John Mark Hicks

There is always reason to weep. We don’t have to look too far into our world—whether through social media, television, or newsprint—to find reason to weep. Yet, too often we—especially the church—ignore, hide our eyes, or look past the pain in order to escape into fantasy, denial, or hope. We rarely sit in our grief […]

The above title is the first line in the refrain of Andrew Peterson’s “Come Back Soon.” On Sunday my old and dear friend Dean Barham, in his morning sermon at Woodmont Hills, alerted me to Peterson’s music and particularly this line. It has stuck with me for a few days now. Yesterday I read Keith Brenton’s funeral […]

My new book, Meeting God at the Shack: A Journey into Spiritual Recovery, is now available. _________ Chapter One What Kind of Book is the Shack? I will open my mouth with a parable, I will teach you lessons from the past. Psalm 78:2 (TNIV) While some have perhaps read The Shack as an actual account, […]

The narrator provides the frame of mind with which to read this magnificent and stunning poem—rather than cursing God (which is what the satan expected), Job curses the day of his birth. The narrator’s introduction underscores that the satan was wrong about Job. At the same time, Job wishes he had never been born or at […]

Now available on Amazon. Over the years I have reflected on William Young’s book The Shack in the light of my own personal journey into the world of spiritual recovery.  I found much in Young’s novel that paralleled my own experience. Previously, I posted on some significant themes I found in the the book–both in […]

As I have spoken on The Shack in recent months–this past weekend, for example, at the Central Church of Christ in Benton, KY–the title of this post has become increasingly clarified for me: “Sad But Unafraid.”  [Those who fear the Lord] will have no fear of bad news;              their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord. […]

Yesterday I drove to Ellijay, Georgia–the city of my wife’s birth, upbringing, marriage, death and burial. She died around 2:00am on April 30, 1980 while convalescing in her parent’s home from back surgery twenty days before. Yesterday I drove to her graveside alone. I had not been there alone in some years, perhaps decades. It was […]

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but–I hope–into a better shape. Estella to Pip, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, chap. 59 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I […]

Yesterday I posted two articles by my hand from the 1981 Gospel Advocate. These were my first atttempts, at the age of twenty-three, to write (even publicly speak of) the loss of my wife in 1980. Reading them again after so long–I don’t think I have read them or perhaps even thought of them in […]

On April 30, 1980, Sheila Pettit Hicks, my wife of two years, eleven months, and eight days, died twenty days after recovering from back surgery. A blood clot stopped her heart while she slept at her parent’s home in Ellijay, GA.  This week is the 29th anniversary of that horrendous moment in my life. It shifted […]