This is an original article by Elizabeth Carter.

I was sitting with a new friend at her kitchen table. We were acquainted with one another, had played flute and piano at church together a few times, but this was the first time we’d gotten together for a one-on-one conversation. She’s one of those people who asks a question and wants a real, unfiltered response. Fortunately for her, I was at a time in my life when I could only give honest, hard answers to the questions I was asked, no matter how innocuous the question. She’s one of those women of God who doesn’t shrink back when she sees a hurting sister in Christ but reaches out to minister to her and invites her into her home and her life.

As we sat together, she opened up to me about some of her struggles. Her husband had struggled with addiction throughout their marriage, and he’d heaped a lot of pain upon her as a result. She shared how the Lord had sustained her, how she had learned to grieve for the marriage she thought she’d have and learned to put all of the expectations she’d put on her husband upon the Lord, where they should have been to begin with. She listened to my story too. About how out of the blue my husband of ten years had decided to leave our marriage. How I was struggling with grief from being abandoned and feeling rejected and lonely. That day, she was a safe space for me to share my pain, and in response, she pointed me to the Lord. I’ll be forever grateful for this woman and others like her that God brought into my life to be his light in a very dark time.

She told me that she had been really encouraged by a devotional written by Nancy Guthrie called The One Year Book of Hope. She plucked it off her shelf and gave it to me to take home, saying that she trusted God would bless me in my healing through it. I really appreciated her responses that day; not only in pointing me to Christ but also trusting me with her own hurts, listening to mine, and sending me home with something tangible to help me in my grief journey.

Still, I took the devotional home and ignored it for a few weeks. But when I finally picked it up, I couldn’t put it back down. As I read through the devotional, I was struck by the sorrow that leapt off the pages as I read about Nancy’s deep losses and how she was able to keep her eyes on the Lord in the midst of them. Every section was laden with explorations of God’s character, and reminders that distorted thinking caused by our pain can lead us to believe he is someone very different. There were Bible verses that pierced my heart and opened me to truths of who God is that I’d forgotten or never even read before. The author was very quick to say that her words could add to our understanding of Scripture and provide some companionship but added that “It is only God’s Word that satisfies and soothes. His Word is life. My words have nourishing power only as far as they capture and convey the truth of God’s Word.” Amen, Nancy.

If you have experienced lifechanging pain at any point in your life, you will greatly benefit from this devotional. There is hope to be found in God’s Word, and through exploring the hard questions we ask in our sorrow, Nancy will deftly point you back to God. She’ll remind you of truths including that God loves brokenhearted people and is especially near to you when you are hurting (Psalm 34:18). That the Lord keeps track of all your sorrows, “record[ing] each one in [his] book” (Psalm 56:8). These truths will comfort you as you journey through the pain that is a part of all of our lives this side of heaven. May the Lord meet you as you walk through this darkness, and may your heart be open to the healing and comfort only he can provide.