"'Why Me?' Comfort for the Victimized" by David Powlison. A Review

Why Me?: Comfort for the VictimizedWhy Me?: Comfort for the Victimized by David A. Powlison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Forty-four pages of grit and goodness! That's the best way to describe this booklet by David Powlison, executive director of Christian Counseling and Education Foundation and senior editor of the Journal of Biblical Counseling! Powlison writes this manuscript for those who have truly been vandalized and victimized by others. He doesn't lessen their anguish or make light of their angst. What he does do is walk the reader through Psalm 10, showing how to use the Psalm, the ways this Psalm draws us to Christ, and propels us to trust the good God, since faith "finds God in suffering, producing endurance, love, and hope" (23). Christian sufferers (the raped, abused, falsely accused, abandoned, etc.) should read this with open hearts, open journals, and ready pens. You will want to jot down notes as you become familiar with this God-given song.

In the first part of the pamphlet Powlison shows how this holy hymn guides a person to boldly lay before God the violence and vehemence someone has shoved into their life and slammed into their heart! As he puts it, "You are meant to cry out, "Unfair! Outrageous!" and to feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Evil terrifies and intimidates the innocent and weak" (15). The author also exhibits the ways this Psalm restrains us from the temptation to vindictiveness: how not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good (Romans 12.21). Powlison speaks with empathy to the grieving, ground-up heart. In the last portion of this précis, the author gives a few short exercises so that the reader can immediately employ what they've learned.

If you're asking yourself whether you should you get a copy for yourself or not, take this short quiz: have you had your heart bashed in by a spouse (verbally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, physically)? Have you had your childhood mangled by a molester? Have you had the integrity and peace-of-mind of your person pillaged ? Have you had your deeper emotional or economic loyalties forcefully betrayed? If you can answer "yes" to any of these questions, and similar ones, then you need to grab a copy quickly. And if you have a loved one who has experienced any of these situations, then for your own sake and theirs pick up one as soon as feasibly possible. I highly recommend this booklet.


View all my reviews

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“The Shift” - 2023 Movie. A Review

Image
  What do you get when you cross a dark dystopian storyline with sci-fi, alternative dimensions, theological and philosophical questions, and the biblical book of Job? You get The Shift , written and directed by Brock Heasley, produced by Ken Carpenter, and distributed by Angel Studios. This roughly one hour and 45 minute tale swirls around Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) as he moves from one realm of life, with it’s happiness and heartbreak, to another dimension that is a dismal existence clearly governed by The Benefactor (masterfully played by Neal McDonough). A viewer will be asking questions all the way through, and picking up clues and answers that pull the story together bit-by-bit. The story bumps up against an infinite set of alternative possibilities, of time, space, and versions of one’s self that will likely stoke a viewer’s imagination. But the heart of the narrative - besides love, grief, loss, trust/distrust - is around the place of evil, specifically, personal or human evil.
Read more

"On Getting Out of Bed" by Alan Noble. A Review

Image
  When it comes to family members or friends going through a significant mental crisis, or suffering, we often can feel like we’re fumbling about to help them. Sometimes, we can become like Job’s friends, whom he had to call “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). But very recently Alan Noble, assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee Oklahoma, and cofounder and editor-in-chief of “Christ and Pop Culture” penned a deeply beautiful 120-page hardback that addresses mental affliction. “On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living” is written for those who struggle with mental affliction, but also pastors, teachers, parents, and loved ones, to “help them understand their loved one’s suffering. It is for anyone who ever struggles to get out of bed” (3). I finished this book earlier this week, and kept finding myself saying, “Finally! Someone gets it!” Eight chapters fill up this handy manual. They run through several subjects, like not sounding like Job’s f
Read more

Community?

Image
  (This is from my letter to my congregation I sent out today, 30 August 2023) As one of my elders was leading us through Carl Trueman’s Strange New World in our adult class , I appreciated Trueman’s emphasis on community. And our discussions, especially the last two Sundays, were very fruitful as we thought out loud together about this subject. Therefore, I thought I would share something from David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist that leans into this discussion.   Brooks published a book in 2019 titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”. In that work he was taking a gentle punch at destructive trends he has been seeing, and giving some helpful correctives. And so, he notes that “Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism” (34). He then shows how the loneliness and spiritual emptiness of individualism taken too far have become more prevalent in our time and the ways that they lead to very dark social consequences. These darker social consequences foster the need t
Read more