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Sometimes life just hurts. Out of nowhere, death, illness, unemployment, or a difficult relationship can change our lives and challenge everything we thought we knew—leaving us feeling unable to cope. But, in the midst if all this pain and confusion, we are not alone. Weaving together his personal story, pastoral ministry experience, and biblical insights, best-selling author Paul David Tripp helps us trust God in the midst of suffering. He identifies traps to avoid in our suffering and points us instead to comforts to embrace. This raw yet hope-filled book will help you cling to God's promises when trials come and move forward with the hope of the gospel.

The Selections from Spurgeon's Library series celebrates the foundation of faith upon which C. H. Spurgeon stood. As a voracious reader, Spurgeon gleaned wisdom from his predecessors and contemporaries that deeply impacted his preaching, writing, and ministry. B&H Academic, in partnership with the Spurgeon Center at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has culled through more than 6,000 volumes in Spurgeon's personal library to present a curated collection of essays and sermons on suffering that shaped Spurgeon himself. Addressing such topics as how to handle affliction, maintaining faith amidst persecution, and trusting in God in times of trouble, this volume is sure to help readers grow in their faith and rely on God to give them songs in the night.

Someone you love is ill, your child is in trouble, financial problems mount, you lost your job, your spouse left you–the list of troubles we experience is both uniquely difficult and depressingly similar. In this world we will suffer, Jesus promised that. But he also promised us something of infinite value–he will be with his people in their suffering. Steve Brown, a well known radio Bible teacher, writes honestly about his own struggles with suffering, but then also shares the hope he has found in the presence of Christ. It is in turning to him and remembering that he knows all about our struggles that we experience the power to endure in love and hope through the most difficult situations.

If God exists, does he care about his evolving, suffering world? Most answers are unsatisfactory. Morris's book is different: short but not superficial, strong in its science and philosophy, and realistic as a carer of a handicapped teenage grandson, still unable to walk and talk. Like Stephen Hawking and Einstein, John Morris also tries to explore the mind of God. Violence began with the Big Bang, long before legendary Adam's sin. Morris believes God is typically non-interventionist but constantly interactive, operating creatively within his own physical laws, that allow freedom to particles and people, resulting in innovations and mutations, not always beneficial. Compared with other religions, Christ's cross and resurrection give more historic hope in a God who suffers alongside us, to create good, responsible persons. Here is a 100-minute read, of interest to believers and atheists alike. Its brave conclusion gives reasonable grounds for thinking we live in a loving God's best possible world, despite unavoidable suffering and natural disasters.

Learn to help others understand, cope with, and even overcome emotional and physical suffering. Suffering: Psychological and Social Aspects in Loss, Grief, and Care is a unique and insightful volume of observations, anecdotes, and case studies about suffering. In this important book, doctors, nurses, teachers, funeral directors, and members of the clergy discuss the crucial physical, emotional, and psychological issues that patients and their families must confront when death is imminent. They address a variety of topics including terminal illness, chronic illness, loss, grief, and pain. Ideal for professionals who work with dying people and their families, Suffering highlights topics that are particularly common when working with AIDS patients, cancer patients, children, the elderly, and the mentally ill.

God's love in Jesus Christ for the salvation and recreation of all things is still the hope of the world. This Christian affirmation is the reality that “holds all things” and “holds all things together.” Yet in today's world, it is easy to understand why the church is in pain and declining in its Christian and moral influence. Rethinking Church in the 21st Century is the culmination of three years of exploration into the condition of the church around the world today. Bringing together a diverse community of Christian voices, these essays offer reflections and admonitions to ignite the hearts of pastors and leaders during the dynamic, vulnerable, and hopeful times we face. In this first volume, scholars and church leaders from across the globe respond to writings on suffering and persecution. The authors examine the universal themes of suffering and address topics such as violence, natural disasters, and persecution through contextually rooted lenses. The resulting essays are an authentic, richly diverse collection that offers fresh perspectives for the church to reflect on together.

Does suffering have meaning? The leading scholars and practitioners in Meaningless Suffering engage with this haunting human question through the lenses of psychoanalytic, phenomenological and ethical discourse, all the while holding contemporary social concerns in full view. The authors seek to find ways of speaking about the lived realities and historical moments that make up our social narratives – from the murder of George Floyd to the bird watching incident in Central Park – in order to render visible the entangled forms of the effects of embodiment, ideology, race, social practice, and intersectionality. Meaningless Suffering is bookended by powerful pieces by Mari Ruti and Homi K. Bhabha and, in the intervening chapters, the reader traverses the ideas of Augustine, Judith Butler, Fanon, Foucault, Freud, Gendlin, Heidegger, Lacan, Levinas, and Wittgenstein to pass through the realms of classical thought, affect theory, phenomenology, linguistic studies, relational psychoanalysis, somatic studies, intersubjectivity theory, gender studies, critical theory, and philosophical hermeneutics. This book is essential reading for postgraduate students, scholars, and practitioners working at the intersection of psychoanalysis, race, politics, and culture, as well as students of cultural studies, the humanities, politics, psychology, psychosocial studies, sociology, and social work.

Divine Suffering is an inter-disciplinary study that draws from systematics, philosophy, biblical theology, and pastoral experience. In addition to covering topics like the suffering of the Father in the Son and God's cruciform vulnerability, this book also explores how divine suffering animates the Christian gospel and resonates in the ongoing persecution of believers. The study of the suffering God has everything to do with Theology, History, and Church Mission. Like exploring a cathedral from all its entrances, both scholars and seekers will find ample opportunity for theological challenge, biblical insight, and missional hope. To accomplish this, both Scripture and doctrine are closely investigated. Today, divine suffering must face the contemporary realities of protest atheism, escalating wars, new studies in relational theology, and dialogical personhood that presses the need to explain a Christian message about the kind of God who is not only transcendent but also personal. Divine Suffering introduces us to the history of God, not just the God of history. In this study, we meet a God available to our pain though not diminished by it. Mounting forms of grief need to be met with an equally pastoral understanding that validates suffering without valorizing it.

Suffering and Psychology challenges modern psychology's concentration almost exclusively on eradicating pain, suffering, and their causes. Modern psychology and psychotherapy are motivated in part by a humane and compassionate desire to relieve many kinds of human suffering. However, they have concentrated almost exclusively on eradicating pain, suffering, and their causes. In doing so psychology perpetuates modern ideologies of individual human freedom and expanding instrumental control that foster worthy ideals but are distinctly limited and by themselves quite self-defeating and damaging in the long run. This book explores theoretical commitments and cultural ideals that deter the field of psychology from facing and dealing credibly with inescapable human limitations and frailties, and with unavoidable suffering, pain, loss, heartbreak, and despair. Drawing on both secular and spiritual points of view, this book seeks to recover ideals of character and compassion and to illuminate the possibility of what Jonathan Sacks terms'transforming suffering'rather than seeking mainly to eliminate, anesthetize, or defy these dark and difficult aspects of the human condition.Suffering and Psychology will be of interest to academic and professional psychologists and philosophers.

Suffering and Smiling: Daily Life in North Korea, is a field report of North Korean culture based on two decades of the author's personal observation and contact with people. The dichotomy of suffering and smiling becomes a lens through which the author observes the transformation and resilience of North Korean life. The book delves into historical struggles, such as the Arduous March against Imperial Japan and the 1990s famine, juxtaposed with the persistent theme of smiling propagated by the regime. The author also weaves in the experiences of North Koreans, highlighting their ability to find humor and maintain humanity despite oppressive conditions. Anecdotes, such as spontaneous comments from refugees, showcase the resilience and subversive humor ingrained in North Korean culture. Despite its isolation and nuclear ambitions, the country is undergoing rapid social changes with informal connections to the global capitalist system. The book provides readers with empathetic glasses to view North Korea while considering its historical trauma and the enduring impact of Korean War. It promises a rich exploration of North Korean life, offering readers a compelling narrative that combines personal experiences, political insights, and cultural analysis. It sets the stage for a comprehensive understanding of a nation often shrouded in mystery and misunderstood by the outside world.

Suffering Is Optional: Three Keys to Freedom and Joy centers around three basic aspects of Zen practice: pay attention, believe nothing, and don't take anything personally. As ending suffering requires that one sees how suffering happens, the book urges readers to be willing to be quiet and pay attention to the process of suffering in an effort to see each moment as an opportunity to step beyond illusion into freedom. It also argues that examining beliefs,abandoning them, and returning attention to the present is essential to ending suffering, as is living in the awareness that nothing in the universe is personal.

Each epoch of history brings stories of pain, triumph, oppression, freedom, purpose, suffering, grief, and joy. Silent Suffering explores the depths of the human experience through an exploration of the present moment, a time in which postmodern, progressive ideas reign as the societal benchmark for goodness, justice, beauty, and--ironically--truth. This poetic critique of progressive values invites the reader to doubt progressive dogma by critiquing the foundations of the progressive approach to morality and justice. The combination of social and cultural commentary pairs with traditional elements of classical poetry to immerse readers and listeners in the experience of modern nonconformists who silently suffer in the shadows of culture's ever evolving progressive doctrinal creeds. Throughout this critique, readers and listeners are called to ponder the mystery of the human experience, the call to faith in a godless era, and the eternal need for hope amidst the senseless suffering humanity inflicts upon itself.

Interdisciplinary in approach, this book combines philosophy, sociology, history and psychology in the analysis of contemporary forms of suffering. With attention to depression, anxiety, chronic pain and addiction, it examines both particular forms of suffering and takes a broad view of their common features, so as to offer a comprehensive and parallel view both of the various forms of suffering and the treatments commonly applied to them. Highlighting the challenges and distortions of the available treatments and identifying these as contributory factors to the overall problem of contemporary suffering, Empty Suffering promises to widen the horizon of therapeutic interventions and social policies. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in mental health and disorder, social theory and social pathologies.

Suffering in Babylon comprises a series of studies on Ludlul bel nemeqi. Part One examines the modern scholarship surrounding the poem's textual reconstruction and translation. Ludlul exists today as a composite text, pieced together over the last 180 years from dozens of cuneiform tablets and fragments from various archaeological sites. With these disparate sources, Assyriologists have reconstructed three quarters of the poem's original text, which is here translated anew with extensive epigraphic and philological notes. Part Two explores the historical contexts of the poem and its reception among first-millennium scribes. Whether the poem's protagonist is the historical Subsi-mesre-Sakkan or not, his experiences as described in the poem provide insight into the worldview and concerns of the ancient scholars among whom the poem's author was counted, likely from the ranks of the exorcists. The protagonist's experience with divine revelation sheds light on those scholars'divinatory worldview. The anatomical and pathological vocabulary used to describe his suffering compares well to the vocabulary in exorcism texts. The ritual failures he experiences reflect the poem's institutional agenda. And the structure and language of his first person account shows intertextual connections with incantation prayers, a genre distinctive to exorcism. The poem's subsequent incorporation into various scribal curricula and tablet collections demonstrates the poem's cultural stature among first-millennium scribes, who wrote a commentary on Ludlul and used the text in the creation of others. Part Three offers a comparative study that bridges the ancient and modern scholarly horizons. Drawing on both ancient and modern scholarship, it compares the protagonist's experience of the alu demon with the clinical condition known today as sleep paralysis. The book's underlying goal is to illustrate the potential of a multi-perspectival approach to Akkadian literature that acknowledges the contexts of both ancient and modern scholars involved in producing meaningful readings of this ancient literary gem.

This book provides a critical and innovative reassessment of contemporary debate on the human-animal relationship. Starting with a critique of the “official philosophical narration” of animal studies, and then a reassessment of Descartes'animal-machine paradigm, Simone Ghelli tracks down the conceptual coordinates of what he calls “the paradigm of the suffering animal.” The suffering animal is a materialist thesis on the condition of the living, which, while contesting the metaphysical and anthropocentric structure of western axiology, eventually redefines and re-establishes ethics on the experience of suffering, that is on the mutual compassion sentient beings feel before the unjust sight of their finitude. The suffering animal paradigm shows how, within our philosophical tradition, the animal question has been always intertwined with the questions of atheism and of materialism. The ultimate aim of this research is to define the “ethical equilibrium” between aspects of the living,such as weakness and power, joy and suffering, life and death, which our philosophical tradition largely tends to consider as mutually excluding. To overcome such oppositions means avoiding opposing, in our ethical and political discourse, the defense of the vulnerability of the weak and the freedom of the powerful.

What is dukkha? In Buddhism this word encompasses the concepts of dis-ease, unsteadiness, sorrow, and lack of inner calm. In English it is usually translated simply as “suffering”. However it is defined, dukkha is central to understanding Buddhism. The Buddha described not only what it was, but taught that there is a way out of it. Suffering is an undeniable theme in both Christianity and Buddhism. Both treat the topic with great intensity. Buddha taught that suffering was inherent to the mortal condition. Christ was born into a life of suffering and called disciples to follow him in this path. Through enlightenment Buddha pointed to a way out of suffering. Through his death Christ suffered once for all. Both groups experience suffering but often talk about it from completely different starting points. Are there insights from each perspective that can inform the other? We believe so. Suffering: Christian Reflections on the Buddhist Dukkha is a collection of articles by Western and non-Western Christ followers for those who want to delve deeper into one important aspect of Buddhist worldview. It is written for the practitioner privileged to live and serve in the Buddhist context. This book is also for the Buddhist seeking to understand the Christian perspective on existence in today's world where suffering is our ever-present reality.

This interdisciplinary volume deals with the most painful situations encountered by animals in the wild or under human guardianship. It seeks to illustrate some remarkable cases and present a general picture of the commodification of animals. This volume starts with an exploration of the capture of animals intended for European zoological parks, the treatment of animals in South Korea, pig farming in China and animal testing in Europe. It goes on to explore animal politics, with a focus on Europe. The moral problems posed by the different types of harm caused to animals are then approached from the vantage point of moral philosophy. Finally, the points of view of veterinary sciences and applied ethics related to animal emotions, suffering and death complete the picture.

An ever-expanding and panicked Wonder Woman lurches through a city skyline begging Steve to stop her. A twisted queen of sorority row crashes her convertible trying to escape her queer shame. A suave butch emcee introduces the sequined and feathered stars of the era's most celebrated drag revue. For an unsettled and retrenching postwar America, these startling figures betrayed the failure of promised consensus and appeasing conformity. They could also be cruel, painful, and disciplinary jokes. It turns out that an obsession with managing gender and female sexuality after the war would hardly contain them. On the contrary, it spread their campy manifestations throughout mainstream culture. Offering the first major consideration of lesbian camp in American popular culture, Suffering Sappho! traces a larger-than-life lesbian menace across midcentury media forms to propose five prototypical queer icons—the sicko, the monster, the spinster, the Amazon, and the rebel. On the pages of comics and sensational pulp fiction and the dramas of television and drive-in movies, Barbara Jane Brickman discovers evidence not just of campy sexual deviants but of troubling female performers, whose failures could be epic but whose subversive potential could inspire. Supplemental images of interest related to this title: George and Lomas; Connie Minerva; Cat On Hot Tin; and Beulah and Oriole.

Of the many state-enacted cruelties to which refugees and asylum seekers are subjected, detention and deportation loom largest in popular consciousness. But there is a third practice, perpetrating a slower violence, that remains hidden: dispersal.Jonathan Darling provides the first detailed account of how dispersal - the system of accommodation and support for asylum seekers and refugees in Britain - both sustains and produces patterns of violence, suffering and social abjection. He explores the evolution of dispersal as a privatised process, from the first outsourced asylum accommodation contracts in 2012 to the renewed wave of outsourcing pursued by the Home Office today.Drawing on six years of research into Britain's dispersal system, and foregrounding the voices and experiences of refugees and asylum seekers, Darling argues that dispersal has played a central role in the erasure of asylum from public concern. Systems of Suffering is a vital tool in the arsenal of those fighting to hold the government to account for the violence of its asylum policy and practice.

Correcting a popular view of the atonement. Was Christ's death a victory over death or a substitution for sin? Many today follow Gustav Aulén's Christus Victor view, which portrays Christ's death as primarily a victory over the powers of evil and death. According to Aulén, this was the dominant view of the church until Anselm reframed atonement as satisfaction and the Reformers reframed it as penal substitution. In Suffering, Not Power, Benjamin Wheaton challenges this common narrative. Sacrificial and substitutionary language was common well before Anselm's Cur Deus Homo. Wheaton displays this through a careful analysis of three medieval figures whose writings on the atonement are commonly overlooked: Caesarius of Arles, Haimo of Auxerre, and Dante Alighieri. These individuals come from different times and contexts and wrote in different genres, but each spoke of Christ's death as a sacrifice of expiation and propitiation made by God to God. Let history speak for itself, read the evidence, and reconsider the church's belief in Christ's substitutionary death for sinners.

This book offers a comprehensive theory of invisibility as a critical sociological concept, addressing the relationship between social suffering and invisibilization. Herzog draws on social theory and a variety of empirical examples to analyze social grammar and unveil various mechanisms of social suffering. Presenting an original theory of silencing and suffering, this book outlines a substantive theory and methodology of invisibilization as an instrument of authority. This systemic analysis of visibility as both a liberating and dominating mechanism will be a major contribution to the field of critical theory, offering an original framework to help improve the situation of excluded groups and individuals.Invisibilization of Suffering will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars across sociology, social philosophy, social work, political sciences, criminology, linguistics and education, with a focus on justice theory, marginalization, discrimination and exclusion.

'The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.'1 Peter 5:10Suffering comes to us all. It may be disease or debilitation, pain or persecution. Our difficulties may be invisible to others or impossible to hide. Sometimes we suffer because of our Christian witness. Other times it's simply part of living in a fallen world. But suffering affects us all, in ways we don't always anticipate.Christians today are often not prepared to suffer well and have a shortsighted view of pain and trials. Ken Boa shows how God uses suffering to shape his children for eternity and to grow them in Christlike character. The book of 1 Peter tells us suffering is both a guarantee and comparatively brief; we shouldn't be surprised when it comes to us. The nature of our affliction is not as important as our response to it. God is at work through our hardships and wants to use them to prepare us for eternal life.Suffering can make us bitter or better. Rediscover living hope, present joy, and a glorious future.

2020 The Gospel Coalition Book Award - Christian LivingHave you experienced an ongoing trial that left you wrung out emotionally? Do you feel alone in your pain?Though suffering often leaves us feeling isolated, God invites us into the community of the Trinity and offers us many companions in Scripture. We experience loneliness alongside the exiled Israelites. We journey with David as he pleads to God for rescue. With Asaph we confess our unbelief. With Job we learn to lament. With Mary and Martha we learn to wait.In God's community, there is sweet fellowship, even in the hardest of circumstances. Journey in these pages with Wendy Alsup through her story of suffering, and more importantly, with the God who walks with us in the wilderness.This warm and contemplative book also includes a helpful appendix for those who companion a suffering loved one.

If God is so good and so powerful, why is there suffering in our world? Why do good people suffer so much? How can we find value and meaning in the midst of the fallenness of the world?These questions—and many others—call for answers. The responses will determine our worldview and way of life. In the Manual for Suffering, the revealed, time-tested, and holistic answer from the depths of the Catholic faith is presented in all its beauty and power.This manual will also provide spiritual aids to navigate and bear with hope and trust the suffering we encounter in our fallen world.The first part lays out the biblical and theological foundations for suffering and the world's fallenness, while the second offers aids for those who suffer, including passages and excerpts from: Scriptural texts; magisterial teachings; the writings of the saints; and traditional Catholic prayers and devotionals. The purpose of this manual is to help those who suffer find the meaning, purpose, and value of suffering with and in Jesus Christ. It is intended for personal use and private reflection, and to share with those we love who need a guide and companion as they walk along the via crucis, the path of the Cross.

There is something about everything that makes it not quite satisfactory. Even things we really love are spoilt by not being quite enough or – the opposite – going on too long. People entering psychotherapy want to feel better – more authoritative, less anxious or depressed, more whole – and although it can help, an enormous amount of difficult and painful emotions continue to arise. After years and years of therapy, many of us feel as mad as ever. There is no'happy ever after'. This all begs the question; what is the place of suffering in human experience and how best can we be with it? This book picks up this question and answers by saying that discontent and unhappiness are inevitable parts of our human experience but there are ways to avoid adding further unnecessary suffering. By becoming present, accepting, and kind, we may enfold what hurts us in a more spacious and meaningful way. Cultivating our ability to be present with emotions felt in the body, we may get a glimpse of how emotions dissolve in the open space of awareness. Present with Suffering: Being with What Hurts will have global appeal to psychotherapy professionals as well as general readers who may be grieving, have an interest in Buddhism, or want to become more present and mindful.

Reflections on the wonder of EasterSuffering & Glory recovers some of the best Holy Week and Easter articles from half a century of Christianity Today. Guiding readers from Palm Sunday to Pentecost and including contributions from Tish Harrison Warren, J. I. Packer, Nancy Guthrie, and Eugene Peterson, Suffering & Glory will remind readers of the beauty of Christ's death and resurrection.

No one theory of time is pursued in these essays, but a major theme that threads them together is Wolfson's signature idea of the timeswerve as a linear circularity or a circular linearity, expressions that are meant to avoid the conventional split between the two temporal modalities of the line and the circle. The conception of time elicited by Wolfson from a host of philosophical and mystical sources—both Jewish and non-Jewish—buttresses the contention that it is precisely structural invariability that engenders interpretive variation. This hermeneutical axiom is justified, in turn, by the presumption regarding the cadence of time as the constant return of what has always been what is yet to be. The telling of time wells forth from the time of telling. One cannot speak of the being of time, consequently, except from the standpoint of the time of being, nor of the time of being except from the standpoint of the being of time.