Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow [Hardcover]

Nancy Guthrie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 2009

In this paradigm-shifting book, Nancy Guthrie gently invites readers to lean in along with her to hear Jesus speak understanding and insight into the lingering questions we all have about the hurts of life: What was God’s involvement in this, and why did he let it happen? Why hasn’t God answered my prayers for a miracle? Can I expect God to protect me? Does God even care? According to Nancy, this questioning is not a bad thing at all but instead an opportunity. It’s a chance to hear with fresh ears the truth in the promises of the gospel we may have misapplied. It lets us retune our souls to the purposes of God we may have misunderstood.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Guthrie, author of bestselling Holding On to Hope, continues her theme of suffering in her newest book, written for those of us who find ourselves in places of deep sorrow and suffering. She mines with skill the many treasures found in Jesus' words that we might have skimmed over in the past, the ones we're so familiar with that they have little impact. Ten chapters tap into 10 phrases of Jesus, from My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death in the gospel of Matthew to My grace is all you need in 2 Corinthians. She doesn't offer platitudes, but instead speaks honestly from her own broken heart (she's buried two infants). We want to see the ways God is using our loss for good. Sometimes God... draws back the curtain and shows us;... other times we have to wait. Chapters end with paraphrased versions of Jesus' words, with discussion questions at the end of the book. Guthrie's work is an important study of suffering that offers readers an honest, provocative, grace-filled and soothing salve to their souls. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (June 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1414325487
• ISBN-13: 978-1414325484
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #216,324 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Ministry & Church Leadership > Ministry to the Sick & Bereaved

More About the Author

"God has been preparing me my whole life for teaching his Word," says Nancy Guthrie. "He has blessed me with so many sound Bible teachers to sit under--from my days as a college student in Bible classes, to terrific Bible Study Fellowship leaders, gifted pastors -- as well as several teachers like Tim Keller and John Piper that I listen to almost daily on my ipod."

Nancy's life experience--dealing with the loss of two of her children--has signi???cantly affected her teaching substance and style. "I've had to dig into God's Word in search of answers to hard questions about how he works, and I ???nd that my listeners usually have the same struggles and questions. And while I openly share the deep hurts in my life, I also like to laugh. People who hear me teach say that I'm very real, and that is certainly what I want to be." "To me, God's Word is a treasure to be mined," Nancy says. "The deeper I go in it, the more I see its wisdom, the more it authenticates itself, the more it reveals to me the amazing mystery of God."

Nancy is the author of six books including Holding on to Hope, The One Year Book of Hope, Hoping for Something Better, Dinner Table Devotions, Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow, and When Your Family's Lost a Loved One (co-written with her husband, David). She is also the editor of several anthologies published by Crossway, collections of great writing by noted classic and contemporary Bible teachers and theologians including Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross, Be Still My Soul, and O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.

She is currently working on another book for Tyndale's One Year line that will be One Year of Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament.

Nancy and her husband David live in Nashville, Tennessee while their son, Matt is off to Western Kentucky University.In addition to teaching opportunities at her church, Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Nancy speaks regularly at conferences and events around the country such as the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries Conference, The Brooklyn Tabernacle, Second Baptist Church of Houston, Taylor University, Covenant College, and in countries including Scotland and Colombia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IN TIMES OF DEEP SORROW, July 17, 2009

By 

Clifton L. Ditmore (Phoenix, Arizona USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow (Hardcover)

Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow by Nancy Guthrie touched my heart in a way that no other book on human suffering has done in many years. For over forty-seven years I was the Pastor for four different churches. Rarely a week passed that I didn't come face to face with different kinds of sorrow like infidelity, infertility, a spouse's rejection, a child's rebellion, suicide, depression, and death. I was constantly looking for ways to help those who were suffering. I learned that in times of deep sorrow, everything we believe can be called into question.

In this splendid book, Nancy Guthrie gently invites readers to come along with her to hear Jesus speak understanding and insight into the lingering questions we all have about the hurts of life. According to Nancy, pursuing answers to our questions can either take us far from God or cause us to press into him more deeply. It is as we hear Jesus speak into our confusion that we come to clarity about the promises of the gospel we may have misapplied and the purposes of God we may have misunderstood.

Ten years after burying a daughter and then a son and writing Holding On to Hope, a book that has been published in eight languages and has helped thousands of people around the world make sense of their suffering, Nancy Guthrie brings the additional perspective of years and further scriptural study to the issues we all struggle with when life hurts.

Hank Hanegraaff, said, "She does not offer up a panacea but the peace that comes from hearing Jesus speak into our sorrows." Kay Arthur wrote, "The Word of God has the answers, and that is exactly where Nancy Guthrie, a woman acquainted with sorrow, takes us. " And I say again, this is the best book on sorrow I have read in many years and I have read many books on this subject. I will not be giving my copy away. But I will buy copies to give to those struggling with unanswered questions about suffering.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read Book To Understand Sorrow & Grief, August 19, 2009

By 

L. VanderStel "Mom of a Dozen" (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow (Hardcover)

This is a very profound, heart-touching, convicting, deep, compassionate, yet easy to read book I cannot rate high enough. The author, Nancy Guthrie is one who has known deep sorrow from the deaths of her two children as babies. She does not just say the old cliches of just trust Jesus and you will get through it.

"Our faith keeps us from being swallowed by despair.
But I don't think it makes our loss hurt any less."

The author, Nancy Guthrie shares very personally about the Man of Sorrow and how her sorrow led to a depth of knowing Jesus so much deeper. She realized how He also had a broken heart for her and how Jesus understood how it was to be overwhelmed with sorrow. This greatly touched me in a whole new way.

I appreciate the raw honesty Nancy shares, questioning His love and sovereignty in hardships, as she again relates what He did for us, going through the greatest suffering and injustice . . . then how could He not understand.

"If He can use something as evil as the Cross of Christ for such amazing good,
I can believe he can use what I would label as evil in my life for good."

So, it's not just the death of children as this author has experienced, but through our walks of life - betrayal, abandonment, abuse, etc. - we can look and find a purpose for suffering and sorrow. Nancy goes on to warn about watching for bitterness and resentment and not allowing it to embed in ourselves.

I loved her response also, when people have said to her, they do not know how she can make it going through what she has gone through. I never know how to respond to this, when others have said that to me or our family. I've got a new response:

"You're right. You couldn't do it . . . God has not given you the grace for it because you don't need it, at least not right now . . . But know this: when you do need it, he will give you all the grace you need."

I think of things families have gone through far great than us, and I sure can see that God has given them that grace for that moment in their lives. I think if a widow friend who stood up at her husband's funeral and spoke of him . . . I could never do that . . . but God definitely gave her the sweet spirit and grace to do so.

Over the years I have made friends with numerous women who have lost babies before or right after birth or a child early in life. It's hard to understand the "whys" of this, and often will say a life was cut too short. Nancy shows how the purpose of these lives have been completely accomplished in the days God numbered them.

Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow is one that will help so many understand not only their own grief but the grief of others. She touches on the questions we all have at one time or another, What was God's involvement in this, and why did He let it happen? Why hasn't God answered my prayers for a miracle? Can I expect God to protect me? Does God even care? Such chapters as I Too, Have Heard God Tell Me No; I Will Keep You Safe; or I Have a Purpose in Your Pain, will help answer those questions.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gospel-Saturated Message for Sufferers, October 24, 2009

By 

Rebecca Stark (Yukon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow (Hardcover)

Nancy Guthrie and her husband lost two of their children--two babies--to the same genetic disease. This book, she says, is "the culmination of my search for deeper understanding that has come with the perspective of years and further study of the Scriptures since writing my earlier book Holding On to Hope."

Guthrie has built her book around eleven statements of Jesus that speak to the experience of sorrow and grief. What that give us is a thorough biblical answer to the questions raised when we suffer, and when we're experiencing the worst things in life, we need the full answer. It's a wonderful thing to trust that there will be a glorious resurrection when all that hurts us is made right and whole in a way it never could be in this life, but it's even better when we can understand that there is meaning in our sufferings themselves. We draw comfort, too, in knowing that our Saviour understands our sorrow because he experienced deep suffering. And there's more, for those are the main points of just three of the chapters in Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow.

And still, this is a small book. Each chapter is short and the style is conversational. The format is perfect, I'd think, for someone who is struggling through difficulties, when circumstance and attention span can make studied reading difficult.

From first to last, Guthrie's little book is gospelly. It includes a clear presentation of the good news, and is suffused with the message of what Christ has done and how it "speaks into" our experience of grief. It doesn't gloss over the hard truths, like the need for self-denial and the reality of God's wrath, either. The chapter on God's ordaining relationship to suffering is especially strong, yet not too complicated to be understood by someone new to these truths.

You can tell that I liked this book, right? But I do have a few quibbles. First, I'm not thrilled that the scripture is usually quoted from the NLT, and even, at least once, from The Message. I'm not an NLT hater--I have one and I use it and I think I understand why this translation choice was made--but the NLT often loses a little of the rich meaning of the text, and when it's quoted in bits, it just feels flat. Second, while the points Guthrie draws from the texts are scriptural, she does sometimes come to them in roundabout ways. And last on my minor complaints list is this: I'm not sure that I agree with everything she writes in the chapter on forgiveness.

But I used the word quibbles on purpose. These are small things and they don't take away from the value of Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow. This is an excellent book to read if you've are grieving or to give to someone who is suffering through difficulties.