Humperdinck - Hansel und Gretel

Humperdinck - Hansel und Gretel by

It's easy to have faith when life is good. We sing songs about His faithfulness and offer up platitudes about His nearness. Until something happens.

A struggling marriage. An illness or death. A child who wanders, a career that flounders or a church that fails. Whatever the source of our struggle, the existence of pain causes us to question the reality of God. And so we pray for deliverance, needing hardcore proof of His presence: God heal God save

Then we wait. Watch the sky. Cross our spiritual fingers. Instead, circumstances--and our pain--remain the same. That's when doubt assaults and panic overtakes. And our pain becomes complicated by something far more sinister: Perceived abandonment.

It is here, in the dark doubt of real life that our easy songs and clich s don't hold up to our terrifying questions. God's silence seems to speak to His absence. And so we cry out in fear: Where is God?

But what if we could collect evidence that proves otherwise? What if we could be absolutely certain about God's presence with and affection for us, giving us the kind of faith shield that could weather any storm?

From Genesis to Revelation, like a thick golden thread woven throughout, is a single extraordinary theme: God is with us. Like Joshua's twelve stones, With You delivers twelve key Biblical stories that demonstrate God's unfailing presence with His people. Stones. Remembrances. An altar of memory to carry us through questions we don't yet have and losses we don't yet know. At the end of each chapter, the reader is challenged to identify a marker or stone in her own life: a literal rock, a locket, a picture, a story, a poem. It doesn't matter so much what the stone is, but that it reminds the one who sees it of a tangible evidence of God's nearness. By the time the reader reads the last page, she will have gathered her own twelve stones, a memorial to the presence and affection of her God.

In Michele's typical narrative style, With You provides both biblical basis and modern story to deliver solid historical evidence in a powerful cultural context. The goal? To shine a bright light on God's enduring presence for those who feel alone in the dark.