Every Bitter Thing is Sweet

Title: EVERY BITTER THING IS SWEET

Author: Sara Hagerty

Publisher: Zondervan

October 2014

ISBN: 978-0310339946

Genre: Nonfiction / Women’s issues / Christian life

In the age of fingertip access to answers and a limitless supply of ambitions, where do we find the God who was birthed in dirt and straw? Sara Hagerty found him when life stopped working for her. She found him when she was a young adult mired in spiritual busyness and when she was a new bride with doubts about whether her fledgling marriage would survive. She found him alone in the night as she cradled her longing for babies who did not come. She found him as she kissed the faces of children on another continent who had lived years without a mommy’s touch.

In Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet, Hagerty masterfully draws from the narrative of her life to craft a mosaic of a God who leans into broken stories. Here readers see a God who is present in every changing circumstance. Most significantly, they see a God who is present in every unchanging circumstance as well.

Whatever lost expectations readers are facing—in family, career, singleness, or marriage—Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet will bring them closer to a God who longs for them to know him more. What does it look like to know God’s nearness when life breaks? What does it mean to receive his life when earthly life remains barren? How can God turn the bitterness of unmet desire into new flavors of joy?

With exquisite storytelling and reflection, Hagerty brings readers back to hope, back to healing, back to a place that God is holding for them alone—a place where the unseen is more real than what the eye can perceive. A place where every bitter thing is sweet.

EVERY BITTER THING IS SWEET is a sweet, across the kitchen table approach of showing women how to find God—a God who is present for them and not absent. A God who cares. A God who is working behind the scenes to answer prayers in His time and in His way.

A beautiful picture in words is painted for women who face broken dreams, shattered lives, unhappy stories. A book that is intended to give hope to the heartbroken. One that could help heal a broken heart. I didn’t find it particularly helpful or encouraging for my situations, but she’s in a different place than me. However, she does share references for scriptures that readers could look up that might minister to them in the place where they are. Recommended for church libraries, counselors, small groups, women’s groups, women’s leaders, pastors.

Available in ebook, audio download, cd, and hardcover. 208 pages.