Review: Working Through Who You Believe God Really is to You
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 22, 2013
This little book is part of a larger work, "Forgiveness Formula: Finding Lasting Freedom in Christ", but stands very well on its own. It is a comfortable read, and can be finished in a short time, although personally this is the type of guide that needs to be worked through little by little. The way I would approach this is to read it thoroughly a couple of times first, then sit down with a journal and write reflections as you meditate on a section.The key the author wants to share with her readers in trusting God when bad things happen is in this quote, "I believe it is important to have a healthy view of God before a crisis happens. Otherwise, we'll view God through the crisis instead of viewing the crisis through God and His character." She encourages each of us to examine ourselves and discover how we view God. She offers some guidelines we can use in this process in Part 3 of this book. This is the part of the book I would recommend spending time praying and journaling.In Part 2 of the book, Ms. Hitz shares with us some of her own crisis experiences. Because of these events in her life, she has had to wrestle with a lot of difficult questions herself. "Why?" is a common response for many of us facing our pain, hurts, and suffering. I find it personally comforting to know that she can write authoritatively about this topic. When facing my own demons, nothing helps more than empathy and advice from someone who KNOWS and has come out of it with a closer personal relationship with Christ and is willing to share what worked for them. She uses some metaphors in this section that may help us get some perspective in dealing with the 'why' question. One of those metaphors is the puzzle piece. Imagine yourself holding a piece of a puzzle. You do not know anything about the picture it comes from. You can study the single piece minutely and make some guesses, but in the end you probably won't even come close to seeing the whole picture. But we can know the One who has all the rest of the pieces and trust Him.This is not a perfect world. Life is full of brokenness and hurt. We try to escape our pain and often the way we deal with it just adds more pain.  As a result of her painful past, Shelley Hitz became involved in a ministry that reaches out to hurting young people. She created some websites to follow up with the speaking ministry and it was her interaction with questions many of the girls asked that led to writing this book.Have bad things happened to you? Have you ever questioned why God would allow such things to happen? Then I recommend this book for you. It could change your life.A complimentary review copy was provided to me by Smashwords. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.