Customer Reviews

A Path Through Suffering: Discovering the Relationship Between God's Mercy and Our Pain

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was born with health issues and have suffered for many years of my life as a result. I am now an adult and have rarely enjoyed life without significant pain of some kind. I have been prayed for, prayed over, told I lacked faith, preached to, felt sorry for, etc. But this book puts meaning and purpose not only in suffering, but in faith through suffering. With the additional quotes from the inspired poetry of a woman who suffered before us, this author puts meaning behind the idea that God is sovereign even in our suffering, and she does not settle for trite answers. She offers a reason to hope and believe even in suffering and a rationale for why God still loves us even if He must lead us down a path through suffering. Many authors have tried to reconcile suffering and the idea of a loving God, but this author simply offers an experience with a loving God while suffering. I have given this book to many friends who have had to face trials or suffering and would heartily recommend it to anyone willing to accept that God may have a purpose in their suffering.

This book is a "must read" for anyone who has ever suffered or is suffering, for any reason. This book helped me so much to realize that "suffering" is not for nothing, as Elisabeth well puts it. There is a reason why God allows us to suffer. He wants us to be drawn to Him and Him alone. You will never be the same after reading this book. Read it with a heart open to hear what God wants to say to you about suffering. It is not something pleasant to do, but you will be a better person having gone through it. May God bless you, dear one, as you suffer with Him.

When I originally bought this book, after I had read it once, I started again at the beginnning and read it again. And again, and again. When someone in my family began to struggle with suffering, I gave them my copy and watched the transformation. The wisdom and humility with which Elizabeth Elliot writes helped me widen my perspective. This book was instrumental in helping me toward accepting, even expecting, pain and suffering -- with purpose and hope. I am now having to buy several more copies... one to read and some to share.

Don't let the outdated cover design fool you: this book is full of the most fresh and revolutionary ideas I have read since the Bible. Eliot takes the reader past a man-centered focus on "how to deal" with suffering, to the most delightful focus on an all-powerful God who brings pain and suffering into our lives intentionally. Eliot's eloquently honest book altered my philosophy about life, death and "tragedy". ABSOLUTLY a must-read!

Wow. What a meaty book. There is so much in here. Elisabeth Elliot is the widow of Jim Elliot. His story is told in the book "Through Gates of Splendor" (another must-read) Her second husband died of cancer.

This book is filled with incredible wisdom and is written with sensitivity and compassion. Elliot doesn't trivialize the pain associated with suffering. Instead, she encourages the reader to embrace suffering and see God through it. To a person who is suffering, this book is healing balm. This book is incredibly relevant. Buy yourself a copy and pick one up for someone you know who is struggling. I have highlighted so much in this book. This is a book you are going to want to read again and again. Elliot also avoids the pat answers and quick fixes that are so common in many of today's self-help books. This book deserves 10 stars. It will very well written. It is so obvious that Elisabeth Elliot has suffered greatly in her own life. But as she says, the people who have suffered the most are the ones who have the most to offer to others who are suffering. This is a book to read slowly and thoughtfully.

Elisabeth Elliot brings to her writings a clear but thorough literary style, personal testimonies and anecdotes from her own life and the lives of others, both living and dead, and a theology and philosophy of life grounded in the teachings of the Bible.
In this book she introduces each chapter with illustrations about the cycles of plant life--based upon the books and illustrations of Lilias Trotter, a 19th Century British female missionary and artist who was a missionary in Algiers in North Africa. Personally, I thought the illustrations became a bit tedious and repetitious.
The theme of the book is Christ centered and Cross centered. Elliot makes the point--I believe correctly--that suffering finds its greatest meaning and depth in the suffering that Christ endured for us and that humanity, especially His followers, must to some point reduplicate in their own lives. Human suffering becomes in a sense redemptive, meaningful and even a source of contentment when in faith it is surrendered back to God just as Christ surrendered His own life and mission to the will of God the Father.

What deep insights into suffering! It is worth the book just to read Lillias Trotter's quotes. Short chapters make it very readable even for the nonreader.

This book really helped me not feel like I was the only one suffering. This women was working for the Lord and she still REALLY suffered. God is good and he broght her through it all!

Suffering is not for nothing.
In this powerfully moving book, Elisabeth Elliot plots the treacherous passage through pain, grief, and loss, a journey most of us will make many times in our life. - From back cover.

Elisabeth Elliot, widow of Jim Elliot who was one of the five missionaries killed by the Auca Indians in Ecuador, is no stranger to suffering. I always enjoy her books because she writes with such love and compassion, sharing what is on her heart with her readers.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is walking the path through suffering and is wondering whether God can still use them, or just needs the encouragement that He does have a plan for their life. For me, the path of suffering has been through long-term illness and this book has been an encouragement, comfort and blessing to me, that despite the pain and the many limitations I have, God is still in control and has a purpose just for me.

This book is one I have recommended and given to many others. Very helpful to understand the reasons for suffering...