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Hope Alive: Going and Growing through Pain is a compilation of personal narratives built around Matthew Todd's life as a husband, a father, a pastor, and a professional. He uses these narratives to reflect on the problem of evil in human life. This volume does not purport to be a comprehensive academic and philosophical tome on the problem of human pain, suffering and evil. Instead, the approach is of one person sharing some personal experiences and theological reflections with family and friends around a coffee table. The difficult experiences include serious accidents, major illnesses, job losses, unexpected deaths, and criminal attacks. In the midst of these events, Todd offers no simple answers-apart from the comforting thought that God is always with us no matter what we face and the affirmation that God is good and negative circumstances don't change that. The stories in this book reveal God's grace in the midst of hard times. They argue for a Christian faith that says, "Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him" (Job 13:15, NIV) and "If you throw us in the fire, the God we serve can rescue us...But even if he doesn't, it wouldn't make a bit of difference...We still wouldn't serve [the] gods [of this world]" (Daniel 3:16-18, The Message).
