John Mark Hicks

Madeleine L’Engle:           “Dear God.           I hate you.           Love, Madeleine.” I have been contemplating this brief prayer for several days after I read it in Gary Thomas’ Sacred Marriage (p. 157; an excellent read, btw!). Initially, I was horrified by how much I identified with the prayer and I was quite troubled by the […]

In the late 1990s, before my book Anchors for the Soul: Trusting God in the Storms of Life, I conducted a seminar in Phoenix entitled “Helping Suffering Families.”  This seminar ultimately became the small group study book.  I am making the powerpoints for that seminar available on my Bible Class page.  Also on that page […]

I am a divorced person.  In a previous post I expressed what I felt in the aftermath of my divorce.  Now—out of my own experience and not out of some expertise—I offer some suggestions for helping those who have been through the valley of divorce.   Stick with us.  Connect with us.  Don’t leave us […]

What can we do for someone who has lost a loved one to death? I lost my first wife (1980), father (1994) and son (2001) to death, and my second wife and I divorced in 2001. I share here based more on my experience than any expertise.   Have a healthy sense of inadequacy. The worst and most […]

I often get requests for CDs of two seminar series that I have done for many churches.  The two most requested are “Anchors for the Soul” and “Come to the Table.”  They are both available on my Audios page.  “Anchors for the Soul” is my attempt to reflect on what we might say to those […]

Nine years ago Jennifer delivered Leah stillborn. The next Sunday her congregation sang, “God is so good.” The words caught in Jennifer’s throat, and she could not sing. Instead she found a place to weep alone. “I’m dead inside,” Becky says. Her church, shepherds, family and friends had begged God for sixteen-year-old Joshua. But Jeff’s […]