When we are hurting the thing we crave most is hope. We long to see light at the end of a tunnel. We want there to be meaning in our pain and significance in our suffering. It's out of this longing that Kristen Wetherell and Sarah Walton wrote Hope When It Hurts: Biblical Reflections to Help You Grasp God's Purpose in Your Suffering.
Rarely is a book so winsome and gracious on a subject so difficult and painful. Hope When It Hurts is both a life-giving balm to the hurting and a powerful resource for those seeking to help the hurting.
Sarah and Kristen don't write as those who have it all together -- or who are even "post-suffering." They remain in the thick of it, daily struggling with severe pain, physical and emotional. Yet they seek to be persistently faithful, fixing their eyes on Jesus, who is the source of their hope in the hurt.
Hope When It Hurts is made up of 30 brief chapters, each a meditation on suffering and God's work in it. They don't retreat from hard questions but tackle them head on with a magnificent gospel focus. Yet they are sensitive and tuned into the reality of real-life sufferers.
You cannot walk away from this book discouraged. Kristen and Sarah write about hurt in a way that is tremendously hopeful. And I am grateful for that.