Forgiving God

By: Hilary Yancey

Narrated by: Hilary Yancey

Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

A young mother's life is forever changed and her faith in God is broken when her son in diagnosed with complex physical disabilities. Restore and grow your faith as you read about Hilary Yancey's personal journey back to God.

Three months into her pregnancy with her first child, Hilary Yancey received a phone call that changed everything. As she learned the diagnosis - cleft lip and palate, a missing right eye, possible breathing complications - Hilary began to pray in earnest. Even in the midst of these findings, she prayed that God would heal her son. God could do a miracle unlike anything she had seen. Only when Hilary held her baby, Jack, in her arms for the first time did she realize God had given her something drastically different than what she had demanded.

Hilary struggled to talk to God as she sat for six weeks beside Jack's crib in the NICU. She consented to surgeries and learned to care for a breathing tube and gastronomy button. In her experience with motherhood Hilary had become more familiar with the sound of her son's heart monitor than the sound of his heartbeat. Later, during surgeries and emergency trips back to the hospital with her crying, breathless boy, Hilary reproached the stranger God had become.

Jack was different. Hilary was not the mother she once imagined. God was not who Hilary knew before. But she could not let go of one certainty - she could see the image of Christ in Jack's face. Slowly, through long nights of wrestling and longer nights of silence, Hilary cut a path through her old, familiar faith to the God behind it. She discovered that it is by walking out onto the water, where the firm ground gives way, that we can find him. And meeting Jesus, who rises with his scars to proclaim new life, is never what you once imagined.

©2018 Hilary Yancey (P)2018 Faith Words

Critic reviews

"Hilary Yancey's writing is fraught with humanity and divinity, both. Her words are full of the...beautiful infusion of wisdom that happens when life does what it does." (Amber C. Haines, author of Wild in the Hollow)

"Hilary is one of my favorite writers. Period. Because she's not afraid of what her writing will uncover. She's not afraid to look doubt and question marks and God in the eye. And then she's not afraid to tell us exactly what she found. Open this book and let her show you. I promise it will change you too." (Lisa-Jo Baker, author of Never Unfriended and Surprised by Motherhood)

"I love learning from Hilary as I read how she models, day in and out, the life of a parent who sees like Jesus. There's not a thing she writes that doesn't have a turn of phrase that catches in my throat, such a gifted writer she is. The melding of these two things - her way with words and her way as a parent - means this book is a much-needed gift to every one of us." (Tsh Oxenreider, author of At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe)

Waste of money and time

The author obviously needed to write a book to simply say she wrote a book and let everyone know what a good mother she is. Very little substance conveying any true struggles with her faith and any true steps with her efforts to forgive God

I wish her and her family all the best in the future, but maybe writing inspirational books should not be her primary occupation.

Beautiful Story

I loved this book! Hilary’s story is raw, honest and real. I especially enjoyed listening to it in the author’s own voice. Thank you Hilary for sharing so vulnerably with us!

Deep and Powerful Reflections

A moving reflection on parenting, disability, and God's role in it all. Very highly recommended.