Fifty Verses from which to Address Loss and Suffering
The following review brought me much encouragement this week. If you are not yet familiar with my latest counseling devotional, A Small Book for the Hurting Heart, you can get a quick overview here.
“Whatever your grief, whatever your pain, whatever your loss, there is comfort available” (p. 1).
Loss is an inevitable part of life in a fallen world. No one is immune to suffering. Everything we love is vulnerable. Loss intrudes into our lives in many different forms. We may lose a loved one, a relationship, a dream, an opportunity, financial security, a physical ability due to injury or age. While other living organisms may experience misfortune, loss leaves a unique imprint upon the human soul. Suffering can penetrate deep into our hearts. The wounded soul needs healing. Recognizing this reality, biblical counselor Paul Tautges recently published his latest work—A Small Book for the Hurting Heart: Meditations on Loss, Grief, and Healing—to help sufferers find healing and rest in the comforts of the Triune God.
This work follows the same structure of the other volumes in New Growth Press’s “A Small Book” series. It contains 50 devotional chapters, each spanning only a few pages of this small book. It is important to note that the formatting serves as an intentional and important pedagogical end. Many counselors know counselees who want to speed through the counseling process and any assigned homework. After flying through booklets and handouts, some counselees feel frustrated and shortchanged even though we know that the assignments never reached their hearts. By giving the reader a few pages at a time, the reader is forced to slow down. Read a page. Get up. Return. Read again. Reflect. Leave. Come. Go. Fighting against the natural urge for “express counseling,” this work slows readers down so that the truths of Scripture can soak through their hearts. continue reading…
