Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God

An honest look at grief and fears, faith and hope. Combining personal narrative, sound theology, and beautiful writing, this is a book for anyone who has loved and lost.

On November 3, 2020, Tim and Aileen Challies received the shocking news that their son Nick had died. A twenty-year-old student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, he had been participating in a school activity with his fiancée, sister, and friends, when he fell unconscious and collapsed to the ground. Neither students nor a passing doctor nor paramedics were able to revive him. His parents received the news at their home in Toronto and immediately departed for Louisville to be together as a family. While on the plane, Tim, an author and blogger, began to process his loss through writing. In Seasons of Sorrow, Tim shares real-time reflections from the first year of grief-through the seasons from fall to summer-introducing readers to what he describes as the "ministry of sorrow."

Seasons of Sorrow will benefit both those that are working through sorrow or those comforting others:

• See how God is sovereign over loss and that he is good in loss
• Discover how you can pass through times of grief while keeping your faith
• Learn how biblical doctrine can work itself out even in life's most difficult situations
• Understand how it is possible to love God more after loss than you loved him before

Author:

A pastor, noted speaker, and author of numerous articles, Tim Challies is a pioneer in the Christian blogosphere. Tens of thousands of people visit Challies.com each day, making it one of the most widely read and recognized Christian blogs in the world. Tim is the author of several books, including Visual Theology and Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History. He and his family reside near Toronto, Ontario.

Endorsements:

"Tim Challies has taken us into his confidence by writing with such self-searching honesty. It is a painful pleasure to be invited into these sacred moments of grief and to be helped by the reminder that God is too kind ever to be cruel and too wise ever to make a mistake. "
--Alistair Begg,senior pastor, Parkside Church, and host of the Truth for Life radio program

"In the winter of his sorrow, Tim Challies writes that he wants to be found to be a good steward of what God entrusted him, not in the life, but in the death of his son. And surely this tender book is evidence of that stewardship. As he expresses his agonies and questions and aims, he does the work of discipling all who walk the path of losing someone they love to the anguish of death. In the pages of this book, grieving people will find companionship, insight, and genuine encouragement for the journey. "
--Nancy Guthrie, author of Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow and cohost of Respite Retreats for grieving parents

"If ever there was a book Tim Challies needed to write, it's this one. And it's a book I needed to read. For when afflictions multiply, turning chronic and debilitating, the weary heart longs for some fresh balm to soothe the pain. I found that healing salve in Seasons of Sorrow. With heart-shredding honesty, my friend Tim offers robust, Spirit-blessed comfort-the kind that shores up your soul and makes you stronger to endure. Within these pages, you will do more than enter Tim's story of enormous loss; you will come out on the other side having gained a softer heart and a renewed courage to persevere through your own dark seasons of affliction. "
--Joni Eareckson Tada, founder of the Joni and Friends International Disability Center

"I always love reading anything Tim Challies writes, but Seasons of Sorrow cut straight to my soul. I read it within a few weeks of the unexpected deaths of two close friends and while my wife struggles bravely with stage 4 cancer. Tim's heartfelt pain and Christ-centered perspective spoke to both my heart and my head. He writes with honesty, authenticity, and depth. There is no pretense here, no airbrushing death or minimizing it. Yet it is a hopeful book that embraces the blood-bought promises of God that one day he will reverse the curse and swallow up death forever. I highly recommend Seasons of Sorrow to anyone who has experienced heart-crushing loss"
--Randy Alcorn, author of Heaven and If God Is Good

"If you have lost a loved one to death, as everyone has, or if you have buried a child, as many have, Tim Challies is your friend. Your brother. Your lifeline. In this poignant collection of reflections, you will grieve with Tim and Aileen and their precious family. Their faith and courage will bless you with an infusion of the same. And their hopeful perspective will help carry you until that day when, as Tim writes, every sorrow will be "comforted in the place where all tears are dried." "
--Robert and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, bestselling authors   

"In Seasons of Sorrow, Tim Challies bares the heart of an earthly father, utterly crushed by the sudden death of his beloved son, Nick. But as Tim writes out his faithful agony, he also takes us to the faithful joy that can only come from the resurrected Christ. Believers need this book, and only Tim Challies could have written it. I am so thankful that Nick was a student at Boyce College, and his influence as a young Christian was remarkable. Through this book, his remarkable life, joined to his father's God-honoring grief, stands as a testimony to the redeeming love of our heavenly Father."
--Albert and Mary Mohler, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

"This book is brilliant, not because of Tim Challies's eloquence, but because of his tears! Many of us have benefited immensely from the author's blogs. However, in this book, Tim takes us even deeper as he wrestles with the brutal ugliness of death during one whole year of personal sorrow after the loss of his son Nick. The buoyancy of faith that shines from every page often left me teary-eyed, thanking God for his grace to his people during their darkest times. What priceless grace!"
--Conrad Mbewe, pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church and founding chancellor of the African Christian University

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