At your kitchen table your best friend, struggling to hold together a crumbling marriage, pours out her heart. At housegroup that evening the lonely widower, still grieving after more than a year, just wants to talk. Later your sister telephones, trying to come to terms with why she can't have children.

You long to help, to bring words of comfort and healing. But where do you start: What should you say?

Peter Hicks believes that some sufferers, perhaps one in ten, need professional help. What the other nine need, so very badly, is the listening ear of a Christian friend.

This is a book to help you be that listening, friend, giving: Bible passages to point to: principles for sharing Christ's love; explanations of specific conditions; strategies for coping and changing habits; guidance about when to involve expert help.

Above all, this book will help you to learn, even in the hardest situations, what you could say.

Review

I have often had people say to me that, faced with someone upset, or struggling with a deep personal problem, they simply didn't know what to say. Or they were afraid of saying the wrong thing, and so said nothing. They wanted to help but did not feel able to. We've probably all been there at some time. Well, help is at hand, for this book by Peter Hicks is written, as the subtitle indicates, as a handbook for helpers. A helper incidentially, is potentially any Christian, as is made clear in the introduction. So this is a book written not for 'experts' but for 'ordinary' Christians who want to help others. ...it provides a valuable resource at an accessible, non-specialist level, for any Christian serious about helping others. Actually, shouldn't that be every Christian? This book is a must.
London Bible College Annual Review 2000

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