Scarred By Struggle, Transformed By Hope

by Chittister, Joan D.

• ISBN13: 9780802829740
• ISBN10: 0802829740
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-03-15
• Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co

Summary

Everyone goes through times of pain and sorrow, depression and darkness, stress and suffering. It is in the necessary struggles of life, however, that we stretch our souls and gain new insights enabling us to go on.Building on the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with God and on the story of her own battle with life-changing disappointment, Sister Joan Chittister deftly explores the landscape of suffering and hope, considering along the way such wide-ranging topics as consumerism, technology, grief, the role of women in the Catholic Church, and the events of September 11, 2001. We struggle, she says, against change, isolation, darkness, fear, powerlessness, vulnerability, exhaustion, and scarring; and while these struggles sometimes seem insurmountable, we can emerge from them with the gifts of conversion, detachment, faith, courage, surrender, limitations, endurance, transformation, and (perhaps most important) hope. Each of these struggles and gifts is discussed in a chapter of its own.Meant to help readers cope with their own suffering and disappointment, "Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope" is, in Chittisterbs words, ban anatomy of struggle and an account of the way hope grows in us, despite our moments of darkness, regardless of our regular bouts of depression. It is an invitation to look again at the struggles of life in order that we might remember how to recognize new life in our souls the next time our hearts turn again to clay.bNeither a self-help manual nor a book offering pat answers, but supremely practical and relevant, Chittisterbs "Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope" will richly reward those readers seeking solace in the empathic, wise, andaccessible meditations of a fellow struggler.

Author Biography

Joan D. Chittister is a best-selling author, an internationally known lecturer, and the executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality, Erie, Pennsylvania

Table of Contents

Preface: Struggle, the Seedbed of Hope	ix
Acknowledgments	xii
1. A Paradigm of Struggle	1	(7)
2. The Loss of Certainty: A Suffering of the Soul	8	(6)
3. Struggle: The Process and the Challenge	14	(6)
4. The Struggle of Change	20	(4)
5. The Gift of Conversion	24	(4)
6. The Struggle of Isolation	28	(5)
7. The Gift of Independence	33	(5)
8. The Struggle of Darkness	38	(3)
9. The Gift of Faith	41	(4)
10. The Struggle with Fear	45	(4)
11. The Gift of Courage	49	(4)
12. The Struggle with Powerlessness	53	(4)
13. The Gift of Surrender	57	(4)
14. The Struggle of Vulnerability	61	(5)
15. The Gift of Limitations	66	(4)
16. The Struggle of Exhaustion	70	(4)
17. The Gift of Endurance	74	(5)
18. The Struggle of Scarring	79	(4)
19. The Gift of Transformation	83	(4)
20. Wrestling with God	87	(4)
21. The Process of Struggle	91	(6)
22. The Process of Hope	97	(7)
23. The Gift of Hope	104	(4)
24. Hope: The Resurrection of the Spirit	108