Pain – Red Letter Christians

Struggle is Faithfulness: Thoughts from Inside Chronic Illness

May 25, 2021

However, is God directly responsible for one person’s healing while another suffers or dies? When God gets credit for the first outcome but not the second, it leaves the second person (and/or their loved ones) invisible, insignificant, and clearly excluded from God’s circle of care.

Come to Me All You Who are Angry

Esther Sparks

May 10, 2021

Church Life, General, Theology

Sketch drawn from a photograph in the Associated Press. A woman in the crowd lowers her mask to wail when she hears the grand jury decision regarding the death of Breonna Taylor.

An Inheritance of Suffering: A Review of ‘This Too Shall Last’

Sue Fulmore

July 28, 2020

Books, Church Life, General

She becomes a loving whistleblower uncovering the ways the church has failed to embrace suffering as part of its inheritance, and how the suffering ones have been left on the scrap heap of success-driven Christianity.

Grieving Exclusion: A Liturgy of Lament

Britney Winn Lee

February 27, 2019

Church Life, Global, LGBTQ+

Help us be good to each other, as Christ was good to us.

Growing in the Dark

Richard Fowler

February 4, 2019

General, Theology

The hard times we experience are not meaningless or hopeless.

Why God Can’t Take Away Suffering

Michael Rans

January 17, 2019

Books, Theology

Believing that God is controlling doesn't make the world any safer or us any more protected.

Man Enough to Ask for Help

Romal J. Tune

October 10, 2018

Church Life, Theology

I am grateful that I didn’t take the “just pray about it” approach to dealing with real emotional pain and trauma.

‘Gratitude is Not a Happy Pill’

Jana Riess

May 3, 2018

Books, Church Life, Theology

This is not your typical hearts-and-flowers gratitude book. This accounts for suffering and despair and unexpected election results...This is gratitude on the ground with the feet of people who are fighting and marching for a better world.