BECOMING RESILIENT
through suffering to come back stronger
By Donna Gibbs
Revell. 195 pages. US $13.99
ISBN 978 0 800 728 410
Written by a qualified Christian counsellor, this book aims to help those who are struggling with significant trials in their lives by giving them the tools and resources to ‘come out stronger on the other side’.
Part One is a sort of self-assessment for those who are facing difficulties, with a strong encouragement not to stay where they are in their suffering, but to determine to move forward. Part Two contains practical suggestions to work through difficulties. The final section gives a biblical perspective on how suffering can be used to great purpose in the Lord’s hands.
What’s good about the book? It is warm, loving and unafraid to talk about the taboos of suffering with the candour and compassion of an experienced counsellor. It is honest about the depths of suffering that humans can experience – either through no fault of their own or because of their own poor or destructive choices. It is practical, with clearly articulated suggestions for action - the importance of the church family, cultivating gratitude, the importance of sensible self-care. The application questions at the end of each chapter are gently probing and would be useful both to an individual who is suffering themselves or for a Christian friend walking alongside them.
God disappeared
However, there were times in the book when God seemed to disappear, for example in the run through of common destructive patterns, many of which had their roots in secular psychology. There were helpful biblical character case studies to support some points and sensible advice such as ‘sharing partial facts leads to partial healing’ but, especially in the chapters on ‘acknowledging the suffering’ and ‘telling the whole story’, more was needed to explicitly integrate counselling with biblical truths. I wanted to hear more about sin, repentance, reconciliation and forgiveness. At times it felt just a little too person-centred when a God-centred approach would have strengthened the advice much more.
