Some books explain grief to you. This one just sits next to you in it. This Side of the Sky: 101 Poems and Scriptures for the Hungry, Hopeful, and Homesick is Laura Wifler's debut poetry collection, and it landed on my porch during a season when I've been thinking a lot about loss, my body changing, and what it means to keep believing God is near when life doesn't feel like it.
Wifler is best known as the cofounder of Risen Motherhood, so I went in expecting something aimed mostly at moms. It's not that narrow. This is a book about being a woman who is aging, grieving, hoping, and still trying to notice God in the middle of an ordinary, sometimes exhausting life. It just happens that a lot of that experience overlaps with motherhood, without requiring you to be a mom yourself to feel what she's getting at.
Disclosure: I received this item free in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are 100% my own.
⚡ Key Takeaways
- 📖 This Side of the Sky is Laura Wifler's debut poetry collection, pairing 101 original poems with Scripture.
- 💔 The poems deal honestly with grief, aging, suffering, and the tension of living faithfully in a broken world.
- 🗣️ Wifler's voice is plain and conversational rather than formal or heavily metaphorical, which won't suit every poetry reader.
- 🎧 The audiobook is narrated by Wifler herself and includes bonus content not found in the print edition.
- 🎁 It works as a quiet personal read or as a thoughtful gift for someone walking through a hard season.
What This Book Is About
This Side of the Sky is built around 101 short poems, each one paired with a related piece of Scripture. Wifler writes about the parts of womanhood that don't always make it into polished devotionals: a body that doesn't work the way it used to, grief that doesn't resolve on a tidy timeline, friendships that shift, marriages that get hard, and the strange ache of loving people you know you'll eventually have to say goodbye to. The title itself points to the book's central idea: that there's a heaven on the other side of the sky, and everything we're carrying right now is happening on this side of it.
The poems aren't written in a dense, academic style. Wifler's language is plain and direct, closer to how someone actually talks than how a formal poet writes. That's intentional. Reviewers have described her voice as remarkably specific yet wildly universal, which tracks with what I noticed reading it myself. A poem about her own specific grief somehow described a feeling I've had that had nothing to do with her exact circumstances.
The collection covers a wide range of subjects across its chapters, touching on motherhood, marriage, friendship, suffering, children with disabilities, and what the publisher calls the realities of the human experience this side of Eden. It doesn't shy away from pain, but it consistently turns back toward hope rather than sitting in despair. The physical book also has gorgeously printed end sheets, which is a small detail, but it makes it feel like something worth keeping on a shelf rather than passing along after one read.
Who This Resource Is For
This book will resonate most with women who are past the point of wanting easy answers and are ready for something that names hard feelings honestly before it offers hope. It's especially suited to anyone in a season of grief, whether that's losing a person, a pet, a version of your body, or a version of your life you thought you'd have by now. I lost my cat Adah this year after an aggressive illness, and I found myself tearing up at more than one poem about loss that had nothing literally to do with pets but everything to do with the shape of grief itself.
It's also a strong fit for Christian women managing a health journey or watching their bodies change in ways they didn't choose, since several poems deal directly with aging in a body that feels less reliable than it used to. Busy readers will appreciate that each poem is short enough to read in a couple of minutes, which makes this realistic for someone who only has five or ten quiet minutes in a day rather than a full hour to sit with a book.
What You Might Be Wondering
Is this too sad or heavy for a gift?
It's honest about hard things, but it isn't hopeless. Every poem is paired with Scripture, and the collection consistently moves toward comfort and hope rather than leaving you sitting in grief with nowhere to go. I'd actually argue this makes it a better gift for someone in a hard season than a relentlessly cheerful devotional would be, because it doesn't ask the person to pretend they're fine.
Do I need to enjoy poetry to appreciate this book?
You don't need to be a poetry person going in. Wifler's style is conversational rather than experimental or image-heavy, so if you've been intimidated by poetry in the past because it felt hard to decode, this collection is far more accessible than that. Readers who prefer highly formal or abstract poetry might find the plainness less impressive, but for most readers that plainness is exactly what makes it easy to connect with.
Is this only for moms, given Wifler's background with Risen Motherhood?
No. Motherhood shows up as one thread among several, alongside marriage, friendship, grief, and the experience of aging in a body. I don't have kids myself, and I still found plenty in this collection that spoke directly to where I am in life. If you're a woman who has ever grieved, aged, or wondered where God is in an ordinary hard day, this book was written with you in mind too.
What Stood Out to Me
The pairing of poem and Scripture on facing themes is what makes this collection function almost like a devotional, even though it's shelved as poetry. You could read one entry a day for over three months and never run out of new material, or you could sit down and read a whole section in one sitting when you need it most. That flexibility is rare in a poetry collection, most of which assume you'll read cover to cover in order.
I also appreciated how directly Wifler writes about the body changing with age and illness. I've spent the past several years working with my doctor on managing PCOS, prediabetes, and insulin resistance, and I've had to make peace with a body that doesn't cooperate the way I'd like. Reading poems that named that exact kind of frustration, wrapped in real faith rather than forced positivity, felt like being handed permission to be honest about my own body instead of pretending everything about this journey has been easy.
Grief researchers have long noted that naming a loss out loud, rather than avoiding it, is part of healthy grieving, a point echoed in guidance from the American Psychological Association on processing loss. This collection does exactly that kind of naming, just in verse instead of prose, and pairs it with Scripture instead of leaving the reader to sit with the pain alone.
How You Can Use It
This isn't a book that requires a set schedule, which is part of what makes it so usable. It can work as a slow, one poem a day devotional practice, or as a same-day comfort read when you're in the middle of a hard moment and need something short that still says something true. A few ways to use it:
- Keep it on a nightstand and read one or two poems before bed as a short, low-pressure devotional habit.
- Send a photo of a specific poem to a friend who's grieving or going through a hard season, since the short format makes it easy to share a single piece rather than a whole chapter.
- Use select poems in a women's small group or Bible study as a discussion starter around grief, aging, or motherhood.
- Listen to the audiobook, narrated by Wifler herself with bonus content, during a commute or while doing chores.
The physical edition, with its printed end sheets, also makes it a nicer gift than most paperbacks, so it's worth considering the print copy even if you'd normally default to a Kindle version.
My Favorite Takeaways
My biggest takeaway is that grief and hope aren't opposites in this book; they're neighbors. Wifler doesn't ask readers to pick one feeling and commit to it. She lets both live on the same page, which felt truer to my own experience of losing Adah than most of the tidier grief resources I've come across since June.
The second takeaway is how much comfort there is in specificity. A vague statement like "God is with you" can feel hollow when you're actually hurting. Wifler's poems get specific about exactly what hurts, a changing body, a friendship that faded, a child's diagnosis, and then let Scripture speak into that specific pain rather than a general one. That specificity is what makes the hope in this book land instead of bouncing off.
Where to Get It
You can find This Side of the Sky: 101 Poems and Scriptures for the Hungry, Hopeful, and Homesick in print, ebook, and audiobook formats through the official purchase link. The audiobook, narrated by Wifler with bonus content, is worth considering if you'd rather listen than read.
This book makes a genuinely meaningful gift for a friend walking through grief, a woman managing a health change she didn't ask for, or anyone in a season between Thanksgiving and the new year when reflection tends to hit harder anyway. It would also be a good pick for a women's small group looking for shorter readings that still open up real conversation. If any of that sounds like someone in your life, or like you right now, start with the sample poems on the book's page before deciding whether to buy the print or audio edition.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is This Side of the Sky by Laura Wifler about?
It's a debut poetry collection of 101 original poems, each paired with a related Scripture passage. The poems explore grief, aging, motherhood, marriage, friendship, and suffering, all through the lens of a Christian woman trying to notice God's presence in ordinary, sometimes painful days. You can read more about the collection on its official Tyndale page.
Is This Side of the Sky only for mothers?
No. While author Laura Wifler cofounded the ministry Risen Motherhood, this collection covers a much wider range of experiences, including grief, aging, friendship, and marriage. Readers without children can connect with most of the poems just as easily as mothers can, since the themes center on being a woman navigating a hard, hopeful life rather than parenting specifically.
Does This Side of the Sky work as a grief resource?
Yes, though it isn't marketed strictly as a grief book. Several poems deal directly with loss and suffering, and each is paired with Scripture that offers comfort without minimizing the pain. It's a gentler, shorter format than a full grief devotional, which makes it useful for someone who wants comfort in small doses rather than a long structured study.
Is the audiobook version worth choosing over the print edition?
It depends on your preference. The audiobook is narrated by Laura Wifler herself and includes bonus content not found in print, which some readers will find adds warmth and intimacy to the poems. The print edition has gorgeously printed end sheets that make it a nicer physical keepsake or gift, so if you want something to display or write in, print is the better choice.
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