The One Year Book of Hope

People who are experiencing terrible grief don't want to hear platitudes from someone who has never walked in their shoes. What sets Guthrie's consolation literature apart is that she has clearly been through hell and still manages to find joy. Readers may remember her story, recounted in Time magazine and in her own book, Holding on to Hope. Two of her three children were born with a deadly rare disease called Zellweger Syndrome, and lived only about six months each. Processing pain, she explains, is an ongoing daily endeavor, so she created 52 weeks' worth of daily devotions, organized around themes like brokenheartedness, faith, and questioning God. Guthrie never runs from hard questions, from the section on heaven (what are our loved ones doing up there? What will our bodies be like?) to a week on finding purpose in pain. (Here, Guthrie discusses how she has used her own experiences to minister to hurting people, and encourages others to do the same as they feel ready.) Where other devotionals offer tiny and undemanding snippets from Scripture, Guthrie's approach is meatier, and we see her genuinely wrestling with some of the more difficult passages of the Bible. Throughout, Guthrie's soul-searching honesty and personal anecdotes make her a perfect companion in times of deep sorrow.