grief and tears. In this book, Jonathan Martin shares his own "shipwreck" experience. While Martin takes you through the journey of his own shipwreck, it's as if he summons you to journey through your own turbulent waters. He doesn't offer answers or a quick fix plan, which was appreciated. In the end, he simply encourages the reader to not give up hope - since we are all shipwrecked at some point in life and all stand in need of grace.
June 4, 2019
I've never highlighted passages in a book before, but with this one, I couldn't not highlight certain passages. It felt like they were written specifically to me and for me. Although much of the book I found ponderous with a lot philosophizing (I did a lot of skimming), the passages that were Biblically-oriented were spot on. I'd give it 3.5 stars.
May 2, 2018
Helpful book if you feel like your life has been shipwrecked. All about how God is there in the depths.
August 5, 2016
The book Shipwrecked is built around the metaphor author Jonathan Martin uses to describe the time in a person’s life when everything s/he had built around seems to implode—a treasured relationship ends, the job that was a source of identity terminates, one’s health suddenly is in free-fall. When one’s ship (what was carrying one through life) crashes, what remains, Martin asks, as one seems to be drowning? He says, “It doesn’t really matter how you got here or why and it doesn’t really matter if it was God or the devil or yourself or some ancient chaos that spilled up from the bottom of the sea. What matters now, is that you are drowning and the world you loved before is not your world any longer...Your life feels like a funeral because there is a part of you that is actually dying” (Jonathan Martin, How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help is on the Way and Love is Already Here, Zondervan, 2016, pp. 20-21). In his case, he lost both his marriage (through divorce) and his life-consuming work (his role as the founding pastor at his church). “His drowning” was like a death experience of his former self, so he could experience resurrection to the new man and to the new life God wanted to create.
He says, “The theory I sailed to, better late than never, is essentially this: God can only be truthfully experienced from the underside of things…There are things that cannot be seen about God and life and the world and yourself from on top. Until you can see it all from flat on your back, you just aren’t seeing much at all…The only way our vision can be whole is to see the world through the lens of our brokenness…We see through the lenses of pride, ego, and competition. We cannot merely make a decision to see the world differently. Something has to happen to make us go blind first” (pp. 175-176, 178-179).
The book is a memoir and a model for others who rebuild their lives after shipwreck. In his last chapter he makes this plea to his readers:
“Please do not give up. You can think about it again tomorrow, but please not today. Please do not let yourself drown. Please do not let the merciless tides tread over your precious head. There is so much life for you. I know, because I found it and dear God, I want the same for you” (p. 216).
ML Codman-Wilson, Ph.D., 8/5/2016
Excerpts:
“Losing the boat is no small thing. To lose the boat is to lose the ground beneath your feet, the stories you told yourself and others…To lose the boat is to lose everything that kept you afloat before, to be thrown into the vast and merciless sea now alone with nothing left to protect you from its moody tides, the blazing sun above it or the black-eyed creatures that lurk beneath it. You can lose your boat, lose your house with all the pictures inside it, lose your job, lose your most defining relationship.
And still not lose you.
And still not lose your soul.
And still not lose your faith.
Make no mistake you will be stripped down in the shipwreck, but you will not be lost” (p. 34).
“After the shipwreck when the ship is still going down and all you have left are bits of it, still floating in the sea all around you, it’s nearly impossible to tell at first what will actually hold you up…Some of what was holding you up was built on lies, spin, and youthful delusions. You must let them float away. Some of the childish notions of how the world works—the illusion that you were ever truly in control of your life to begin with—you must let sink…But in the fragments, there are planks that remain—pieces of desire, of dreams, of hope, of imagination, of longing that rise to the top of you even now…They are no longer attached neatly together but they are still afloat in the swirling chaos of you…Grab something—anything—that will help you get through the night, that will help you make it to the shore…You only need one small plank, one reason not to give up, one reason to stay alive…today” (pp. 72-73, 75).
“You aren’t going to make it all the way to shore without running into some monsters, without staring them down, without naming them…Everything we tried to push down for so long—every flaw and fault we have denied or ignored, every truth we rather not come to terms with—all this will come to light in the crisis of a shipwreck and we’re not going to make it safely to shore unless we deal with these monsters we haven’t dealt with for so long” (pp. 111-112).
“The first discovery of the shipwreck is that we have a higher capacity for pain than we ever could have imagined before we lost, before we failed, before we suffered…The surprise on the other side of the shipwreck is that, while your capacity for pain improved far beyond our wildest reckoning, now you have a capacity to feel everything deeper. You are capable of a depth of empathy and compassion that would have been unthinkable before…And from this new-found capacity for pain, for sorrow, for torment, for agony, for endless waves of grief, comes the biggest surprise of them all—your new-found capacity for joy” (pp. 194-195).
He says, “The theory I sailed to, better late than never, is essentially this: God can only be truthfully experienced from the underside of things…There are things that cannot be seen about God and life and the world and yourself from on top. Until you can see it all from flat on your back, you just aren’t seeing much at all…The only way our vision can be whole is to see the world through the lens of our brokenness…We see through the lenses of pride, ego, and competition. We cannot merely make a decision to see the world differently. Something has to happen to make us go blind first” (pp. 175-176, 178-179).
The book is a memoir and a model for others who rebuild their lives after shipwreck. In his last chapter he makes this plea to his readers:
“Please do not give up. You can think about it again tomorrow, but please not today. Please do not let yourself drown. Please do not let the merciless tides tread over your precious head. There is so much life for you. I know, because I found it and dear God, I want the same for you” (p. 216).
ML Codman-Wilson, Ph.D., 8/5/2016
Excerpts:
“Losing the boat is no small thing. To lose the boat is to lose the ground beneath your feet, the stories you told yourself and others…To lose the boat is to lose everything that kept you afloat before, to be thrown into the vast and merciless sea now alone with nothing left to protect you from its moody tides, the blazing sun above it or the black-eyed creatures that lurk beneath it. You can lose your boat, lose your house with all the pictures inside it, lose your job, lose your most defining relationship.
And still not lose you.
And still not lose your soul.
And still not lose your faith.
Make no mistake you will be stripped down in the shipwreck, but you will not be lost” (p. 34).
“After the shipwreck when the ship is still going down and all you have left are bits of it, still floating in the sea all around you, it’s nearly impossible to tell at first what will actually hold you up…Some of what was holding you up was built on lies, spin, and youthful delusions. You must let them float away. Some of the childish notions of how the world works—the illusion that you were ever truly in control of your life to begin with—you must let sink…But in the fragments, there are planks that remain—pieces of desire, of dreams, of hope, of imagination, of longing that rise to the top of you even now…They are no longer attached neatly together but they are still afloat in the swirling chaos of you…Grab something—anything—that will help you get through the night, that will help you make it to the shore…You only need one small plank, one reason not to give up, one reason to stay alive…today” (pp. 72-73, 75).
“You aren’t going to make it all the way to shore without running into some monsters, without staring them down, without naming them…Everything we tried to push down for so long—every flaw and fault we have denied or ignored, every truth we rather not come to terms with—all this will come to light in the crisis of a shipwreck and we’re not going to make it safely to shore unless we deal with these monsters we haven’t dealt with for so long” (pp. 111-112).
“The first discovery of the shipwreck is that we have a higher capacity for pain than we ever could have imagined before we lost, before we failed, before we suffered…The surprise on the other side of the shipwreck is that, while your capacity for pain improved far beyond our wildest reckoning, now you have a capacity to feel everything deeper. You are capable of a depth of empathy and compassion that would have been unthinkable before…And from this new-found capacity for pain, for sorrow, for torment, for agony, for endless waves of grief, comes the biggest surprise of them all—your new-found capacity for joy” (pp. 194-195).
May 21, 2017
This book was recommended by a friend who was going through a difficult season at the same time I was. After reading the book, I'm not quite sure why it was recommended to me. I found Martin's writing to be vague and flowery at times and his ideas to be confusing and ambivalent.
November 5, 2016
I loved Jonathan Martin's previous book Prototype. It was about becoming like Jesus (the prototype of the new humanity) by discovering your true self. One chapter that was particularly meaningful to me was the one on wilderness. Martin described the experience of waiting and longing I was feeling at the time, and invited me to see my wilderness as a pregnant place, to attend to it, and discover what Christ may be birthing in me. This helped me reframe my life and circumstance.
It is now three-years-later. Martin, like me, went through a bit of a vocational crisis. He was the pastor of Renovatus, a thriving church in Charlotte North Carolina, he was happily married, and had a supportive network of friends. Then came the shipwreck. Martin was a broken man:
How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is on the Way and Love Is Already Here is Martin's encouragement to fellow castaways. He opens up his journey through the wreckage. He tells of the practices, relationships and the strong loving God that carried him through: Martin writes:
Martin gives only sparse details of the nature of his crisis, but this book isn't about that. It is about the aftermath. Martin's shipwreck brought him significant, lived insight about the life of faith and the spiritual journey. He shares about learning to relinquish control, the importance of eating, sleeping and breathing through a crisis, the art of dying, and learning to risk again. He tells of the community and relational connections he made as he found himself in a more vulnerable place.
I enjoy this book as much as Prototype. It comes from an honest place and shows the ways that Martin has grown in the last couple of years. Critiquing his earlier book, Martin writes, "those were things I knew so much more with my head than with my heart, uplifting information that was still turning into revelation inside of me." He observes the lack of understanding about death in his earlier volume:
I love seeing the growth in Martin. And he does walk through shipwreck and crisis and come out the other end. Currently he is a teaching pastor at Sanctuary Church in Tulsa.
I have had this book for months and have been meaning to review it for some time. My own shipwreck was too raw for me when I first got this for me to appreciate Martin's theme. This is an encouraging, vulnerable read but the truth underlying it is that God is still there, his love is still strong and there is no crisis, failure, or catastrophe that God can't use to form us. I give this five stars. ★★★★★
It is now three-years-later. Martin, like me, went through a bit of a vocational crisis. He was the pastor of Renovatus, a thriving church in Charlotte North Carolina, he was happily married, and had a supportive network of friends. Then came the shipwreck. Martin was a broken man:
I had failed in my marriage. I had failed my church. I had failed my friends. I sailed my own ship into the rocks and both the relationships that mattered most to me and my calling to the church I loved were the casualties. (Kindle location 337 of 3001).
How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is on the Way and Love Is Already Here is Martin's encouragement to fellow castaways. He opens up his journey through the wreckage. He tells of the practices, relationships and the strong loving God that carried him through: Martin writes:
It is possible to fail, and not have our faith fail us. It is possible to lose our lives, and not lose our souls. The master teacher taught us himself that it is only in losing our lives—in their ego pretensions and posturing, in their careful image constructions and neediness—that this richer, deeper, below-the-surface life can be found. This is the life hidden with Christ in God, where almost anything can happen at the top of things without disrupting the grace that lies in the bottom of the sea in you. (Chapter 1, Location 404).
Martin gives only sparse details of the nature of his crisis, but this book isn't about that. It is about the aftermath. Martin's shipwreck brought him significant, lived insight about the life of faith and the spiritual journey. He shares about learning to relinquish control, the importance of eating, sleeping and breathing through a crisis, the art of dying, and learning to risk again. He tells of the community and relational connections he made as he found himself in a more vulnerable place.
I enjoy this book as much as Prototype. It comes from an honest place and shows the ways that Martin has grown in the last couple of years. Critiquing his earlier book, Martin writes, "those were things I knew so much more with my head than with my heart, uplifting information that was still turning into revelation inside of me." He observes the lack of understanding about death in his earlier volume:
I had written a book on Christian spirituality, of which death and resurrection are its central motifs and defining characteristics—and had moved straight from wounds to resurrection. There was nothing in that book about death, because I did not yet know what it would mean to die. (chapter seven, location 2194).
I love seeing the growth in Martin. And he does walk through shipwreck and crisis and come out the other end. Currently he is a teaching pastor at Sanctuary Church in Tulsa.
I have had this book for months and have been meaning to review it for some time. My own shipwreck was too raw for me when I first got this for me to appreciate Martin's theme. This is an encouraging, vulnerable read but the truth underlying it is that God is still there, his love is still strong and there is no crisis, failure, or catastrophe that God can't use to form us. I give this five stars. ★★★★★
February 18, 2017
A few pages in and I found myself underlining paragraph after paragraph until I felt maybe I should just underline the whole book.
This vulnerable and insightful book was beautiful to read despite being about tragedy, chaos, suffering and despair. So much of what he talks about resonates with me having gone through my own shipwreck that was years ago and yet just yesterday.
The words describe the chaos and the darkness and the loneliness and the fear and the lostness that comes when the ship of everything that has carried you falls apart and leaves you drowning or adrift. As well, the words also describe the hope, the love, the rebirth, the newness that comes with gaining shore again.
If you are finding yourself shipwrecked metaphorically speaking in life, you may find the words of this man who has been in his own shipwreck, helpful. At the very least they will let you know you are not alone.
So please don't give up today! You may think you are drowning, but I say along with the author, "I can tell you that even if the ship does not survive, you will." And "That on the other side of the storm that tears you to pieces is a capacity to love without doubt, to live without fear, to be something infinitely more powerful than the man or woman you were before it happened."
"Your life is a sign and a sacrament for someone, a light in someone else's darkness."
There is hope and there is love; a beacon that shines in the darkness.
This book is like a painting, that whoever stands before it will see it through the lenses of their experiences, but those who are going through or have been there, will be moved the most by it.
This vulnerable and insightful book was beautiful to read despite being about tragedy, chaos, suffering and despair. So much of what he talks about resonates with me having gone through my own shipwreck that was years ago and yet just yesterday.
The words describe the chaos and the darkness and the loneliness and the fear and the lostness that comes when the ship of everything that has carried you falls apart and leaves you drowning or adrift. As well, the words also describe the hope, the love, the rebirth, the newness that comes with gaining shore again.
If you are finding yourself shipwrecked metaphorically speaking in life, you may find the words of this man who has been in his own shipwreck, helpful. At the very least they will let you know you are not alone.
So please don't give up today! You may think you are drowning, but I say along with the author, "I can tell you that even if the ship does not survive, you will." And "That on the other side of the storm that tears you to pieces is a capacity to love without doubt, to live without fear, to be something infinitely more powerful than the man or woman you were before it happened."
"Your life is a sign and a sacrament for someone, a light in someone else's darkness."
There is hope and there is love; a beacon that shines in the darkness.
This book is like a painting, that whoever stands before it will see it through the lenses of their experiences, but those who are going through or have been there, will be moved the most by it.
March 2, 2019
Beautiful...
I am about 14 years out, now, from my most devastating shipwreck- the one that I wondered if I would ever survive. During that time, I was desperate for someone to show me that there was life on the other side, that it was possible to survive. I so wish that this book had been available then- it would have been a life-saver!
As I read through this book, I'll be honest, I felt somewhat removed from it all. Despite other significant storms I've weathered since my "shipwreck", I've arrived in a good place. I finally feel at peace with where I've been, what I've battled, and where I'm going. Because of that, I just was somewhat disengaged through most of the book. In the final two chapters, though, Martin talks more about rebuilding your life after the shipwreck, which is an intrinsic part of my story right now and was more meaningful to me at this stage.
The final few pages of the book were an incredible plea from Martin to the reader to hang on just a little bit longer, and I want to add my testimony to his. There IS life after a shipwreck, you WILL find hope again, and though you will never be the same, life CAN be overwhelmingly beautiful again.
If you are battling the waves right now, unsure that you'll make it through the night, PLEASE get this book right now! You will not be sorry! If you find yourself already back on solid ground, as I do, I think you will read this book as a beautiful reminder of the Mercy and Grace that buoyed us when we were unaware.
<3
I am about 14 years out, now, from my most devastating shipwreck- the one that I wondered if I would ever survive. During that time, I was desperate for someone to show me that there was life on the other side, that it was possible to survive. I so wish that this book had been available then- it would have been a life-saver!
As I read through this book, I'll be honest, I felt somewhat removed from it all. Despite other significant storms I've weathered since my "shipwreck", I've arrived in a good place. I finally feel at peace with where I've been, what I've battled, and where I'm going. Because of that, I just was somewhat disengaged through most of the book. In the final two chapters, though, Martin talks more about rebuilding your life after the shipwreck, which is an intrinsic part of my story right now and was more meaningful to me at this stage.
The final few pages of the book were an incredible plea from Martin to the reader to hang on just a little bit longer, and I want to add my testimony to his. There IS life after a shipwreck, you WILL find hope again, and though you will never be the same, life CAN be overwhelmingly beautiful again.
If you are battling the waves right now, unsure that you'll make it through the night, PLEASE get this book right now! You will not be sorry! If you find yourself already back on solid ground, as I do, I think you will read this book as a beautiful reminder of the Mercy and Grace that buoyed us when we were unaware.
<3
November 2, 2016
The year has almost come to an end and this is the time when many people take stock of what went wrong and what can be improved. A lot of people I spoke to told me that this year, they felt they were in a shipwreck and just managed to stay afloat.
With that in mind, I was on the look out for a book that will speak to these feelings. At some point in time, we have all felt like we’ve been barely surviving. No one seems to have a manual for how we can pull through.
Style/ Plot:
The 224 paged book is full of stories about Jonathan, the failures he has encountered and how he has been able to keep his head up. I especially enjoyed reading about the fact that we all possess resilience and these failures are opportunities to exercise the resilience in us.
He encourages vulnerability…after all, how will you address issues and circumstances if you don’t acknowledge them?
Memorable Quote:
“Please do not give up. You can think about it again tomorrow, but please not today. Please do not let yourself drown. Please do not let the merciless tides tread over your precious head. There is so much life for you. I know, because I found it and dear God, I want the same for you”.
Recommendation:
If you are looking for something that encourages your soul and is in alignment with the Christian faith, this is a great book to read. He does not sugar coat anything and he ensures that the reader understands that there is much more power available to us than we can imagine.
With that in mind, I was on the look out for a book that will speak to these feelings. At some point in time, we have all felt like we’ve been barely surviving. No one seems to have a manual for how we can pull through.
Style/ Plot:
The 224 paged book is full of stories about Jonathan, the failures he has encountered and how he has been able to keep his head up. I especially enjoyed reading about the fact that we all possess resilience and these failures are opportunities to exercise the resilience in us.
He encourages vulnerability…after all, how will you address issues and circumstances if you don’t acknowledge them?
Memorable Quote:
“Please do not give up. You can think about it again tomorrow, but please not today. Please do not let yourself drown. Please do not let the merciless tides tread over your precious head. There is so much life for you. I know, because I found it and dear God, I want the same for you”.
Recommendation:
If you are looking for something that encourages your soul and is in alignment with the Christian faith, this is a great book to read. He does not sugar coat anything and he ensures that the reader understands that there is much more power available to us than we can imagine.
July 18, 2019
I remember the blog post titled "How to Survive a Shipwreck" that Jonathan wrote before it became this book. It hit me at a critical point, on a critical day in my personal journey and rocked me. The book is all about how to go through crisis, failure, disaster — anything that disrupts life that you understand as normal, stripping away all of the fluff and leaving you with one task: survival.
My favorite part of the book is the first half, with chapter three being one of the most compelling chapters I've ever read. Martin is raw and poetic. The book is certainly not academic and very accessible, although this is not to say that it is not challenging or profound. I just love the way that Martin writes — smooth but with fire.
The last chapter grabbed my heart as well and I will close my review with one of my favorite sections:
"I will ask you as the ambassador of a whole tribe of shipwrecked souls you do not yet know, in lands near and far that you cannot yet see, for whom also your life will yet be great grace. As much as you may have felt like you lost yourself, your presence in this world is enough for somebody else to feel found [...] I am telling you there's a light inside of you that does need to be held on to, a flame that the harsh elements might snuff out if you let them. You will one day lose your life, as we all will. But in the living and the dying and all that happens between, you don't have to lose your fire."
My favorite part of the book is the first half, with chapter three being one of the most compelling chapters I've ever read. Martin is raw and poetic. The book is certainly not academic and very accessible, although this is not to say that it is not challenging or profound. I just love the way that Martin writes — smooth but with fire.
The last chapter grabbed my heart as well and I will close my review with one of my favorite sections:
"I will ask you as the ambassador of a whole tribe of shipwrecked souls you do not yet know, in lands near and far that you cannot yet see, for whom also your life will yet be great grace. As much as you may have felt like you lost yourself, your presence in this world is enough for somebody else to feel found [...] I am telling you there's a light inside of you that does need to be held on to, a flame that the harsh elements might snuff out if you let them. You will one day lose your life, as we all will. But in the living and the dying and all that happens between, you don't have to lose your fire."
June 25, 2016
Fabulous book. As he walks us through his own shipwrecked life, he gives us encouragement for the shipwrecks that we face. He makes it clear there is no handbook for this very difficult and personal experience that we all go through.
There are lots of things that shipwreck us - lost loved ones, lost jobs, lost marriages, lost health, lost faith.
He gives us hope for a better life on the other side. You come out a different person, changed in many ways. Almost no one wishes to go back to the person they used to be.
Recovering evangelicals will resonate with his story and be encouraged.
I will be reading this one again.
Here's a passage I loved:
"The search for meaning is a quest for power we are not designed to bear, an obstacle to the grace of insignificance. What could prepare us for the breath of God (Spirit) that hums all life into being, except we be emptied of our pretensions of significance?
[...]
"The gospel doesn't fulfill our quest for significance, but exposes its essential folly. It gives us something better than meaning -- namely, love. The love of God gives us unfathomable value despite our objective smallness. But it still leaves us blissfully unimportant."
There are lots of things that shipwreck us - lost loved ones, lost jobs, lost marriages, lost health, lost faith.
He gives us hope for a better life on the other side. You come out a different person, changed in many ways. Almost no one wishes to go back to the person they used to be.
Recovering evangelicals will resonate with his story and be encouraged.
I will be reading this one again.
Here's a passage I loved:
"The search for meaning is a quest for power we are not designed to bear, an obstacle to the grace of insignificance. What could prepare us for the breath of God (Spirit) that hums all life into being, except we be emptied of our pretensions of significance?
[...]
"The gospel doesn't fulfill our quest for significance, but exposes its essential folly. It gives us something better than meaning -- namely, love. The love of God gives us unfathomable value despite our objective smallness. But it still leaves us blissfully unimportant."
July 23, 2016
I wish I could separate my rating into two categories: 2 stars for Martin's personal story and 4 stars for his commentary on Biblical stories. It took about half the book for me to really connect with Martin's story. Once I did, it was tough to put down. But, his writing - though poetic - is meandering and I felt like he could tighten his examples.
The parts that most resonated with me are when he walked through the stories from the Bible. His thoughts on Job and the Leviathan made me eager to reread that story. Martin reminds us that sea monsters aren't something God should save us from but rather a reminder that, "God is at home in chaos - it's the place from which he started the universe." (129) Had Martin made that sentence his central thesis, I think the book may have appealed to a wider audience.
I think this book will resonate with people going through a loss that is not devastating. It's an encouragement and gives hope in the journey. Martin's story is the one you hope for during a difficult season - of hope, seeking, and ultimately successful redemption.
**I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.**
The parts that most resonated with me are when he walked through the stories from the Bible. His thoughts on Job and the Leviathan made me eager to reread that story. Martin reminds us that sea monsters aren't something God should save us from but rather a reminder that, "God is at home in chaos - it's the place from which he started the universe." (129) Had Martin made that sentence his central thesis, I think the book may have appealed to a wider audience.
I think this book will resonate with people going through a loss that is not devastating. It's an encouragement and gives hope in the journey. Martin's story is the one you hope for during a difficult season - of hope, seeking, and ultimately successful redemption.
**I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.**
August 6, 2016
In How To Survive A Shipwreck – Help Is On The Way And Love Is Already Here, Jonathan Marin eloquently and transparently helps us to navigate the murky waters of life when “the shipwreck is upon you and there is no going back to the life you had.”
What I like most about How To Survive A Shipwreck is that the book is based on personal experience provides many profound insights that readers can relate to.
The book does not provide easy answers or solutions to our darkest moments or our deepest pain, but point to us to the One who is there to uphold and uplift and sustain us during every moment of our lives – the God who invites us into an ever-deepening relationship with Him as we survey the wreck and begin to build anew.
This review is an excerpt from the original review that is published on my blog. To read my review in its entirety, please visit Create With Joy.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own, based on my experience with this book.
What I like most about How To Survive A Shipwreck is that the book is based on personal experience provides many profound insights that readers can relate to.
The book does not provide easy answers or solutions to our darkest moments or our deepest pain, but point to us to the One who is there to uphold and uplift and sustain us during every moment of our lives – the God who invites us into an ever-deepening relationship with Him as we survey the wreck and begin to build anew.
This review is an excerpt from the original review that is published on my blog. To read my review in its entirety, please visit Create With Joy.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own, based on my experience with this book.
September 1, 2019
Jonathan Martin is highly quotable. Multiple times through the reading of this book, I found myself entranced by his turns of phrase.
That is both this book's beauty and its eventual downfall. It deeply struggles to say anything substantial about a topic (personal and spiritual crisis) that should be dripping with substance. Instead of telling a story, speaking to real loses (the anecdotes often come off as forced and trite), the book overcommits to metaphor. Attempts to do theology (like in the chapter which does a cursory look at Job and "monsters" in the Bible) are muddy and get lost in flourished sentences and soundbytes. Attempts to do pastoral care (like the section on eating, breathing and sleeping) betray the author's lack of confidence on the topic. He regularly relays, "I'm no expert on this, but..." or "This is how I did it, but that probably won't be helpful for most people..." in the subtext of his message.
I heard Martin say in a sermon years after writing this book that life had taught him that he wrote it before he really understood the shipwreck and what was required in its aftermath. The book betrays that realization.
That is both this book's beauty and its eventual downfall. It deeply struggles to say anything substantial about a topic (personal and spiritual crisis) that should be dripping with substance. Instead of telling a story, speaking to real loses (the anecdotes often come off as forced and trite), the book overcommits to metaphor. Attempts to do theology (like in the chapter which does a cursory look at Job and "monsters" in the Bible) are muddy and get lost in flourished sentences and soundbytes. Attempts to do pastoral care (like the section on eating, breathing and sleeping) betray the author's lack of confidence on the topic. He regularly relays, "I'm no expert on this, but..." or "This is how I did it, but that probably won't be helpful for most people..." in the subtext of his message.
I heard Martin say in a sermon years after writing this book that life had taught him that he wrote it before he really understood the shipwreck and what was required in its aftermath. The book betrays that realization.
January 21, 2017
A book I read because Kindle put it on sale and Shauna Niequist wrote forward. I haven't read any of her books yet but I still her recommendations for some reason. It's a quick read. Poetically written with many extended metaphors. Sometimes a little too poetic and too extended, but I found myself highlighting several large portions of the book. It resonated with me as someone who also grew up in a conservative Southern denomination with fundamentalist tendencies and how those communities don't really handle crisis well. Especially when it involves a leader. I wish he would have provided a little more detail to his story because it would have added context and depth, but perhaps he kept it vague for a reason. Perhaps to broaden its appeal and say that regardless of why the ship wrecked, reality is it wrecked and you can survive it. It's a book I would recommend for those who feel like life is crashing in all around them and they aren't sure if they'll come out the other side intact. They will. You will. Hope remains.
March 11, 2017
Great help in a real time of need
I had my own shipwreck and this book spoke well toy soul. I would reccomend this to believers stuck in a downward spiral.
I had my own shipwreck and this book spoke well toy soul. I would reccomend this to believers stuck in a downward spiral.
July 22, 2016
Without doubt, the most truthful and poetic account of the arc of the spiritual life that I've read since Rohr's Falling Upward, and a profound meditation on the experience of life falling apart due to our own brokenness and the way back to life and restoration. Jonathan's account in many ways mirrors my own story -- from the loss of the life I expected to live, to the attempt to hang on to what is past, to the restoration that comes from people you never expected, and the integrated life that comes when the old things are past and we finally live from the completed wholeness and truthfulness of our being. And like Jonathan, I found that place in the soulfulness of New Orleans. The spiritual book of 2016, and one of the best of the decade. This book will stay on my shelf, for it is the way through the sea and back to land.
February 8, 2017
This is a truthful and beautiful book. I loved how the author interwove his story with the story of humanity and the love of God and his ultimate role in going through the hard stuff. I particularly love his explanation of baptism and chaos. I would recommend anyone who does not agree with the plattitude God would not give you more than you can handle to read this book. The truth spoken and honesty written will move you and change how you think about the shipwrecks of life.
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