Life can hurt. And disappoint. Lysa Terkeurst, president of Proverbs 31 Ministries, knows this full well. As she shares in It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, Terkeurst’s husband had an affair, she had stomach surgery, and she was diagnosed with breast cancer during the same season – among multiple other struggles. Like you and I, she knows pain. Thankfully, she also knows hope. And that’s the direction she tries to point the reader.
I do have to be transparent and share from the beginning that it’s written toward a female audience (sorry guys – maybe buy a copy for the woman in your life who needs a reminder of God’s goodness), but since I work with both men and women, I felt the need to read and share. I want to best point my clients toward resources and reads that may help them, so that means being able to point my female clients toward books that meet their needs and inquiries. I think this book will speak to many women just like you.
Have you been hurt? Do you feel like God isn’t intervening in your circumstances? Is His timing agonizing? And you’re wondering when some good or relief will come? You’re not alone. Terkeurst’s goal amidst her longsuffering was to never lose her hope – to take one step and one day at a time toward the good she believed God would bring from her pain. Easier said than done and in It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, she’s raw and honest about her doubts and struggles with unbelief.
This book aims to help you shift your view of God from that of cruel and unfair to one of a sovereign God who is working things in your life that we cannot see. He has not abandoned you, even when it feels like it. The book also aims to equip you to recognize the lies and tactics of the enemy so you can direct your battle against him (and not other people). It encourages you to live your life even when it feels like your life is over. It also guides you in helping friends who are in the pit and “licking the floors of hell” – as Terkheurst words it.
A memoir of sorts and a Christian look at pain and suffering, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way is open and real (at times all too real), yet relatable and even humorous at times. Terkheurst mixes wit and self reflection as she shares her long journey (years that felt very long) to stay faithful to God during the hardest season of her life. Are you struggling with the same thing?
Not some “feel good” read by any means, it doesn’t skirt truths about who we are, who God is, and the battle we wage in this war for our thoughts, feelings, and focus. When it’s easy to have a pity-party (and Terkheurst fully discloses hers), there are biblical truths she clings to and encourages you to cling to also.
As she writes this book, she is still unsure of her future. God hasn’t answered her questions or restored her marriage yet, but Terkheurst does share her hope that God is healing her in the middle of the hurt. She compares her life as a walk on a tightrope when she wishes for the safety of a sidewalk and all she can do is put one foot in front of the other and pray she doesn’t fall. She describes her life as “the middle” – not still in the moment of the revelation that crushed her world, but not yet at the healing or goodness God has promised.
If you’re walking this tightrope walk also, grab a copy of It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way. Repeated rave reviews show this to be a favorite among women. Find bit of yourself in her story as your wait for God to keep to writing yours.