Podcasts The Fireside Bookshelf

Grace Grows Best in Winter

This week on Sharin’ Hearts: The Fireside Bookshelf, Ginger Green features this special book that Joni Eareckson Tada read during the first winter of her disability. Grace grew then for her. And through grace, you will grow too!

 

The “why” of human suffering is an age-old question. Recently, there have been several people within my circle of influence who have faced a season of suffering. Some have come through now to see the hilltop others are still journeying through the Valley.

So, come be a part, as we examine, Grace Grows Best in Winter from author Margaret Clarkson who offers a thoughtful, biblical exploration of the “why” of human suffering.

Clarkson indicates this is a book of help for those who must live with a continuing problem of suffering, of whatever kind. It seeks to lead sufferers to discover and to embrace the character of God, so they will be enabled to live triumphantly within the hedge of suffering, wherein God has placed them, and from which in his inscrutable sovereignty He had not yet seen fit to release them.
This is not an “escape” book, nor does it emphasize physical healing, although it frankly accepts the fact that God can and sometimes does heal. It makes no attempt to probe the problem of pain from a philosophical viewpoint, nor is it a book of debate. It contains no sentimentality and offers no shallow “comfort.”

Suffering is seen as one of God’s means of enlarging the soul’s capacity for Himself, and sufferers are enjoined to seek God’s enabling that they may lose none of the present or future fullness that God would have them experience as a result. This is not the most usual view of human suffering, but Clarkson is convinced that it is the only practical, workable way to cope with its stresses.

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