Book - The God Who Weeps

The God Who Weeps - How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life 
by Terryl Givens & Fiona Givens

God knows us. He cares about us. He’s someone we can have a personal relationship with. The authors tell of a God whose “heart beats in sympathy with ours, who set His heart upon us before the world was formed, who fashioned the earth as a place of human ascent, not exile, and who has the desire and the capacity to bring the entire human family home again.” (book jacket)

The authors have a vast knowledge of what poets, prophets, artists, authors and others have said about God throughout the centuries. I found the references fascinating and illuminating. Here's what one reviewer said - “What is clearly beyond contest is the authors' breathtaking erudition and command of the Western canon. On every page, in every paragraph, in nearly every sentence the authors seem to find a perfectly pitched quotation to elucidate or extend their point. The depth and breadth of their knowledge of world literature, theology, philosophy, and art, from Aristophanes and Julian of Norwich to lesser-known figures like Edward Beecher and Sarah Edwards, is astonishing. ... I stand in awe.” from review by Rosalynde Welch  

Here's what's covered in the chapters - 

- His Heart Is Set Upon Us - He feels our joy & sorrows over our pain
- Man [and woman] Was In The Beginning With God -  We lived with God before we were born
- We Are That We Might Have Joy - “Mortality is an ascent…and we carry infinite potential into a world of sin and sorrow”
- None of Them Is Lost - God wants everyone to come home to live with Him
- Participants In The Divine Nature - “Heaven will consist of those relationships that matter most to us now.” 
- Epilogue: Help Thou Mine Unbelief - The father in gospel of Mark said “I believe, help my unbelief.” He was caught between belief & unbelief. He chose to believe.

It's difficult to select favorite quotes - seemed like there was something on almost every page that I'd like to share. Here are some of my favorites. 

We can have a personal relationship with God. He wants us to. “It is His freely made choice to inaugurate and sustain loving relationships, and our choice to reciprocate, that are at the core of our relationship to the Divine.” “We love Him because He first loved us.” (1John 4: 19)  

jht - This is the case with our own families. We each need to choose to inaugurate and sustain relationships and reciprocate when others do the same. (53)

Quoting preacher Edward Beecher -  “Life, from beginning to end, [is] a constant system of education for eternity.” (65) 

More on relationships - “… our present relationships are both the laboratory in which we labor to perfect ourselves and the source of that enjoyment that will constitute our true heaven.” .. “Holiness is found in how we treat others, not in how we contemplate the cosmos. As our experiences in marriages, families, and friendship teach us, it takes relationships to provide the friction that wears down our rough edges and sanctifies us. And then, and only then, those relationships become the environment in which those perfected virtues are best enjoyed.” (112-113)

“What if in our anxious hope of heaven, we find we have blindly passed it by…? What if the possibilities of Zion were already here, and its scattered elements all about us? A child’s embrace, a companion’s caress, a friend’s laughter are its materials. Our capacity to mourn another’s pain, like God’s tears for His children; our desire to lift our neighbor from his destitution, like Christ’s desire to lift us from our sin and sorrow - these are not to pass away when the elements shall melt with fervent heat. They are the stuff and substance of any Zion we build, any heaven we inherit. God is not radically Other, and neither is His heaven.”  (120-121)

This book is definitely on my "read again" list. I invite you to read it and see what questions and answers you encounter. There's so much here for your head and your heart. 

image from goodreads.com