Torn by Jud Wilhite

In Torn: Trusting God When Life Leaves You in Pieces, Jud Wilhite has written a book that is relevant to everyone. Christians and non-Christians should take the time to read this book. Jud is a pastor and his heart and passion of sharing Christ and strength in Him comes out in the writing of this book. Instead of focusing on our struggles, pain, and situations, Jud puts are focus on the God who can take care of all our struggles, pain, and situations. At the same time when putting our focus on God, he doesn't downplay or try and tell us that struggles won't come, but instead that they will and when they do we have someone who can take care of us. Jud writes this in one of the chapters, "When our world falls apart and the pain of life settles in, yes, we are looking for explanations and meaning and rationale, but even more so we want assurance. Yes, we want answers. But these cries of pain, whether to God explicitly or just into the universe, are evidence of an implicit trust that something or someone greater-someone with answers!-is out there." The reasons for all the "Why?" questions don't have to be from major circumstances in life. I would venture to say that most of have "Why?" questions. I found myself being spoken too throughout the pages of this book. For me it was in the second part of the book, where Jud talks about true community and sharing your struggles. I found myself after reading that chapter how I needed to find someone to speak the Gospel into my life. Jud quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer from his book Life Together, and I couldn't get it out of my head.

"The Christian needs another Christian who speak God's Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother's is sure."

Life is sure to get rocky for us all, but what Jud shares is that we don't have to go through life alone. We need to share our struggles and allow others to walk with us, but ultimately we have a sovereign God who isn't surprised by what we're going through and is there to comfort us as we walk through the tough times in our lives.

Special thanks to WaterBrook Multnomah and Blogging for Books for providing this complimentary book to read and review. You can purchase the book here on amazon.com.

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