When Life Hurts
(subtitle: Understanding God's Place in Your Pain.)
by Philip Yancey

This is a little book, only 58 pages, some of which contain only a few lines. If you are suffering physical or emotional pain, this book is an invitation for you to hope. Yancey says that pain calls our most basic beliefs about God into question. Is God competent? Is He really so powerful? Is He fair? Why doesn't He seem to care about pain? Where is God when I need Him most?

Yancey writes that these questions can become a doorway to His gracious gifts as God longs to give us something of even greater value. Do you ever wonder how God feels about our pain? Yancey has us look at Jesus. Historically He was born in poverty and died in disgrace. He suffered pain himself, along with the whole of human experiences. This doesn't remove pain from our lives now, but will in the future.

Because Jesus endured more pain than any of us will ever know, He won a victory that makes possible an eternal world without pain. Yancey reminds us that everyone has to die, yet not everyone has to stay dead. Jesus promised that those who believe in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life. What about right now? How can we sense God's love in a tangible way in the midst of our pain?

The Church, Christ's body, needs to minister to those who suffer. When we let God's compassion flow through us we let the world know how compassionate and powerful is Christ to overcome suffering and death with life.

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