As I struggled to write Treasures of Encouragement, Susan Hunt encouraged me to include many encouragement stories, saying, “Most women want to obey God’s call to encourage but they don’t know how. Use stories to show and tell the how.”

Every chapter starts with an encouragement story and other stories are scattered throughout, especially in the Living Biblically chapters. In the Leader’s Guide we encourage participants to write out and be prepared to share their own encouragement stories as a means of “calling back” to those who need to remember God is sovereign and we can trust Him.

We also know that there are all kinds of learning platforms. Some people learn by reading but others learn by seeing and listening. With that in mind, we created an Encouragement Stories video series, one story for each chapter. Each video is about five minutes and will not only comfort the hurting person but help equip others to come alongside them. Each video is a sample of how to tell your encouragement story.

If you are leading a small group, participants will be reminded to watch the next chapter’s video each week. These can be a starting point for your lesson time, if appropriate.

In addition, there are links to Help & Hope podcasts that are designed to help turn hearts toward Jesus. Again, they will not only comfort the one who is hurting, but help equip those who love them to better understand the crisis and to come alongside with the comfort of Jesus.

When grief threatened to overwhelm me, God sent His “promise keepers” further along in life’s journey to call back that I could trust the Lord to keep His promises, because He had been faithful to them. After talking with another grieving mother who lost her son after we lost Mark, she sent me this poem, reminding me of the anguished cry of hurting people for me to share with them the comfort I myself had and continue to experience.