The message of this book has been very heavy on my heart for many years. Dealing with people in a clinical setting who are facing monumental challenges in the area of health brought about a myriad number of questions. Much like losing a loved one, many people go through stages of grief when it comes to their own health. Whether it be a diagnosis of cancer or a long-term debilitating disease, it’s in these times that an individual’s faith is challenged.
Where is God when I hurt? Why do bad things happen to good people? These are questions many are afraid to ask others for fear of denigration. I wrote this book with these people in mind. I wanted to directly address these questions while challenging readers to look at their own suffering through a different lens. Looking Past Suffering features three individuals who share their emotions in despair and documents how they were able to pass through their own valleys of death, ultimately ascending to higher places in their walks of faith.
“I would like to focus on what happened at the end of His life. We find a badly beaten Christ hanging on a cross: life is slowly ebbing from His body. The pain from the horrendous beating that He had just received accompanied by the horrors and pain He felt as He hung upon the cross was overwhelming. Even as He was dying, Jesus had mercy upon the thief on the cross next to Him and forgave him. Just before He died, the Bible states Jesus cried out with a loud voice and said.
– Steven Kielley
“…Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46