Hope and Healing Journal for Going Through a Difficult Time

Hope When It Hurts is one of my favorite devotional journals for women going through a season where they are craving spiritual healing.

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclaimer for details.

Hope When It Hurts

A few years ago, I went through a difficult time in my life where I was constantly questioning my faith and living in fear. I remember having trouble opening up my Bible because I was so angry with God about my declining health, but at the same time craved nearness to him. I didn’t want to read about Jonah and the fish, I wanted to read about deep grief and how to deal with it in the modern world.

One night I did a quick search on Amazon looking for a devotional about dealing with chronic pain. At the time, I still didn’t know what was wrong with my body. The first result that popped up at the time was a pretty, fabric-covered devotional called, Hope When it Hurts. I didn’t really know anything about it, except for the summary on the checkout page:

"Hurt is real. But so is hope. Kristen and Sarah have walked through, and are walking in, difficult times. So these thirty biblical reflections are full of realism about the hurts of life—yet overwhelmingly full of hope about the God who gives life. 

This book will gently encourage and greatly help any woman who is struggling with suffering—whether physical, emotional or psychological, and whether for a season or for longer. It is a book to buy for yourself, or to buy for a member of your church or friend. For anyone who is hurting, this book will give hope, not just for life beyond the suffering, but for life in the suffering. Each chapter contains a biblical reflection, with questions and prayers."

Hope When You’re Not Healing

When I received it in the mail, I was in the middle of awaiting test results for Lyme disease and some other things, and the opening of the book was written by the two women who wrote the devotional. They shared their stories of suffering through eerily similar experiences to what I was going through. Both of them ended up testing positive for Lyme disease.

A few days later, after an emergency hospital stay, I received my first positive test result: Lyme disease with Babesia and Bartonella (other infections caused by tick bites). I started reading the book and couldn’t believe how clearly the Lord was speaking to me through each page.

There was room to journal after each devotional and reflect on the Bible verses provided, and this devotional lit a fire under me and helped lead me back to the hope I had since lost. I have shared this book and my entries with a few people in other hopeless situations and I’ve even been known to send it in the mail to a few friends.

Searching for My Own Hope and Healing

Here are a few hope-filled entries I’d love to share with you, and if you’ve followed my story, you know how far I’ve come since this dark time in my life and that God has come alongside me to create an entire ministry out of this experience as well! He is so good!

Buy the Devotional, Hope When it Hurts

Whatever hopeless situation you find yourself in, I strongly recommend that you look for a devotional or Christian memoir about someone in a similar situation. It can be just the encouragement you need to take back your faith!

This particular devotional I would love to share with you, even if you don’t have a Lyme disease diagnosis. It’s been helpful to friends of mine going through cancer and the loss of a family member. I hope it encourages you if you need it as well.

Ready to order a copy of Hope When It Hurts for yourself? Click here: