When God Weeps

*If God Is Loving, Why Is There Suffering?* When suffering touches our lives, the questions it raises suddenly demand answers. It's one thing to break a leg and wait for it to heal. It's another to experience the kind of wrenching pain that can disable our hearts, our minds, our attitudes, and our faith. If God is there and he's good, how can such suffering exist--and what purpose can it possibly serve? After almost forty years in a wheelchair, Joni Eareckson Tada's intimate experience with suffering gives her a special understanding of God's intentions for people in their pain. In this ZondervanGroupware(TM), she and lifelong friend Steven Estes guide you and your group beyond glib answers. Through six powerful group sessions that include video clips and penetrating discussions, they share glimpses into Joni's personal journey as well as the struggles--and triumphs--of others: children with disabilities, a woman who lost two sons and her marriage, a friend with a debilitating disease. When God Weeps will help your group discover a God who is big enough to understand suffering, wise enough to allow it, and powerful enough to use it for a greater good than any of us can ever imagine. When God Weeps sessions: 1. A Good God in a Suffering World 2. What Can Suffering Accomplish in Our Lives? 3. How We Respond to Suffering Matters 4. Jesus Gives Us Hope 5. Finding Contentment 6. A Look Toward Heaven

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Spiritual. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.