Tragedy Transformed

My aim was to write a practical, hopeful, and helpful book to support people who have experienced tragedy or any loss, a common human experience. I wanted to take a large portion of Scripture ordinarily skipped by readers (the angry dialogues and lengthy, tedious monologues) and make it understandable. Each chapter describes a human emotion: depression, anger with God, and grieving, for example, with which the reader can identify.

I begin each chapter with a story of someone today, of people I interviewed, including the story of our own son and daughter-in-law’s struggle with chronic illness for over 25 years. I explored the question: How does Job move from wanting to die (Chapter 3) to meeting the Lord (Chapter 38)? How does Job recover from his disasters, his faith intact, his life transformed? How have people today used Christian faith to help them overcome tragedy.

One chapter deals with mental illness, with a case study of a very disturbed former client who gave me permission to use his story: “If it will help Christians understand mental illness,” he said, “ I’ll sign.” I use one diagram, The Wheel of Life, a medieval depiction of the cycle of success, loss, destitution, and recovery.