Have you ever faced a season so heavy you wondered how you’d get through the next hour—let alone the next year? Author Linda Dillow knows that place well. Today on the Christian Habits Podcast, we discuss eight “heart skills” that have helped her cling to God when life was unbearably hard from her new book, Hope for My Hurting Heart. Prepare to gain so much wisdom about dealing with grief and hardship from this episode.

Linda is no stranger to writing about trusting God in difficult seasons. Her book Calm My Anxious Heart has encouraged thousands of women to lay down their worries and embrace contentment. But she admits she thought life might get easier as she got older. “Didn’t happen in my life,” she says wryly.

The challenges came hard during COVID. Two of her four children—both daughters—were seriously ill, one undergoing chemo and the other also facing cancer. Travel restrictions and quarantines meant she couldn’t be with them when they needed her most. “I sat on my suitcases and cried,” she recalls.

Then came the unthinkable: sitting beside her oldest daughter’s bed and watching her die. “I was in my seventies, and I hadn’t had cancer. I would have taken it from both my daughters if I could. Instead, I was watching them suffer—and my sons-in-law and grandchildren suffer.”

In that season, Linda felt herself sliding from despair toward depression, despite reading the Word and worshiping. “I said, ‘God, I don’t want to slide down this slide. Show me what to do.’”

She sensed God whisper: Make a declaration of hope before Me.

So, on a yellow legal pad, she wrote three commitments:

That written declaration became her anchor. Whenever new waves of grief came, she would read it aloud: “I have hope in my God, and these things are true.” It kept her from going down the slide into despair.

Linda also tells the story of her longtime friend Valerie, who has endured decades of debilitating, undiagnosed illness, a painful divorce, and extreme dietary restrictions. Valerie’s response? She began memorizing the names of God—first ten, then fifty, then a hundred—declaring them daily.

“She’s a woman of peace and faith, focused on others,” Linda says. “It proves what you teach, Barb—that we’re transformed by the renewing of our minds.”

When Linda’s daughter Joy died, Valerie gave her a handmade “tree” displaying the hundred names of God. It now sits where Linda kneels to worship, reminding her to declare God’s character.

One of Linda’s heart skills is lament—something she calls “worship in a minor key.” She points out that much of the Psalms is David weeping before God.

“In our Christian culture, we want happy-clappy worship,” she says. “But God invites us to be honest with Him about our pain.”

Linda believes lament is a vital step in moving from loss back to trust. In Hope for My Hurting Heart, she guides readers through a journey from hope and love, down through lament, and back up to trust, encouragement, and praise.

This season also brought a deeper intimacy with her husband, Jody. “We call it the weeping intimacy,” she says. “Is it something you want to sign up for? No. But we’re closer today because of it. Our whole family is closer because we’ve wept together.”

Her granddaughter, a poet, even processed her grief by writing a book of poetry about her mom. “It’s not fun to go down into those hard places,” Linda says, “but if we stay on the surface, we never really heal.”

If you’re walking through pain, Linda’s story—and the eight heart skills in her book—offer a way forward. Not a quick fix, but a steady path of clinging to God’s hope, even when your heart is breaking.

You can find Hope for My Hurting Heart on Amazon.

 Listen to the full episode on the Christian Habits Podcast!

Linda Dillow is a bestselling author and a respected Bible teacher and conference speaker. Her books include Calm My Anxious Heart, Intimate Issues, and What’s It Like to Be Married to Me? Linda is the mother of four children, including one who is now with Jesus, and grandmother of ten. She and her husband, Jody, lived overseas for seventeen years and now make their home in Monument, Colorado.

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