Navigating Loss & Hardship Together
Suffering in this life cannot be avoided, but suffering alone can be.
Trees endure storms, disease, and trials like all of creation. Yet with the right care, suffering can be eased.
Our society doesn't often teach or prepare us to handle tragedy well, and that's what this page is dedicated to.
When we accept that hardship will come in time, we can prepare ourselves and be ready to show up for each other.
What's possible is to find the hidden gift in heartbreak: how it draws us to console one another and search for meaning and hope beyond the pain.
So, this page is a starting point. It’s a curated library to prepare now, or to return to whenever you need it.
Compassion
Showing up for someone rarely requires the perfect words, rather simply presence, humility, and the willingness to sit in discomfort alongside them rather than trying to fix it. This is about learning to move through intention to practicing compassion for the sake of blessing those who matter most.
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There Is No Good Card for This — Kelsey Crowe & Emily McDowell: A practical, often funny guide to showing up for people in crisis without saying the wrong thing or disappearing out of discomfort. Good for someone who wants to support a grieving or struggling friend but, as is common, feels paralyzed by not knowing what to say or do.
Making Good Return: Biblical Wisdom on Honoring Aging Parents— Kathleen B. Nielson: Offers five scriptural truths on aging to shape how we care for aging parents. Good for someone caring for aging parents who wants a biblically grounded framework for approaching that season with humility and hope, rather than just practical caregiving tips.
The Hole in Our Gospel — Richard Stearns: The World Vision CEO's account of confronting the scale of global poverty and suffering, and the Christian call to compassionate action beyond personal comfort. Good for someone whose faith feels privatized and wants to reconnect it to tangible care for others' suffering.
To Bless the Space Between Us — John O'Donohue: A collection of poetic blessings for life's transitions, losses, and thresholds, written from a Celtic (Catholic-mystic) spiritual tradition. Good for someone wanting language, whether spoken or written, to offer someone walking through a hard season. Makes a great case for the practice of extending a blessing.
Grief
Grief is a natural part of the human experience. It’s not a problem to solve or a phase to complete. Rather, it's a companion that reshapes how we love and remember. These resources are curated to offer honest companionship for that process, not easy answers.
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How to Say Goodbye — Wendy MacNaughton: An illustrated meditation on presence and loss, drawn from the author's experience sitting with a dying friend. Good for someone who processes best visually or wants a gentler, quieter entry point into grief.
O Love That Will Not Let Me Go — Nancy Guthrie: A collection of reflections on suffering and hope, compiled by a mother who has walked through the deaths of her own children. Good for someone currently in the middle of loss, not just anticipating or studying it.
The View from a Hearse— Joseph Bayly: A classic, unflinching reflection on grief and faith written by a man who buried three of his own children. Good for someone wanting a raw, deeply personal account rather than a general framework.
Good Grief!: Hope, Help, and a little Humor for your Journey from Wife to Widow— Jody Noland: Practical, encouraging guidance for widows navigating the many new challenges of that season, written from Noland's own widowhood and her belief that healing can include laughter. Good for a woman specifically walking through the loss of a spouse who wants a companion that offers both practical help and permission to smile again.
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy — Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant: Combines Sandberg's account of losing her husband suddenly with Grant's research on resilience, offering practical, psychology-based guidance for rebuilding after devastating loss. Good for someone wanting an evidence-based, secular perspective on resilience alongside the more faith-rooted grief resources in this category.
Suffering, Surrender & Self-Care
We can’t avoid suffering in this life. It’s just a guarantee. It also can’t be reasoned away. What’s left to do it have the courage to face it. That’s where we find healing as what’s heavy becomes just ever-so lighter with time and we become wiser, more resilient, and even more free learning how to surrender the illusion of control.
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Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy — Mark Vroegop: Recovers the biblical practice of lament as a faithful response to suffering, rather than a lack of trust in God. Good for someone who feels guilty being honest with God about pain and needs permission to grieve openly.
A Path Through Suffering — Elisabeth Elliot: Reflections on trusting God through hardship, written by a woman who lost her first husband to violence on the mission field.
The Happiness Trap— Russ Harris: A clinically grounded ACT approach to accepting difficult thoughts and emotions rather than fighting them. Good for someone whose suffering is compounded by fighting their own feelings and who wants concrete psychological tools. Check out the illustrated version too.
Calm: A Practical Guide to Mindfulness— Michael Acton Smith: An accessible, secular introduction to mindfulness practices for reducing stress and staying present. Good for someone new to mindfulness who wants a gentle, low-barrier starting point for self-care. We always prefer ink and paper to an app!
Finding Joy in Life
Even in seasons marked by loss, joy isn't a betrayal of grief, rather it's evidence that life and hope persist alongside it. This category is a reminder that lightness and delight still have a place, even here.
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That Sounds Fun — Annie F. Downs: An invitation to pursue joy and fun intentionally as a spiritual practice, not a distraction from a meaningful life. Good for someone who's grown so serious or burdened that they've forgotten how to enjoy simple things.
Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put— Annie B. Jones: A memoir about finding meaning, humor, and hope in the quiet, unremarkable rhythms of small-town life rather than chasing bigger or more extraordinary circumstances. Good for someone who feels their ordinary season of life is somehow lacking, and needs permission to find real joy right where they are.
Surprised by Joy— C.S. Lewis: A spiritual memoir tracing Lewis's own journey from atheism to faith through his lifelong pursuit of "Joy" — a specific, piercing longing he came to see as a signpost pointing beyond itself toward God. Good for someone who has felt inexplicable moments of longing or wonder and wants language for what that experience might actually mean.