Holding On To Hope: A pathway through suffering to the heart of God.

Shunning platitudes and easy answers, Nancy Guthrie deals head-on with the issues experienced by those who are going through suffering and loss. Through lessons drawn from the story of Job in the Bible, and the experience of losing her infant daughter, Hope, Nancy gently challenges readers to embrace suffering as a means of discovering a more meaningful relationship with God.

Holding On To Hope offers an uplifting perspective, not only for those experiencing monumental loss, but for anyone going through difficulty and failure. Ms. Guthrie's story of losing her daughter Hope is woven beautifully throughout, adding a richness and credibility lacking in most books on suffering. After finishing the manuscript, the author added an epilogue that deals with an additional devastating loss--the death of her infant son Gabriel who died of the same disease that took her daughter Hope.

From Publishers Weekly:
In late 1998, doctors diagnosed Guthrie's newborn daughter, Hope, with Zellweger syndrome, a rare congenital disorder, and gave Hope less than six months to live. Guthrie, a media relations specialist who has a 10-year-old son without the disease, tells of Hope's brief life with raw emotion, but never resorts to cloying sentimentality. After Hope's death, Guthrie's husband had a vasectomy to prevent future pregnancies. Thus they were shocked to learn, a year and a half later, that Nancy was pregnant again. Although there was only a 25% chance that the baby would carry the disease, they soon discovered that this child, a son, would also be a Zellweger baby. Gabriel lived just one day shy of six months, dying in January of this year. In trying to extract meaning behind such suffering, Guthrie turns to the Book of Job, teasing out themes of restoration and redemption amidst Job's many trials.

She is honest about her own terrible sorrow; after outlining God's possible purpose for the fleeting lives of these two children, Guthrie admits, "That is what I believe. It is not necessarily how I feel." She says that her decision to trust in God is a daily choice, not a onetime sacrifice, and that some days such submission is easier to embody than others. The book closes with a time-honored evangelical altar call. And here, it works. Readers who have immersed themselves in Guthrie's honest story of redemptive suffering will examine their own faith in a new light. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Another reviewer says:

FIVE STARS! When I first got started in this book, I was leaning towards three or four stars. I am not sure exactly why. I allowed that some of it may be my own personal experiences. Although I have had rough and tough times, I have never lost a child or spouse. That may have lead to me "missing something" in the text.

However, about half-way through, I really started getting something from the book. It felt like the author was really opening up to what was really going on. Perhaps it was just my perceptions that were changing, but it felt like the author was leading on a journey to a more enlightening relationship with God. Her reliance on God had been clear, but it seemed to be more real in that she could really mentor the readers now.

I imagine that if you are in a similar situation, the book would be even more helpful while not being preachy or an intensive theological research into the topic -- friendly and open.

Tyndale House, paperback, 166 pages

Endorsed by Joni Eareckson Tada, Anne Graham Lotz, Max Lucado, Sheila Walsh... the list goes on and on.

• The One Year Book of Hope by Nancy Guthrie
• Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual by Nancy Guthrie