God’s Healing for Life’s Losses
How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting
Bob Kellemen, Ph.D.
www.rpmministries.org
♥ There Is Hope in the
Midst of Hurt
♥ John 16:33
The Big Picture: Creative Suffering
♥ “There is no human experience which cannot
be put on the anvil of a lively relationship
with God and man, and battered into a
meaningful shape.”
Candor: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn
1. Denial: Shock and Awe
2. Candor: Telling Yourself the Truth
♥ Candor is courageous truth telling about life to
myself in which I come face-to-face with the
reality of external and internal suffering.
3. My Personal Candor Journey
Candor
4. Biblical Candor Samplers
♥ Psalm 42:3-5
♥ Job, Jeremiah, Solomon, Asaph, Heman,
Jesus, Paul
♥ 1 Thessalonians 4:13
♥ No Grieving; No Healing. Know Grieving;
Know Healing.
♥ Candor Is Our Decision to Step on the Mats!
Complaint: A Lament for Your Loss
1. Anger: Cursing that Pushes Away
2. Complaint: Telling God the Truth
♥ Complaint is vulnerable frankness about life
to God in which I express my pain and
confusion over how a good God allows evil
and suffering.
Complaint/Lament
3. My Personal Complaint/Lament Journey
4. Biblical Complaint Samplers
♥ Psalm 62:8
♥ Psalm 73
♥ Jeremiah 20:7
♥ Lamentations 5:20
♥ Psalm 88:18
♥ Job 3:23-26
♥ To diminish suffering
is to refuse to need God!
Cry: I Surrender All
1. Bargaining/Works: A Tit-for-Tat God
2. Cry: Asking God for Help
♥ Cry is a faith-based plea for mobilization in
which I humbly ask God for help based upon
my admission that I can’t survive without
Him.
Crying Out to God
3. My Personal Crying Out to God Journey
4. Biblical Crying Out to God Samplers
♥ Psalm 56:8
♥ Psalm 72:12-14
♥ Psalm 34:17-18
♥ 1 Samuel 30:4-6
♥ Crying empties us so there is more room in
us for God.
♥ Suffering is God’s primary way of uprooting
our self-reliance.
Comfort: God Comes
1. Depression/Alienation: Grief without Hope
♥ If God allowed work to work, no one would
ever surrender to God.
2. Comfort: Surviving Scars
♥ History
♥ Co-Fortitude
♥ Comfort /communion experiences the
presence of God in the presence of
suffering—a presence that empowers me to
survive scars and plants the seeds of hope
that I may yet thrive.
Comfort
3. My Personal Comfort Journey
4. Biblical Comfort Samplers
♥ Genesis 32-33
♥ Psalm 73:21-28
♥ Isaiah 63:9
♥ 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
♥ Faith does not demand the removal of
suffering; faith desires endurance in
suffering.
Waiting: When God Says, “Not Yet”
1. Regrouping: Immediate Gratification
2. Waiting: Refusing to Demand Heaven Now
♥ Waiting is trusting God’s future provision
without working to provide for myself.
♥ Waiting is refusing to take over while
refusing to give up.
♥ Hope waits.
Waiting
3. Biblical Waiting Samplers
♥ OT Prophets: Better Day Is Coming…Later
♥ Romans 5; James 1; 1 Peter 1-2; Hebrews 11
♥ Hebrews 12:16 and Esau
♥ Hebrews 11:24-26 and Moses
♥ Romans 8:18-19
4. Tim and Terri’s
Waiting Journey
Wailing: Pregnant with Hope
1. Deadening: “Don’t Get My Hopes Up!”
2. Wailing: Groaning with Hope
♥ Wailing is longing fervently for heaven and
living passionately for God and others while
still on earth.
♥ Philippians 1:23-25
♥ Wailing is grieving the “Not yet.”
♥ “I ache for Paradise, but I’m pulling weeds
East of Eden until the day I die!”
Wailing
3. Biblical Wailing Samplers
♥ Romans 8:18-25
 Frustration: Vanity
 Eager Waiting: Desperate Desire
 Pregnant Labor for a Lifetime!
 Pregnant with Hope
Wailing
3. Biblical Wailing Samplers
♥ Romans 8:28-39—Thriving:
Nikao/Nike/Victorious!
4. Tim and Terri’s Wailing Journey
Weaving: Spiritual Mathematics
1. Despairing: The Negative of Hope
2. Weaving: Perceiving with Grace/Higher Plan
♥ Weaving is entrusting myself to God’s
larger purposes, good plans, and eternal
perspective.
♥ Weaving perceives suffering not with rosecolored glasses, but with faith-eyes, with
Cross-eyes, with 20/20 spiritual vision.
Weaving
3. Biblical Weaving Samplers
♥ John 14; Ephesians 3; Colossians 3; Hebrews
11; Revelation 19-22
♥ Genesis 50:20
♥ Genesis 45:5-8
♥ Romans 8:17-18
♥ “Instead of our perspective shrinking,
suffering is the exact time we must listen
most closely, when we must lean over to hear
the whisper of God.”
4. Tim and Terri’s Weaving Journey
Worshipping: Finding God
1. Digging Cisterns: Jeremiah 2:13
2. Worshipping: Glimpsing the Face of God
♥ Worship is wanting God more than wanting
relief.
♥ Worship is finding God even when you don’t
find answers.
Worshipping
3. Biblical Worshipping Samplers
♥ Psalm 73:25
♥ Psalm 42:1-2
♥ 1 Peter 1:8
♥ Philippians 3:8, 10
4. Tim and Terri’s Worshipping Journey
The Rest of the Story:
The Promise of a Lifetime
♥ Revelation 7:17; 21:4
♥ Jesus is on the move.
God’s Healing for Life’s Losses
How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting