The Question That Never Goes Away
After traveling to Newtown, Connecticut, last December, I put aside other writing projects to write a short book called The Question That Never Goes Away. Even as I was writing it, more tragedies occurred: the Boston Marathon bombings, a fertilizer plant explosion, an earthquake in China, tornadoes in Oklahoma, wildfires in Colorado and Arizona.
Meanwhile, nearly every day I get a Caring Bridge update on several friends who are undergoing treatment for cancer. Whether in large-scale tragedies or more intimate crises of hurt and loss, we all ask the question “Why would God allow this to happen?” Indeed it is the question that never goes away.
Traditional publishers wanted a year to publish the new book. (As a magazine editor I could never figure out why book publishers needed such a long lead time. Then, again, newspaper editors couldn’t understand why magazines needed several months’ lead time!) We decided to go to press more quickly, by releasing an e-book right away. For the next few months, we’ll have the e-book available for purchase even though the hard copy won’t be released until sometime in December.
When I went to Newtown in December 2012, I asked the publisher of my first book, Where Is God When It Hurts?, if they could donate some copies to the folks in Connecticut who were hurting. “We’ll do better than that,” they said. “We’ll make the electronic book available free for two weeks for anybody.”
No one bought an ad. No one promoted the free version. Yet somehow it went viral. Because some of you posted the notice on your social media sites or mentioned it to friends and relatives, word quickly spread. To our amazement, after the Newtown tragedy more than 100,000 people downloaded Where Is God When It Hurts? online.
I hope something similar happens with this book. Questions stirred up by tragedy shake the faith of strong believers even as they sow confusion and doubt among seekers. For whatever reason, God has placed me in the midst of suffering people, and in this book I face into those questions honestly, and tell what I have learned from places like Newtown.
If you’re interested, you can buy the book by using the link at the bottom of this page. (Note: the format only works with an Amazon Kindle or one of the many Kindle apps. Later, other formats will become available.) And if you like it, I’d appreciate your spreading the word through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. The world needs to hear words of comfort and hope in the midst of great suffering.
Thank you for your help—and be sure to let me know what you think of the book.
Philip
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