Just at a time in my life that I needed this, I received an ARC (advanced readers copy) of Pain As A Starting Point by Kerry Kerr McAvoy.

Living with chronic pain on a daily basis and having so much emotional pain in my life, I feel almost like an expert on pain, both physical and emotional. The best physician I have found is GOD!

The author uses scripture to show the answers to some of life's tough questions. Such as, Where is God while I'm suffering? How do I trust in God through my difficult trials of life? She has done a fabulous job showing where God is through all of our struggles and how to find him. With daily devotionals. Questions to make you think. Optional reading of Bible verses to go along with each section. A daily discipline exercise and prayer end each section. Also some great play list for some (new for me) awesome music.

There are so many of the painful heartbreaking burdens that life gives us that I have either experienced personally or have watched family members go through. Through it all, as the book will show, God is there for us if we will turn to him and have faith.

One of my favorite quotes from this book is...
"In that moment, pain becomes a starting point and provides us an opportunity to see our desperate state and our need for God."

I highly recommend this book to everyone, for everyone I know suffers from some kind of pain. This is a book that I will be re-reading from time to time.
I received an ARC (advanced readers copy) of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review rather it be good or bad. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the chance to read and review this book. ( )

I received this book from LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

One of the nice things about this book is that while it is the third book in the Living Life 2 The Fullest series, it is in no way dependent on the first two books and can be read separately.

Now I know I am not the target audience for this book as I am neither spiritual nor religious, however the topic interested me and I was curious about what insight the book held coming from a psychologist. Due to this, I was a bit disappointed.

While I appreciated the helpful suggestions in the test such as playlists, optional readings, practical exercises, daily discipline exercises, and suggested prayers, the actual analysis and content of the book wasn't all that unique.

As a psychology major I was hoping to identify with McAvoy and her perspective as a licensed psychologist applying her knowledge to spirituality in combination with theology and the bible. However, the biblical knowledge and theology were greatly flawed and the psychological elements were sparse and held little insight.

As far as psychology went, there wasn't all that much that was helpful. At one point, McAvoy even states that, "Although psychology attributes the causes of our emotional issues to early childhood difficulties, it is clear that sin has had a powerful impact on our fragile sense of self" (81-82). Yes, please, continue to tell me my depression is due to the fact that I'm a sinner. That is very helpful.

She then goes on to include a whole chapter demonstrating why we psychologically need God. This basically turns into her describing psychological needs such as trust, empathetic attunement, and security, and then filling that need with God.

Furthermore, her knowledge of the bible and Theology were a bit confusing. Like when she discusses an unchanging God that humans attribute such "human flaws, such as irrational anger, greed, and jealousy" (24), but that these attributes as misguided because he's God and so unlike us that we really can't understand him. McAvoy seems to just be ignoring the whole Old Testament and the fact that God apparently called himself a "jealous God". And also that whole bit with Abraham and Isaac, which McAvoy discusses, but only in a positive light in order to show true sacrifice and devotion to God.

I think the use of personal examples was good in demonstrating some of the concepts that McAvoy applied, but the entire message of the book was not very helpful.The whole message of the book can be summarized in the line "From our limited perspective his actions will not always make sense, but, like David, we will be able to trust in God's sovereignty as we come to know him better" (24-25). So basically trust in God, he works in mysterious ways. Not much insight there.

Overall, the book was a bit of a disappointment for me personally. I was hoping to get a unique perspective on pain and loss, but was left with a bunch of religious cliches. ( )