Hearing Jesus Speak into your Sorrow: Book Review

Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow.

By: Nancy Guthrie, Tyndale House Publishers, 2009

In his work The Problem of Pain, prolific Christian author C.S. Lewis wrote, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” [1] For some reason, much of the contemporary Christian world has forgotten God’s purpose of pain, or maybe we’ve never learned it. Into this gap between success focused, performance centric worship and the reality of pain and suffering experiences by many Christians, Nancy Guthrie speaks. Drilling down into eleven specific circumstances, Nancy challenges her readers to find God rather than run from Him when they experience pain, suffering, grief or unanswered prayers.

From my own life, I have to shout a hearty AMEN to Nancy for her courage to write this honest testimony. While I began my life expecting every Christian, god-centered experience to be full of victory and strength, like Guthrie and Lewis, I’ve learned that the deep placed of God’s heart of compassion and mercy are only plumbed when we are sailing into a storm, in the middle of the night, and Jesus is seemingly asleep in the back of the boat.

I particularly enjoy Nancy’s addition of discussion questions in an appendix at the tail end of the book. These discussion starters make the book perfect for use in a small group . . . a place where we can receive the gift of his grace offered through others. Christian organizations like Grief Share and Celebrate Recovery that help believers recover from life-controlling emotional experiences, would greatly benefit from adding this book to their list of resources.

I highly recommend this book for anyone suffering under the weight of life’s injustice. God is waiting to talk to you, and sometimes all it takes is a book like this to help us quiet our hearts.

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[1] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940; repr., San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), p 91.