Finding Purpose Beyond our Pain by Paul Meier and David Henderson

November 21, 2009 | By Mark | Add a Comment

“I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born”, says the Lord. – Isaiah 66:9, NCV

This is a good little book. Actually, at 281 pages, it isn’t so little. With sections on injustice, rejection, loneliness, loss, discipline, failure and death, the book covers a lot of ground. Authors Paul Meier, M.D. and David L. Henderson, M.D. aim to help readers find purpose in the midst of struggles. They do a solid job at achieving this goal.

The book primarily focuses on emotional and relational rather than physical pain. It is overtly Christian and includes many scriptures as the authors argue their case. The reader is encouraged to disengage in activities which lead to unnecessary pain and embrace the suffering which cannot be avoided. The primary reason is that suffering leads to growth.

The book is well organized and includes summaries and reflection questions at the end of each topical section. It is of the cookbook variety, so the reader can go straight to the struggle he or she is in the midst of dealing with.

As someone who received a degree in counseling from a Christian school and has read other books by Meier (and his compatriots Henry Cloud and John Townsend), I was familiar with the information presented. I can’t say that I encountered much new material, save for light coverage on more current topics such as the struggling economy and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The short stories and anecdotes were fresh to me and I found these to be especially interesting and inspirational.

Overall, I found this to be a good, if not spectacular resource. The authors treat each section with care and sensitivity and provide comfort for those in pain. For those familiar with Meier and friends, it is a book that offers good reminders more than new concepts. It does not go into extraordinary depth on each topic, but more than enough depth to be helpful.

Rating: 4/5

This book was provided for review by the Thomas Nelson Publishing Group. To learn more about or purchase this book on Amazon, click here.

Category: Reviews

Random Quote

Driving without Headlights
I don’t know what you do up here in Northern Indiana. Where I came from, on Friday nights, we used to get in our Dads’ trucks cause they used to build those trucks so that you could run over anything and it wouldn’t hurt them. You know, the old gravel roads, they just ran straight for miles and miles and miles. You never had to turn your car because you were always going in one direction until you wanted to go in another direction and then you had to wait until you came to a road to make a turn and then you’d make the turn and go straight in that direction for a long ways.

It was pretty easy driving, so what we always liked to do is go out as far in the country as we could get to where there weren’t any houses or anything that we could find. Then, you’d go as just about as fast as you dared going and you’re turn the lights out. Then the truck, in the middle of the night… It wasn’t a real smart thing to do. But luckily, they built those trucks real sturdily. And our dads always just thought they were getting beat up out in the field. They didn’t know it was in someone else’s field.

So one time I was driving from Philadelphia to Miami, Florida. I was going down Interstate 95 through Maryland, which I don’t ordinary think of as being a beatuiful part of the world. But it’s shocking how beautiful Maryland is. Of course, it was about 2 o’clock in the morning and it was a full moon and so just about any place is pretty at 2 in the morning with a full moon if you’re all by yourself.

And I started thinking about how we used to do that when we were kids. How we used to turns those lights out and drive a little bit too fast on gravel roads. And I wondered if I could still see by moonlight like I could when I was younger. So, I looked around and made sure there weren’t any cars and clicked them off right there in Maryland. Only this time, I didn’t drive too fast because I wasn’t quite so young anymore. I had gotten in the habit of trying to soak up things instead of speed by them.

Looking at Maryland I began to think of just the goodness that I was not blind. Sometimes you have to go to Maryland to remember what a joy it is to see. But then I began to think about even if I was in the middle of Brooklyn – with that moon – if there was a power shortage and there weren’t any lights to interrupt – probably even Brooklyn would be pretty with that moon. I remembered how it used to look when you’d drive in the spring and the corn was just starting to come up and the rows were real short.

You know, sometimes we think that everything is changing. But I’ll tell you what – the same moon is up there tonight. The same stars that Abraham saw – they’re all up there. The same God that put them there and made them shine, He’s still there too. And I don’t know what life has for you. I don’t know what life has for me. But I know this: I know that God is good and I know that God does not lie. I know that God has given us the gift of our lives. Sometimes we wish He would have given us someone else’s life. But He chose to give you your life. Don’t despair of it.

Rich Mullins

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