Spiritual Grief

After years on the road performing at sold-out venues, Tyson Motsenbocker returned home to the impending death of his 57-year-old hero and mother. He begged God to heal her, but she died anyway. When they buried her body, Tyson also buried the childhood version of his faith. Shortly before her death, however, Tyson became intrigued by the complicated legacy of Father Junipero Serra, the 18th-century Franciscan monk and canonized saint who dedicated his life to the idea that tragedy and suffering are portals to renewal.

When someone is grieving, what should you say? How can you help? How do you comfort without offering shallow platitudes? The Book of Comforts stands in the gap between suffering and hope, offering listeners the abiding comfort found in Scripture and personal experience. Scripture deals plainly and honestly with suffering and simultaneously points people to the rich hope we find in God. The Book of Comforts is a beautiful and comforting gift for those in hard places.

More than a decade ago, Jerry Sittser prayed for the protection of his family, yet three of his loved ones - his daughter, his wife, and his mother - died in an automobile accident. What went wrong? When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayer takes an honest and probing look at the problem of unanswered prayer. In doing so, it draws us ever deeper into a relationship with the God who is the end of all our prayers, the object of our faith, and the one who fulfills our deepest longings.

Melissa Zaldivar talks honestly about losing everything that once defined her and how God used unexpected opportunities, like working at Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women, to spark a journey of working through her grief and encountering the all-sufficient love of Christ. Weaving inspiring passages of Scripture and insights from Little Women into her personal story, Melissa encourages listeners with her discovery that it’s when we have nothing left to offer that we can receive God’s love the most. And that’s something that can never be lost.

Life is painful. Everyone's story comes with unique challenges, difficulties, bumps, and bruises that leave you lost and drowning in their wake. It could be a financial disaster, a health issue, or the loss of a loved one. Dr. Tony Evans understands life's hardships firsthand. In the span of less than two years, he lost his brother, sister, brother-in-law, two nieces, father, and wife. At the same time, both of his daughters received cancer diagnoses. Dr. Evans had to put into practice, at the deepest levels, the truths he has preached about God for more than 40 years.

Can’t Nothing Bring Me Down is the memoir of 104-year-old world-record-holding runner Ida Keeling. Miss Ida, as she’s known throughout her Bronx community, isn’t your typical runner. Her fierce independence helped her through the Depression and the civil rights movement. But her greatest trials were yet to come.

Step back for a moment, focus your eyes of faith, and come with Joni Eareckson Tada into a world you've heard about from your youth but have never seen: heaven. You just might discover that heaven is closer--and more real--than you've ever thought. Joni offers an inspiring glimpse of heaven and what we will find there.

It's easy to trust God when things are going our way and the world makes sense. But when suffering strikes—especially seemingly senseless suffering—we are filled with doubt and stunned by events spiraling beyond our control. In the midst of suffering, we often question the very foundation of our faith—our belief in the God who says he loves us. Joni Eareckson Tada, a woman who has lived in a wheelchair for more than thirty years, and Steve Estes, a pastor and one of Joni's closest friends, explore the answers. When God Weeps is not so much a book about suffering as it is about God.

Blending firsthand accounts of tragedy with opportunity for raw self-examination and reflection, Vleisides delves into the realm of spirituality and belief amid loss and despair. For the "spiritual but not religious", who want to pursue God outside the walls of organized religion, Used to Go to Church is an invitation to rethink faith and open up to a life centered on grace, mercy, and love.

Standing at a departure gate in Dallas' Love Field, Dave Roever held his recent bride Brenda in his arms and kissed her goodbye. He knew fully the dangers awaiting him in the raging battles in Vietnam, yet he promised the love of his life that he would return to her "without a scar".

Felicity Warner’s Soul Midwives movement has revolutionized the face of modern palliative care all over the world. Soul Midwives are trained to honor the unique needs of each individual at every stage of the dying process, offering spiritual, emotional, and holistic support and companionship in various settings–whether at home, in hospices, or care homes. This essential handbook blends ancient wisdom and forgotten traditions with contemporary holistic practices to redefine end-of-life care and ease the passage of the dying.

Similar to a novel in which listeners choose their own paths, Why Is There Suffering? by Bethany Sollereder allows listeners who want to better understand the existence of suffering the opportunity to sort through the most common and viable options, ultimately discovering answers that make the most sense to them.

Pete and Harriet Deison were enjoying a full life of being parents, grandparents, and partners in ministry when deep depression spiraled Harriet into a darkness that caused her to take her own life. Suddenly thrust into unimaginable grief, Pete, a Presbyterian minister, turned to his roots as a student and educator in an attempt to make sense of it all. Visits from Heaven is the love story of a man and his wife of 43 years, which quietly becomes the story of God's love for his children.

We've lost the practice of lament. Most people don't know how to process personal or communal mourning and instead struggle to honor their tears, vulnerability, and the full weight of these disillusioning times. But tending our grief might be exactly what we need to reimagine a way forward. Tracing her difficult experiences of a catastrophic home fire, a threat to her child's well-being, and other devastating losses and upheavals, Terra McDaniel offers a clear framework for expressing heartache and burdens.

Times of disaster are unavoidable. We don’t get to choose whether or not to live in such times. We can only choose what to do with the time that we live. Will we let fear and darkness overwhelm us, or will we choose to shine the light of hope? In Hope in Any Crisis, pastor and best-selling author Bill Johnson reveals the powerful divine protection offered to you as a believer, three responses you can experience in times of uncertainty, and your responsibility to have hope in all things.

Everyone has had to say goodbye. Experiences of loss abound: death, illness, unemployment, severed ties, financial struggles, or geographical moves, to name but a few. Joyce Rupp has a healing gift for helping readers and listeners to reflect, ritualize and reorient themselves when loss looms large in their lives. In this book, she writes about healing and recovered hope. This audio edition includes six chapters, rooted in Scripture, and concluding with questions for further reflection.

Join David Faust as he helps answer questions such as: How should I deal with my fears about aging? What should I do when I retire? How can I enjoy a fruitful relationship with God as I grow older? How should I deal with grief when friends and family members pass away?

Even in the hardest times, strength from God rises from deep in our soul to keep us going. In this honest, inspirational, and humorous book, Katie Schnack goes deep into the hard stuff of life with no sugar coating or toxic positivity to find sustenance she could not imagine. Faced with a child's medical challenges in the midst of a global pandemic, having strength to get up in the morning and actually enjoy the day was so unlikely that she knew it had to come from God. Schnack's plucky authenticity shows us how when life is complicated, self-compassion and humor can bring healing and life.

At the young age of 37, Christine Contini experienced a sudden cardiac death. Over 40 minutes later, she returned from the other side, carrying the keys to unlock profound understanding and seemingly supernatural abilities. Dying allowed Christine to awaken to humanity's natural energetic potentials and pierce the veil between the physical and energetic worlds. She began working with the recently deceased, the dying, and those in comas. What she learned from these experiences formed her foundation of "Energetics" - a complete system of awareness, balance, and understanding.

In what was to become the deadliest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma City bombing was one in a long line of violent attacks that have left communities across the nation searching for healing and hope. With the soaring message of the power of love to conquer evil, Grace from the Rubble tells the intertwining stories of four captivating individuals