Grumble Hallelujah
Caryn Dahlstrand Rivadeneira
In Grumble Hallelujah, Caryn Dahlstrand Rivadeneira shares what she has learned about worshipping God and loving life even when disappointing or frustrating things happen.
This is one of those books that left me wondering if she had somehow been listening to how I think and pray sometimes! What she said about facing disappointment as a Christian certainly rang true. In the book is brutally honest about her struggles to deal with disappointment. She goes onto talk about how to handle disappointment well. I appreciated that she didn’t advocate possitive thinking influenced attempts to pretend things don’t hurt, instead she acknowledged the legitimacy of feeling and expressing disappointment. Nor does the book veer off the other side of spectrum into a pity party. She gives some good advice on dealing with issues like jealousy, doubt, shame and bad attitudes towards God. I also found some of the prayers at the end of each chapter helpful in starting to pray about things I’d felt but hadn’t quite had the words to articulate.
I’ve tended to think that in the Christian community we often don’t have a clear idea of how to go about dealing helpfully with circumstances that aren’t in the realm of tragedy or serious suffering but are nonetheless disappointing. I think this book does a good job at addressing that gap in our understanding of the Christian life. It is definitely a book I will be coming back to.
Review copy courtesy of Tyndale Publishers
