And God Created Hope: Finding Your Way Through Grief with Lessons from Early Biblical Stories

by Rabbi Mel Glazer

Even the strongest among us can get stuck in the grief process, unable to heal and move forward. Now Rabbi Mel Glazer — a highly regarded and experienced grief-recovery counselor — gives comforting form to a crucial insight: That the messages of the Old Testament are a source of hope for even the most grieving among us. Drawing directly from the key books of the Old Testament, Glazer marshals, in a completely nondenominational way, their most profound, age-old themes to the very hard work of moving through and beyond grief — and into a life of hope and fulfillment. Among the themes and early Biblical stories Glazer uses as his jumping-off point to explore the process of grief recovery are: Bargaining (from Jonah), shock and anger (from Leviticus), fear (from Exodus), wandering (from Numbers), faith and strength (from Job), foregiveness (from Genesis), joy (from Proverbs), growth (from Psalms), legacy (from Deuteronomy), creating a new family (from Ruth), grief without death (from Song of Songs), and tragedy (from Lamentations).

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 11, 2006