Our lives are constantly changing. It's hard to keep up, to keep our balance. It's hard to keep trusting in God. And it's especially difficult when the changes we're faced with are unwanted: the death of a loved one, a child leaving home, an illness, a frustrated dream.Craig Barnes knows the dark side of change. As a pastor, he has counseled many Christians through tough times of transition. And he has been challenged by unwanted changes--interruptions--in his own life.

At times it seems as though God has moved far, far away. But Barnes has discovered that just the opposite is true: during times of change and seeming abandonment, God is right at our side offering to lead us in a new direction, offering us new life. He writes, "A young widow can outlive her grief and decide her life may never be the same but is far from over. A lost job can become the beginning of a new vocation.

"Here is the book for all who have known disappointment, bereavement or the shattering of faith, a book all the more valuable because it promises hope without denying despair. In When God Interrupts a sensitive, insightful pastor shows us how we can be found by God in the middle of unwanted change.

Table of Contents
To the Reader
Introduction: God's Gift of Hope
1. Hope When My Strength Brings Weakness with It: Samson
2. Hope When I Belong to an Unhappy Family: Jacob
3. Hope When I Am Barely Noticed and Not Trusted: Manoah's Wife
4. Hope When I Am Angry with People and with God: Jonah
5. Hope When False Priorities Have Betrayed Me: Martha
6. Hope When I Find It Hard to Believe: Thomas
7. Hope When I Have Done Something Terrible: Simon Peter
8. Hope When Everything Has Gone Wrong: Nehemiah

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Intervarsity Press, 160 pages, paperback,