Spiritual Grief

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.

No matter what life has been like, at some point or another we all have the same question: Why does God allow bad things to happen? Grief, loss, and trauma affect each of us, and there are times it feels like the pain will never end. Yet hope, healing, and inner peace are not only possible, they are promises that our good God has made—and will keep. In this compassionate book, licensed counselor and domestic violence survivor Kimberly Haar leads you through a transformative journey of healing.

Throughout history we have tried to make sense of the world that we inhabit and how we can navigate through the tension of all that is good and broken in this life. Yet most of our attempts to avoid loss simply lead to greater anxiety—an unresolved fear that we will eventually lose what we most love and need. Weaving a rich tapestry of Christian tradition and personal illustrations, Hyun offers Christianity as a true and compelling vision for life that faithfully points the way through loss to true beauty.

A Dream So Big is the story of Steve Peifer, a corporate manager who once oversaw 9,000 computer software consultants, who today helps provide daily lunches for over 20,000 Kenyan school children in 35 national public schools, and maintains solar-powered computer labs at 20 rural African schools.

We all have a “this” moment. A major struggle in life, a sudden calamity, a burning wound we never could have prepared for. The impact can knock the spiritual wind out of us and leave us sprawled out on the ground—or send us straight to the strength of the Father. Whatever your “this” may be, God can use it to equip you with strength, and He has a plan to lovingly bring you into wholeness. In God Will See You Through This, author and teacher Dr. Jim Garlow humbly journeys alongside you to share twenty-six of the most life-altering lessons he’s learned.

Timeless encouragement for the challenges of life. Derek Prince, one of the 20th century's most trusted Bible teachers, invites you to face some of your most difficult circumstances head-on with hope. In Why Bad Things Happen to God's People, Prince shares timeless truths from the Book of Job that will keep you anchored during any storm.

Dallas Willard spent his life making eternal living concrete for his friends. After his unexpected passing in 2013, the kaleidoscope of memories and the diversity of the lives he had touched could not be confined to one or even two memorial services but three. It is this wide breadth of impact that inspired friends, family, colleagues, students, and leaders of the church to gather their reflections on this celebrated yet humble theologian and philosopher.

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.

Popular author and Bible teacher Dee Brestin draws on her own grief experience to help readers find their way into the arms of God during times of pain and loss. Brestin demonstrates how speaking the truth to our souls with the help of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs can calm the grieving heart and help it rest like a child in the arms of a loving parent.

When our circumstances unravel, how do we hold on to truth, to hope, to who we’re meant to be? After Carole Holiday experienced a series of heartbreaking losses, she realized something else had slipped away: her identity. Grief had stolen her sense of self, leaving her feeling unmoored and empty. But it was not the end of her story. Her debut book, I Don’t Know Who I Am Anymore,is for the wanderers, the waylaid, the wavering. The ones who feel weak and worthless. The ones who weep.

On September 2, 2008, our twin daughters, Kayla and Kelsey, were returning home from Lubbock-Cooper High School after basketball practice. A 40,000-pound dump truck veered into their lane. Kelsey was driving. She was 18. Kayla was injured, but lived. We were sent spiraling on a spiritual journey, a parent's worst nightmare. The audiobook describes our life beforehand, both as a family and where each of us was spiritually, but most of the story focuses on our travail after the accident.

Behind monastery walls, men of God spend their lives preparing for the passage of death. Best-selling French author Nicolas Diat set out to find what their deaths can reveal about the greatest mystery faced by everyone - the end of life. How to die? How to respond to our fear of death? To answer these and other questions, Diat travelled to eight European monasteries including Solesmes Abbey and the Grande Chartreuse. Through extraordinary interviews with monks, he learned that their death experiences are varied and unique, with elements of peace, pain, humility, sorrow, and joy.

Tens of thousands of women and families every year lose a baby to miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death. The statistics are sobering - between 10 percent and 20 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, 1 percent in stillbirth, and nearly 23,000 babies die before their first birthday - but statistics alone miss the depth of the hurt. Each loss is personal and devastating.

The book addresses the question of the silence of God, especially when people suffer. It also deals with miracles, and the Bible versus the church. Several indexes contain further discussions on the subject matter.

Where is Jesus when we need him most? An influential pastor shares how despair can lead us to discover true hope and a deeper relationship with God, helping us emerge stronger and more joyful from times of crisis. None of us live free of difficulties or hardships. But how can we learn to live richly in the midst of them? And even grow spiritually because of them? The answer is found in the hopeful humanity of Jesus.

For those suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's, for their friends and family, community and church, this book will help you understand the disease itself, how to love and care for those affected by it, and how to see the hope that's greater than it: we may forget, but God always remembers. With pastoral tenderness and gospel confidence, Dr. Benjamin Mast shares his expertise on the subject and displays the power of the gospel that remains intact even when memory fades.

Living in a broken world gives us plenty of reasons to armor up, shut down, and numb out. But God wants more for us than just getting by. When we harden ourselves to the world, we not only close ourselves off from the good things God intends for us, but close off avenues God wants to work through in others' lives as well.

Is there a way to walk into the final chapters of life with peace and confidence, and with support and wisdom? We all are living an earthly story with a beginning, middle, and end. While aspects of our story's closing hold mystery, we do not have to feel lost as we move toward it. We instead can lean on the support and wisdom of others who know the path ahead. In Anticipating Heaven, Dr. Pyle offers that same practical advice and spiritual comfort to you and your loved ones as you navigate a serious illness.

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.

When the oldest of Kate Braestrup's four children was 10 years old, her husband, a Maine state trooper, was killed in a car accident. Stunned and grieving, she decided to pursue her husband's dream of becoming a Unitarian minister. She eventually began working with the Maine Game Warden Service, which conducts the state's search-and-rescue operations when people go missing in the wilderness.