Hope Beyond Our Sorrows: Learning to Live with Life-Changing Loss

When a shattered dream breaks your heart, how do you learn to hope again?

When April Yamasaki and her husband married, they were 21 and full of dreams. After almost 45 years of marriage, those dreams fell apart as April found herself grieving the death of her husband. How could life go on without him? Yet even in the depths of her sorrows, she experienced God’s goodness and mercy--big enough for her soul’s lament, longer and deeper and wider than our laments can ever be.

Whether you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, a job, a marriage, a church community, or a dream, you too may find yourself wondering, How can I go on? What hope is there for the road ahead? Whatever loss you’re living with, you will find comfort in these short, easily digestible readings, accompanied by prayers and spiritual practices, from a seasoned devotional writer. Grounded in Scripture, personal experience, and a pastoral heart, Hope Beyond Our Sorrows invites readers to journey with grief, find a new way forward, and live with faith and hope beyond their broken dreams.

April Yamasaki is an ordained minister with over 25 years of experience in congregational ministry, an editor, and the author of Sacred Pauses, Four Gifts, On the Way with Jesus, This Ordinary, Extraordinary Life, and other books on living with faith and hope. She currently serves as resident author with Valley CrossWay Church, which is a liturgical worship community; edits the daily devotional magazine Rejoice!; has a new role as a spiritual formation mentor; continues to write both online and in print publications; and often speaks in other churches and settings. She blogs on faith, life, and ministry at AprilYamasaki.com and WhenYouWorkForTheChurch.com. April holds a master of Christian studies from Regent College. She was happily married to her high school sweetheart until his death two years ago from cancer-related complications. Though grieving, she is grateful for a wonderfully supportive family and church community, good work, good friends, and God’s mercies new every morning.