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    Holding On to Hope: A Pathway through Suffering to the Heart of God
    Holding On to Hope: A Pathway through Suffering to the Heart of God
    Holding On to Hope: A Pathway through Suffering to the Heart of God
    Ebook175 pages2 hours

    Holding On to Hope: A Pathway through Suffering to the Heart of God

    By Nancy Guthrie

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A healing book for those in the wake of life’s devastating storms.
    We can never plan for the unexpected turns of this life that sometimes lead to great personal suffering. Sometimes that suffering can overshadow everything and threaten to pull us under. Nancy Guthrie knows what it is to be plunged into life’s abyss. Framing her own story of staggering loss and soaring hope with the biblical story of Job, she takes you by the hand and guides you on a pathway through pain—straight to the heart of God. Holding On to Hope offers an uplifting perspective, not only for those experiencing monumental loss, but for anyone going through difficulty and failure. (Includes an 8-week study on the book of Job for readers who want to dig deeper into what the Bible says about dealing with suffering and grief.)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTyndale House Publishers
    Release dateOct 2, 2015
    ISBN9781496414892
    Holding On to Hope: A Pathway through Suffering to the Heart of God
    Author

    Nancy Guthrie

    Nancy Guthrie teaches the Bible at her home church, Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee, as well as at conferences around the country and internationally, including her Biblical Theology Workshop for Women. She is the author of numerous books and the host of the Help Me Teach the Bible podcast with the Gospel Coalition. She and her husband founded Respite Retreats for couples who have faced the death of a child, and they are cohosts of the GriefShare video series. 

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      Book preview

      Holding On to Hope - Nancy Guthrie

      Holding On to HopeHolding On to Hope: A Pathway through Suffering to the Heart of God by Nancy Guthrie

      Listen to what people

      are saying about

      Holding On to Hope

      You hold in your hand a treasure that was mined in a dark and frightening place. With transparent honesty, Nancy unwraps the joys and sorrows of her life. This is a book about life and our God, who holds us in all the moments of this life.

      SHEILA WALSH

      Keynote speaker with Women of Faith

      Holding On to Hope reads easy, runs deep, and enriches the heart! If you are stymied about God’s goodness amidst life’s heartaches, then this book’s for you.

      JONI EARECKSON TADA

      Joni and Friends

      Few people have lived—and continue to live—as deep a firsthand experience of pain and loss as Nancy Guthrie. For that reason alone her Christian reading of the story of Job should lay special claim on readers themselves undergoing suffering. But there are other inducements: the clarity, grit, and honesty with which Guthrie explains how she has maintained hope and deepened faith where most would find only heartbreak.

      DAVID VAN BIEMA

      Time magazine

      Only God could orchestrate such events. And only God could give the Guthrie family the faith and courage to live them. May He use this story to strengthen us all.

      MAX LUCADO

      Nancy Guthrie’s book offers hurting people companionship as well as encouragement to pursue God in the midst of their suffering. Pastors can recommend it with confidence that it will make a difference.

      DR. ED YOUNG

      Pastor of Second Baptist Church, Houston

      If you want someone to know they are not alone in their pain and help them understand where God is in the midst of their pain, Holding On to Hope is the best resource available. While the world questions why God allows loss and pain, Nancy shows us how to face it. Read this book, recommend this book, and hope that just a portion of her courage and faith rub off on you.

      STEVE ARTERBURN

      New Life Ministries

      It’s rare to find a book that combines insight, sensitivity, practicality, and hope. . . . This one does.

      H. NORMAN WRIGHT

      Author and counselor

      Visit Tyndale online at tyndale.com.

      Visit Tyndale Momentum online at tyndalemomentum.com.

      Tyndale Momentum and the Tyndale Momentum logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Tyndale Momentum is an imprint of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

      Holding On to Hope

      Copyright © 2002, 2004, 2015 by Nancy Guthrie. All rights reserved.

      Cover photograph copyright © andreiuc88/Dollar Photo Club. All rights reserved.

      Hope Guthrie photo by Micael-Reneé

      Gabriel Guthrie photo by Micael-Reneé

      Edited by Lisa A. Jackson

      Designed by Ron C. Kaufmann

      Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996 by Tyndale House Foundation. (Some quotations may be from the 2015 edition of the NLT.) Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

      Scripture quotations marked The Message are taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version.® Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Guthrie, Nancy.

        Holding on to hope : a pathway through suffering to the heart of God / Nancy Guthrie.

          p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references.

        ISBN 978-1-4143-1296-5

        1. Suffering—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Bible. O.T. Job—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. Guthrie, Nancy. I. Title.

      BV4909.G88 2002

      248.8´6—dc21 2002000711

      Build: 2021-04-21 15:12:19 EPUB 3.0

      Contents

      Foreword

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      Loss

      Tears

      Worship

      Gratitude

      Blame

      Suffering

      Despair

      Why?

      Eternity

      Comforters

      Mystery

      Submission

      Intimacy

      Epilogue

      Afterword

      Scripture Resources

      Study Guide

      FOREWORD

      By Anne Graham Lotz

      O

      N

      S

      EPTEMBER

      11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four airliners, ramming two of the planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The entire world watched in horror as the towers erupted into gigantic fireballs, then imploded until nothing was left of the 110-story, glass-and-steel structures except soot, dust, and a six-story-high pile of smoldering rubble.

      Even before the dust settled, the heroic rescue effort began as thousands of people systematically started combing through the debris to find the survivors. One rescuer told how he had climbed down into a hole in the twisted steel and rubble, extending his arm even farther to shine his flashlight into the darkness, when out of the dusty blackness a hand reached up and grabbed his! He was so startled he almost dropped his flashlight and let go of the hand! But instead, he reached back for someone to grab his hand, then someone grabbed that person’s hand, until a human chain was formed and the man trapped in the pile of debris was pulled to safety.

      In our world today, there are many people who are trapped in the debris of despair, depression, and doubt; or in the rubble of broken relationships; or in the twisted maze of suffering and pain. God has uniquely equipped Nancy Guthrie as a rescuer to shine the light of God’s truth into the blackest night of confusion and grief, hopelessness and helplessness. Framing the testimony of her own suffering within the classic biblical story of Job, Nancy draws a magnificent picture of triumphant victory through faith in Jesus Christ.

      In a world where so much attention has been focused on a Christian message of health, wealth, and prosperity, Holding On to Hope is like a beacon of Light, drawing the reader to God and God alone.

      My prayer is that God will use this book to rescue you from the depths of being buried alive in the debris and rubble of your own life experience. And I pray also that your feet will be planted on the solid ground of his Word, setting your spirit free to soar in the rarefied atmosphere of genuine worship. God bless you as you grasp Nancy’s hand and allow her to guide you on your own path of suffering that leads to the heart of God.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Thank You

      T

      O

      A

      NNE

      G

      RAHAM

      L

      OTZ,

      who helped me see God’s perspective. It was a very important mission. Thank you for walking through it with me.

      To Ernie and Pauline Owen, who see me through rose-colored glasses and never cease to believe in me.

      To Dan and Sue Johnson, for taking the time to care so deeply and for helping us to find the answers to the questions.

      To all those who so faithfully and unselfishly served me—Mary Grace, Mary Bess, Joanna, Julie, Gigi, Lori, Jan, Angela, and the Coates women, to name a few. I’m forever bankrupt to repay you.

      To Allen Arnold, for giving me so much time and input, and for wanting to buy the first copy.

      To everyone in the Knox group, and to Jana and Pamela, for giving them a voice.

      To Mom, Dad, Rita, and Wink, who suffered doubly by losing their granddaughter and watching their daughter and son lose a daughter. You are the world’s best grandparents.

      To the Group: Buchanans, Davises, Hodges, MacKenzies, Baughers, Blackburns, Yarboroughs, Pfaehlers, and, of course, the glue that holds us together—Evelyn. Thanks for laughing with us and crying with us and meeting our needs before we knew we had them.

      To Matt, for giving me such a good reason to keep getting up in the morning.

      And especially to David. I guess we had more in common than we even knew. Thank you for letting me make our pain so public. She was beautiful, wasn’t she?

      dingbat

      H

      OPE IS SYMBOLIZED

      in Christian iconography by an anchor. And what does an anchor do? It keeps the ship on course when wind and waves rage against it. But the anchor of hope is sunk in heaven, not on earth.

      GREGORY FLOYD,

      A GRIEF UNVEILED

      INTRODUCTION

      M

      Y HUSBAND,

      D

      AVID

      , and son, Matt, and I were working around the house on a Saturday morning when we heard the sound of helicopters and looked out the window to see black smoke billowing from somewhere in our neighborhood. A house, two cul-de-sacs away, was on fire. David walked over to the house, checked it out, and came back sobered by what he had seen—the house had burned to the ground in a matter of minutes.

      When you witness something like that, you can’t help but think, How would I respond if that happened to me? What would I do if I drove up to the house I had left that morning, and it had been destroyed?

      It reminded me of a story I had read that week—a story of loss so astounding that most of us can hardly imagine it. It is the ancient story of a man named Job, a man known, perhaps, as history’s most significant sufferer. Job was sitting at home one day when a series of messengers came and told him that all of his livestock and servants had been slaughtered and then that all of his children had perished as the building they were in collapsed. Then, as if losing everything he had and nearly everyone he loved was not enough, Job was stricken with painful sores all over his body.

      As I read his story, I was amazed by Job’s response to pain and loss. Would I respond that way to tragedy? I wondered. I also noticed that Job was specifically chosen to experience great suffering. Evidently he was chosen not because he deserved to suffer or because he was being punished, but because of his great faith. And I wondered about my own faith—if I had the kind of faith that could withstand extreme, undeserved affliction. A faith that would remain when all hope was gone.

      But that was before the affliction came. Before the devastating news that changed everything about my life. Before the painful anticipation of death. B

      EFORE

      H

      OPE

      .

      LOSS

      dingbat

      T

      HERE

      was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless, a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. He had seven sons and three daughters. He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred teams of oxen, and five hundred female donkeys, and he employed many servants. He was, in fact, the richest person in that entire area.

      Every year when Job’s sons had birthdays, they invited their brothers and sisters to join them for a celebration. On these occasions they would get together to eat and drink. When these celebrations ended—and sometimes they lasted several days—Job would purify his children. He would get up early

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