Healing Hurts (ePub)

Sure to give hope and courage to everyone, no matter where one may be in life's unpredictable journey.

-Laura Magnin McDonald, MA, LPC, Co-founder of Christian Insight for Life

Pain, suffering, grief and tears. Have you had days when it feels like the pain is never going away? Days when you wonder whether you'll ever feel normal again? Times when tears stream down your face nonstop?

Drawing from her own experiences and seasons of grief, Linda Kennedy turns to Scripture to find meaning-and hope-amidst the pain. Like Job, you may find people telling you why things are happening to you as they are, but how can they really understand? How did Job respond, and what can we learn to help us through the confusion and doubt of our own pain? Joseph was betrayed time and again, leading to his slavery and unjust imprisonment. How did his dependence on God carry him through the darkest nights? Seasoned with modern-day examples from inspiring people like Joni Erickson Tada and Amy Carmichael, Healing Hurts will carry you gently, show you that you're not alone, and guide you to the One who can make sense of it all.

Succinct chapters packed with Scripture, each concluded with thought-provoking reflection questions, make Healing Hurts an excellent resource for personal study or for small groups, support groups, and one-on-one discipleship mentoring.

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I definitely have had days when it feels like the pain will never go away. The minutes and the hours drag by at a snail's pace. I start to wonder if I will ever feel okay again.

And then I look around at other people I know who are smiling and acting like they don't have a care in the world. And I start judging them-even though I really may not know them well at all. Why does it always seem like nothing bad ever happens to them?

As if I know what's really going on in their lives ...

Sometimes life just seems, well, cruel. You feel like every time you turn around more bad news hits. You make it through a severe illness and then you lose your job. Your mother comes to know the Lord and then your sister's child ends up getting killed. You finally reach retirement where you feel comfortable in your investments and the bottom falls out of the stock market. You and your husband finally are able to have children, and then you have a child that's disabled.

Why me?

But let me tell you, my friends, there is indeed hope. Because of the trials my husband and I have gone through, I often found myself pouring through the Scriptures trying to find morsels that might explain why all these things happened to me and my family.

And you know what? I actually found a lot-but there were moments I didn't want to listen to them!

So as you read this book, first pray that God would open your heart and mind, then hang on tight and prepare for healing. It may be hard to live through some of the things you have been trying to force out of your memory, but our God is greater than the trials and He does indeed have the answers you've been looking for.

I pray as you work your way through this short book that you will be blessed-and I pray that you will allow God's healing balm to sink deep into your soul ... The healing process can sometimes really hurt, but it will all be worth it.