About the author
Philip Yancey is an American author born in 1949 in Atlanta USA and he has written and sold over 15 million books, many of which have been translated into 40 different languages. Two of his publications “The Jesus I never knew” written in 1996 and “What’s so amazing about Grace” written in 1998, both won awards for the Christian Book of the year.

About the Book
This book deals with the topic of suffering and pain which is so relevant to what many of us are trying to deal with today. In “Where is God when it hurts” Yancey explores many baffling and difficult issues surrounding the mystery of pain, and helps us to understand why we suffer and how to cope with our own pain, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. He explains how we can learn to accept the anger and fear, which we often cannot understand, when we experience painful situations. He also helps us to discover how to reach out in meaning ways, to others who suffer in pain. He offers very practical advice.

Some Content
“What can God use to get our attention, we who started the rebellion, that creation is not running the way God intended? Yancey says that Christianity starts with the assertion that suffering exists and exists as proof of a fallen state. Pain and suffering can be symbolized as a “megaphone” We can react to our pain and suffering by shouting out against God for allowing it, or we can believe and verbalize the fact that when God says that this world is not all there is, take the chance that He is making a perfect place for those who follow Him on this “pain-racked earth”. “The Garden of Eden story reveals to us that man and woman in a world without suffering, chose against God and so we, who have come after Adam and Eve, have a choice. We can trust God or we can blame Him” for our pain and suffering. So Yancey suggests that this “megaphone” of pain announces a general message of distress to all humanity. It suggests that pain and suffering can be viewed as a “wakeup call’ that something is wrong, not only with our physical bodies but perhaps with our spirituality as well. Dealing with physical pain could assist us, simultaneously to deal with any spiritual darkness and emptiness we may be experiencing..
Yancey quotes a real life example on this subject by referring to a 17th century pastor and poet John Donne who found himself listening to this “megaphone of pain” (It was John Donne who in one of his meditations wrote this celebrated passage in English literature “No man is an island … Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”). Donne realized that although the bells had sounded in honour of another’s death, they served as a stark reminder of what every human being spends a lifetime trying to forget: We will all die. The tolling of the bell caused Donne to reexamine his life and what he saw was like a revelation. He said “I am a man that has seen affliction and suffering but these periods had been the very occasions for spiritual growth. Trials had purged my sin and developed character. He concludes with these words, “A clear pattern emerged, pain could be transformed, even redeemed”.

At the end of this extremely interesting and practical book, Yancey shares this thought provoking question. Why does God let us get old and weak and why must I hurt so? He responds with this possibility quoted by J Robertson McQuilkin. “I think God has planned the strength and beauty of youth to be physical. But the strength and beauty of age to be spiritual. We gradually lose the strength and beauty that is temporary so that we will be sure to concentrate on the strength and beauty which is forever. If we stayed young and strong and beautiful we might never want to leave”?