Beautifully Broken: Finding Hope During Loss

Where do you turn when your worst nightmare comes true? Imagine one moment you’re heading on vacation and the next moment you’re on the phone with a police detective from the Crime Scene Unit. Then, envision hanging on to the other end of that phone for 90 minutes waiting to find out if the person who was found dead in a hotel room is your child. This is what happened to Pat Elsberry and her family. Beautifully Broken: Finding Hope During Loss is vulnerable and heart wrenching, as it shares Pat Elsberry’s walk through grief and tragedy. She delivers her story with grit and grace as she tells us how Substance Use Disorder came to be a part of her family’s life.

Pat’s daughter, Melanie, died from an accidental drug overdose in February 2020. She was only 38 years old and left behind a lifetime of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. No goodbye. No last hug. Melanie was a beautiful, but broken girl who struggled with the disease of Substance Use Disorder.

How did she get here? Isn’t this something that happens to other people? Who do you turn to during this sad, lonely, and oftentimes anxiety-ridden journey called grief?

Pat’s reliance on her faith touches us is in a very real and palpable way as she gives her heart a voice. We see that she didn’t just pull her faith out of the air when tragedy hit. She helps us see that death is hard and the grief journey is one of the toughest roads we travel in life. Yet, living a life full of faithful trust is what brings us through the valley of the shadow of death.