Becoming Sanctuary: One Mother's Journey through seven Sacred Spaces of Grief

On September 17, 2015 at two in the morning, a police officer knocked on Susan Sterkenberg's door and told her that her son Greg was dead. She had spent her career helping people navigate life's most profound transitions- in organizations, in careers, in the moments when everything changes. None of it had prepared her for this. Becoming Sanctuary is the story of what happened next- not the surviving, but the transformation. Drawing on a decade of lived grief and a doctoral framework in hope-developmental theory, Sterkenberg maps the interior terrain of profound loss through seven inhabitable spaces she calls sanctuaries: not stages to complete, but sacred places to dwell in, return to, and ultimately grow from. From the initial shattering of the Threshold Room to the hard-won arrival of tragic optimism, this is a book about what grief can become when we stop fighting it and let it crack us open. Emotionally unflinching, spiritually rich, and practically grounded.Becoming Sanctuary offers the bereaved something rare: a framework that honors the full complexity of loss, a companion who has walked every step of the path, and the quietly revolutionary promise that you will not only move through these sanctuaries- you will become one. Read more