While illness brings time to think, the natural tendency of our thoughts may not be comforting. Sickness may end activities we once enjoyed; it will make us dependent upon others; and feelings of pain, or of uselessness, or of anxiety about the future, may be very real.

In this practical and spiritual guide, she shares how she navigates through the frustrations, fears, and complexities of living with chronic pain and illness. Using a combination of Bible passages, her own observations and insights, and prayer, Pratt provides help on issues that include dealing with...

An expanded edition of this classic book on grief and loss―with a new preface and epilogueLoss came suddenly for Jerry Sittser. In an instant, a tragic car accident claimed three generations of his family: his mother, his wife, and his young daughter. While most of us will not experience such a ca...

In 2008, Angie Smith and her husband Todd (lead singer of the group Selah) learned through ultrasound that their fourth daughter had conditions making her “incompatible with life.” Advised to terminate the pregnancy, the Smiths chose instead to carry this child and allow room for a miracle. That...

In times of suffering, simplistic answers ring empty and hollow. But Henri Nouwen, beloved spiritual thinker and author, offers real comfort in the concrete truth of God's constancy. Nouwen suggests that by greeting life's pains with something other than despair, we can find surprising joy in our suffering.

Sometimes life just hurts.

Out of nowhere, death, illness, unemployment, or a difficult relationship can change our lives and challenge everything we thought we knew--leaving us feeling unable to cope. But, in the midst if all this pain and confusion, we are not alone.

Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God—but it is a neglected dimension of the Christian life for many Christians today. We need to recover the practice of honest spiritual struggle that gives us permission to vocalize our pain and wrestle with our sorrow. Lament avoids trite answers and quick solutions, progressively moving us toward deeper worship and trust.

When you’re in the midst of suffering, you want answers for the unanswerable, resolutions to the unresolvable. You want to tie up pain in a pretty little package and hide it under the bed, taking it out only when you feel strong enough to face it. But grief won’t be contained. Grief disobeys. Grief explodes. In one breath, you may be able to say that God’s got this and all will be well. In the next, you might descend into fatalism. No pretending. Here, you are raw before God, an open wound.