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Finding our way back to joy and hope is a lifelong learning process. We have all had our own “most trying season.” These seasons are often the greatest challenge we face. Amy Calkins has written a book from her own deep well of soul-searching, experience, and finding understanding. I appreciate what she has written in The Way Back to Hope. If you have found yourself living past your ability to see hope because the pain and chaos have taken over, please let me encourage you to allow someone who has been there to hand you a map in this journey. This book will help you find real, helpful goals and bypass the many lies that hinder and hurt us when we are weak and discouraged. I highly recommend The Way Back to Hope as a direction-finding tool in the journey of plowing through the fog of war and allowing God to set your feet on the rock of hope. 

—Danny Silk, President of Life Academy; Bethel Church Senior Leadership Team; author of Keep Your Love On, Culture of Honor, Powerful and Free, and Loving Our Kids on Purpose

The need to overcome disappointment is very current and prevalent in the Christian world. This can include disappointment from personal challenges, betrayals, and the failures of leaders we have positioned ourselves to receive from. The responsibility to overcome disappointment will always be our own. We have choices to make, and Amy walks us through the journey of overcoming lies, making healthy heart choices, and discovering true biblical hope in the midst of things we cannot understand or solve in our own strength.

It is my pleasure to endorse this book, this roadmap to hope. I commend it as a manual to help people navigate disappointment, but also as a study guide for a small group before disappointment invades our lives. This book will keep your hope alive and, consequently, keep your soul healthy.

—Paul Manwaring, Senior Leadership Team, Bethel Church Redding; author of What on Earth is Glory, Kisses from a Good God, and Things Fathers Do

In The Way Back to Hope, Amy Calkins will inspire and equip you to be tenacious and wise in overcoming the obstacles and challenges that would tempt you to stop having big dreams for your life. She shares many of her challenging life experiences in which she persevered and found her own way back to hope. I frequently say, “There are no hopeless circumstances, only people who do not have hope,” and this book is an example of what it looks like to find hope in every circumstance. Thank you, Amy, for being a strong and effective voice of hope in this hour. Those who read this book will be glad they did. 

—Steve Backlund, Founder of Igniting Hope Ministries

This book is really refreshing! Amy tackles the reality that the Church has talked a lot about victory without being honest about how desperately hard the Christian journey can be. She deals with real life struggles and the emotions that accompany them, as well as the story of how God healed her heart—“not by giving her answers, but by giving her hope.” She helps us understand how pain alerts us to the real problem—the wounds in our hearts that come from unresolved disappointment. Instead of telling people that their pain is a result of God’s will for their lives, she encourages us to tell them the truth: that God grieves with them. Amy candidly writes from her own experience to help us understand how we can live free of offense in the middle of the unknown. She encourages us to grieve and invite God into the journey with us. The truths found in this book will lead you into the kind of hope that will not only cause you to weather the storms, but also access heaven’s solutions for them. I highly recommend this book!

—Larry Kreider, Founder and International Director of DOVE International; author of more than forty books

The Way Back to Hope by Amy Calkins is an accessible, raw, and revelatory read into the journey of walking through the disappointments of life specifically in loss, grief, and recovery from trauma. Amy opens her soul to help us see ourselves in the doubts, questions, and physical and mental exhaustion of living in pain. She guides us through the scriptures into the revelation of the God who is there and willing to bring healing and restoration of hope, no matter how much the trauma of life has brought devastation. Her transparency is refreshing. Reading this book will bring healing and restoration to your soul.

—Dr. Mike Hutchings, Director of Education at Global Awakening; President of God Heals PTSD Foundation

All of us deal with pain and disappointment in life, but many of us don’t know how to process it or how to turn our lives around when the seas get rough. Amy Calkins’ book, The Way Back to Hope, offers keys to breakthrough through biblically understanding the problem of pain, God’s will in the middle of the storm, and how to tackle the why questions that leave us paralyzed. I highly recommend this book as a resource for navigating painful issues in life and how we can all take courage to move forward into calmer waters of hope.

—Theresa Dedmon, Author of Created To Overcome and Born to Create; Pastor and Director of Create Academy

The Way Back to Hope is a wonderful book that reads like a conversation with a friend. It is consistently honest and persistently hope-filled. The pacing of the story-telling is clear and compelling. This book was not written in a vacuum, but was forged in the throes of real life traumas. I wept at times as Amy clearly communicated her pain through the process. Her revelations don’t feel preachy. She simply reveals her heart as she encountered the Father’s heart. She invites us into her thought processes as she ponders the counsel of the Lord. Speaking of pain and hope at the same time is a tricky pathway. Acknowledging the presence of suffering in trials can be taboo in some church cultures—often misjudged as a lack of faith. Amy’s hope-filled honesty provides a safe place for readers to process their pain and experience their own unique healing in God’s presence. Amy provides no easy formulas to “fix” us, instead pointing the way to His healing heart. This book will bring healing and hope to many. Thank you, Amy, for spending yourself to write it!

—Dr. Dave Hess, Co-Senior Leader, alongside his wife Sheri, of Christ Community Church, Camp Hill, PA; author of Hope Beyond Reason and Side by Side 

The Way Back to Hope is one of the most candid, transparent, effective, and important books of our day to help one discover lasting freedom and hope. No one in life escapes pain. However, like a masterful surgeon, Amy digs to the innermost depths (and layers) of the misconceptions we often believe about God, ourselves, and the disappointments that life brings. When all is stripped away, what we find—in its purest form—is truth and healing. Few writers could capture and craft, as brilliantly as Amy has, the journey that touches us all at such a deep level. You will not only be personally and profoundly impacted by this book; you will be set free! 

—Anna Kramer, Founder/Chief Creative Officer at Pneuma33 Creative; Founder/Editor in Chief of World Changer Magazine

One of our greatest challenges as believers is to allow pain to draw us into deeper intimacy with Jesus instead of pushing Him away. In The Way Back to Hope, Amy does a beautiful job of laying out the journey of pain and how we, as believers in Jesus, can live in both pain and hope. With beautiful and heart-wrenching stories from her own journey through pain and disappointment, Amy points to a hope that can be found in the midst. She uncovers truth in the word of God and sets straight lies we have believed. I pray that as you read this book the truth will wash over you, and in the middle of your dark valley you will find that not only does God care, but He is right there with you, able to identify with your grief and pain. As you hold mystery in your heart, a deep joy and unending hope will become an anchor to your spirit. 

—Renée Evans, Senior Pastor, Bethel Austin

Grief. Loss. Pain. Disappointment. How we process these seasons has a dramatic impact on our relationship with God and our destiny. The Way Back to Hope is a powerful book with a needed message. Amy Calkins skillfully leads us on a journey through the valley of the shadow of death. Using personal stories and biblical examples, she addresses common pitfalls in navigating disappointment and leads us through to healing and hope restored. This book will bring clarity to your circumstances, freedom to your emotions, and healing balm to your soul!

—Jake Kail, Apostolic Leader of Threshold Church, Lancaster, PA; author of Setting Captives Free

The Way Back to Hope—it sounds like a road map, and essentially it is! The hard fact about life is that each of us will face hurt and disappointment. The question is, how will we come through that hurt to a place of healing, wholeness, and hope? Amy’s willingness to do the hard work of processing her own disappointments with God, others, and herself from a biblical perspective now provides a guide for others to do the same and return to a life of hope and faith. Thanks, Amy, for leading the way for many to follow! I am confident that God will use the words of this book for provide healing for many!

—Kevin Eshleman, Lead Pastor of Ephrata Community Church, Ephrata, PA

We all experience hurt and grief in life. Most often, we try to push it down and push forward. As Amy shares in this book, it doesn’t help to deny or ignore what we feel. Being very transparent about her own journey through pain, Amy provides practical and encouraging help in finding healing and returning to a place of hope again. It’s a good read with biblical insight that I found very helpful.

—Dr. Barry Wissler, President of HarvestNet International

Are you facing disappointment, pain, questions about God’s will, or simply trying understand why God has allowed something in your life? The temptation will be to stay stuck in the mire of hopelessness, but there is a way forward. Amy Calkins shares candid examples from her own experience and compelling insights into scripture and offers all of us a pathway back to hope. If you want practical ways to have your hope restored, then I highly recommend The Way Back to Hope.

—Jimmy Nimon, Lead Pastor of Lifeway Church, Lebanon, PA

In this book, my dear and talented friend, Amy, opens her heart about how she rediscovered hope. Amy’s story will grip you as she shares how to find your way through disappointment to a hope only God can give. This book will encourage and strengthen you as you walk through difficulties, and it will set you on a new journey into The Way Back to Hope. Thank you, Amy. This is a must read! 

—Margie Fleurant, Founder of Margie Fleurant Ministries; author of Encountering God Through Prayer and Focus