When the Hurt Runs Deep - Book Review

The tsunami wave of pain, something so dangerously huge and personally devastating that crashes into our lives and pulls us under in darkness so that we don’t know which way is up – none of us can escape it if we live long enough. 

Why Me? Why now?

What did I to do deserve this?

Will this pain ever go away?

If God is good, how could He let this happen?

 If you aren’t just experiencing a thunderstorm in your life but a category 5 hurricane and it’s aftermath of damages and grief, Kay Arthur’s book When the Hurt Runs Deep is the healing balm meant for you. Kay Arthur, notable author, speaker, Bible teacher and founder of Precept Ministries, explains that there really is hope and purpose that can be found in the depths of despair, and that there is a doorway to renewal, intimacy with God, and new perspective with understanding that you can pass through. She tells you how to get there without fluffy stories and nice pats on the back. She’s straight-forward, biblically based, to the point. She also interjects some of her own personal stories of devastating pain (such as her first husband’s bipolar disorder, divorce, then his suicide) to show that she’s been there.

The book revolves around 12 “healing truths”, which she summarizes at the end. The top five that resonated in my heart:

1.       If God has allowed pain in our lives, He has allowed it for a purpose--a good purpose, because he is a good God.

2.       Because God is love, and because God rules over all, everything that comes into our lives is filtered through His sovereign fingers of love.

3.       Because God is all-knowing, He know the very source of our deepest pain--and He understands exactly how to touch it, heal it, and use it to bring about your highest good.

4.       God's grace is brought to fullness in our lives as we release our hurt and draw on His power in our weakness.

5.       Deep, exhausting, unrelenting hurt can bring you to the end of yourself--to complete and total dependence on God--which is the best place you could ever be.

My favorite part of the book that I plan to keep near my Bible is the prayer and meditation journal at the end – verses to help focus your thoughts and take them captive with Scripture at the times I find it most difficult: feeling alone, when forgiveness seems impossible, when you feel stuck in “what could have been”, when you feel anxious or need strength, when your thoughts run wild, etc.  In the Appendix, she includes a section of 7 things do when you wonder how you can get through a single day when the hurt runs so terribly deep. 

Even if this book doesn’t fit your current season of life, it is a great book to equip you to prepare for the tsunami of pain or to help others through theirs.  But if your life is full of frequent thunderstorms of disappointment, dejection, or despair, you might find more to gain from her book As Silver Refined.

For more information about this book, check out this link: http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/catalog.php?isbn=9780307730602

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group in exchange for this review.