About this episode
Have you ever faced a season so heavy you wondered how you’d get through the next hour—let alone the next year? Author Linda Dillow knows that place well. Today on the Christian Habits Podcast, we discuss eight “heart skills” that have helped her cling to God when life was unbearably hard from her new book, Hope for My Hurting Heart. Prepare to gain so much wisdom about dealing with grief and hardship from this episode.
Finding Hope for Your Hurting Heart
Linda is no stranger to writing about trusting God in difficult seasons. Her book Calm My Anxious Heart has encouraged thousands of women to lay down their worries and embrace contentment. But she admits she thought life might get easier as she got older. “Didn’t happen in my life,” she says wryly.
The challenges came hard during COVID. Two of her four children—both daughters—were seriously ill, one undergoing chemo and the other also facing cancer. Travel restrictions and quarantines meant she couldn’t be with them when they needed her most. “I sat on my suitcases and cried,” she recalls.
Then came the unthinkable: sitting beside her oldest daughter’s bed and watching her die. “I was in my seventies, and I hadn’t had cancer. I would have taken it from both my daughters if I could. Instead, I was watching them suffer—and my sons-in-law and grandchildren suffer.”
A Declaration of Hope
In that season, Linda felt herself sliding from despair toward depression, despite reading the Word and worshiping. “I said, ‘God, I don’t want to slide down this slide. Show me what to do.’”
She sensed God whisper: Make a declaration of hope before Me.
So, on a yellow legal pad, she wrote three commitments:
God, don’t waste my pain.
Father, use this pain to build character, perseverance, and hope (Romans 5).
Abba, comfort me so I c
