Spiritual Pain

In this eloquent account of her current struggle with physical pain, Joni Eareckson Tada offers her perspective on divine healing, God’s purposes, and what it means to live with joy. Over four decades ago, a diving accident left Joni a quadriplegic. Today, she faces a new battle: unrelenting pain. The ongoing urgency of this season in her life has caused Joni to return to foundational questions about suffering and God’s will.

Shame controls far too many of us. But look at Jesus through the lens of shame, and see how the marginalized and worthless are his favorites and become his people. God cares for the shamed. Through Jesus you are covered, adopted, cleansed, and healed. Shame Interrupted is a perfect book if you are feeling left out or marginalized because it will help you understand that all Christians are loved by God. You'll learn that through faith there is nothing to be ashamed about, and you should celebrate your differences.

Pain is NOT the end of your story. Katie Souza was a career criminal, and after being convicted of a number of felonies, she was sent to federal prison to serve almost 12 years. While serving what would be her final prison sentence, Katie encountered God in a way that dramatically changed her life. She immediately became an outspoken advocate for Jesus, and her infectious love for him caused many women inside her cell block to accept him as their savior.

It's unnerving, isn't it? When our faith feels ungrounded, untethered . . . unreal. When our certainty is adrift, as though an undercurrent has pulled us away from shore into the deep, into the darkness. And if this is you—if you're in a dark night of the soul—please know that you are not alone. (And you are not as far away from safety as you may feel or fear.) The night is not your enemy. In fact, the night is necessary. Revered author, speaker, and mentor Dr. Alicia Britt Chole offers a groundbreaking perspective that reveals spiritual disillusionment as an unexpected friend.

Imagine a life in which we literally believe God and take him at his word, one in which we let the trials and tribulations that hit us roll off our backs. We look at those trials as a “life college” and learn everything we can through them. We get better, not bitter. When relationships fail, instead of looking at them as our personal failures, we believe rejection is God’s protection and that he wanted the people out of our lives. The points in this book are all about perception shifts - learning how to take the bad and shift it for our good.

When your child has reached (or long since passed) the point of independence, it's difficult to know what your "help" as a parent should look like. Following her best-selling book Setting Boundaries®with Your Adult Children, Allison Bottke offers an in-depth guide to help you connect with your adult child and to build your confidence, knowledge, and hope, as your child walks through challenging situations. Learn how to develop effective strategies to truly help your adult child - without sacrificing your sanity.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews said, "See to it that no one misses the grace of God." Over the centuries much ink has been spilled on the subject of grace. Yet perhaps nothing is as hard to explain as God's grace. It doesn't make sense. It's not fair. It can't possibly cover over what I've done. The best way - perhaps the only real way - to understand it is to experience it. But too often in our churches we're not getting grace across and grace is not experienced.

Life is often messy but thankfully, trouble is not continuous in our lives. We also go through seasons that are peaceful and pleasant. But life does not always go as we would like, and we need to be prepared for the times when it gets messy. In Blessed in the Mess, beloved Bible teacher Joyce Meyer shows us how to be blessed even amid life's most challenging circumstances. Blessed in the Mess collects Biblical wisdom into poignant and practical teaching that equips us to remain stable and hopeful in every situation.

Do you sometimes feel as though your body is a problem to solve? Discover how to make it part of the solution instead. It’s now known that the emotional and relational pain we’ve lived through has a profound negative physical effect on our bodies. Alisa Keeton, popular fitness professional, proposes that the reverse is also true: What we do with our bodies can have a dramatic positive effect on our emotions, relationships, and our connection with God.

A social activist, journalist, public theologian, and international speaker who has become a powerful and brilliant voice of her generation offers a bold path to liberation and healing for people of African descent struggling in the shadows of the American Dream.

Why is suffering the common lot of all people everywhere - believers and non-believers alike - and why does it seem that the world is out of control when it comes to the problem of pain and suffering? Who’s in Charge of a World that Suffers? includes an informative and inspirational new introduction by Franklin Graham that speaks to today’s reader in the midst of painful circumstances.

Trauma, abuse, childhood wounds, and toxic relationships have broken us. But there is no shame in brokenness. In fact, it’s in our brokenness where the healing power of Jesus comes to find us. Brave Enough to Be Broken is a biblical road map you can use to heal from the pain, the shame, and the regrets that have tried to steal your joy, so you can rest in the unconditional love, healing, and hope of Jesus.

The essential theme of the book of Job is to reveal how God takes a man who is blameless and upright, with a passion for God and a willing spirit, and promotes him to a higher spiritual plane than he could have ever imagined. Those who persevere in the pain and perplexity of the Job crucible are being prepared for renewed intimacy with God, and will be raised up to equip the endtime bride of Christ. Let Job’s example compel you toward God’s highest and best. 

Breathe is for anyone experiencing any level of grief, anxiety, bereavement, regret, sorrow, disappointment, and depression. Through true stories and biblical principles, and clinical pastoral techniques, the listener will identify with the normalcy of spiritual pain - mental, emotional, and psychological pain such as regret, guilt, and heartache. As the steps in this volume are practiced repeatedly, and as needed, the listener will learn to demonstrate self-care and how to manage spiritual pain, developing safe grieving practices.

Turn your weakest, most discouraging moments into your best, most uplifting moments. Listen and discover how God uses the things that seek to destroy us to become the very things that bring us salvation, bring us hope, bring us to prayer, bring us together, and ultimately bring us to heaven.

Frederick Buechner has grappled with the nature of pain, grief, and grace ever since his father committed suicide when Buechner was a young boy. He continued that search as a father when his daughter struggled with anorexia. In this essential collection of essays, including one never before published, Frederick Buechner finds that the God who might seem so silent is ever near. He writes about what it means to be a steward of our pain, and about this grace from God that seems arbitrary and yet draws us to his holiness and care.

This Too Shall Last offers an antidote to our cultural idolatry of effort and ease. Through personal story and insights from neuroscience and theology, Ramsey invites us to let our tears become lenses of the wonder that before God ever rescues us, he stands in solidarity with us. We are all mid-story in circumstances we did not choose, wondering when our hard things will end and where grace will come if they don’t. We don't need to make suffering a before-and-after story.

Everyone experiences pain at times. It can manifest physically, emotionally, relationally, or spiritually. It can follow tragic accidents, great loss, sudden betrayal, or unexpected and unwanted change. Often it is temporary. But what do you do when it isn't? When the pain just won't go away, when healing does not come, when the grief and hurt settle in? Drawing on her own experience of chronic pain and her years as a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist, Dr. Michelle Bengtson provides a countercultural perspective on pain.

What will you do when the unthinkable happens in your life? Her parents called her Lenya Lion because of her ferocious personality and hair that had been wild and manelike since birth. But they never expected that five days before Christmas, their five-year-old daughter would suddenly go to heaven after an asthma attack. How do you walk out of an emergency room without your daughter?

We all suffer, but if you struggle with why that is and how to find the hope and strength to go on, this book is for you. Ryan shares his journey from the darkest depths of hysterical sadness to acceptance, understanding, and joy. He explores the purpose of suffering and shows you how to gain from it. He does this not on a grand humanity level, but on a vulnerable, personal level, with unique insights that will make a difference in how you live and how you approach death.