The Beautiful Ache - Paperback

by Leigh McLeroy (Author)

You've felt it. It's the ache that whispers "there's more."

When the best job, marriage or adventure doesn't fully satisfy, you feel the ache. It infuses every glimpse of beauty or wonder this world can offer and leaves you hungrier than before. It colors your disappointments and desires with equal intensity, and it should--because you were made for another kind of living in another kind of world.

However the ache touches your heart, it is a good thing. It is meant to both entice and unsettle you, and draw you closer to the God who truly satisfies. In The Beautiful Ache, Leigh McLeroy's powerful writing invites you to hopefully embrace the gap between the life you know...and the life you can't help longing for.

Leigh McLeroy is the author of The Sacred Ordinary and Treasured: Knowing God by the Things He Keeps. A sought-after Bible teacher and event speaker, she is also the creator of Wednesday Words, a weekly devotional with a life of its own. Leigh lives and works in Houston, Texas, and may be reached at www.leighmcleroy.com.

Front Jacket

EXCERPT FROM CATALOG It's the pang that strikes when loss is sudden, or suddenly realized. It's the stealth tears that fall when something stunningly grand (or nakedly simple) sets holiness on clear display. It arrives with crickets chirping on a June night, or a bright pink sunset slung low and wide across the sky, or the sound of a child's sleepy whisper. It lingers in memory-infused music and nibbles the edges of silent hope. It's evoked by a longed-for touch, or a word well-spoken, delivered just in time. It invades carpool lines and conference rooms with equal deftness. It is no respecter of place or time. It's the beautiful ache. It says there's more. More than you've seen and much more than you've longed for. Beyond what you know, and far, far past your strongest yearning. As C. S. Lewis said, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience can satisfy, the most logical explanation is that I was made for another world." The beautiful ache is that fleeting pang that reminds us of home. Only, not the home we've always known-the home we've never seen. It pierces and pries open the heart, but doesn't near satisfy it. It whets the appetite, but doesn't begin to fill it. It unmasks beauty, but not completely. It reeks of truth, but stops just short of telling all. Hardly a day goes by that I don't feel it. The trick is learning to allow the ache to take me where it wants to go, to tutor and tantalize my mostly-numb senses with its laser-sharp aim. The challenge is not to kill it off before it fully arrives . . . or dismiss it before it is ready to go. I don't have to ask if you know what I'm talking about. You do. You've felt the ache too.

Back Jacket

FRONT COVER "A well-written reminder of why we are really here and where many of us are headed."--Steve Arterburn BACK COVER You've felt it. It's the ache that whispers "There's more." When the best marriage or job or adventure doesn't fully satisfy, you feel the ache. It infuses every glimpse of beauty or wonder this world can offer and leaves you even hungrier than before. It colors your disappointments and desires with equal intensity, and it should--because you were made for another kind of living in another kind of world. However the ache touches your heart, it is a good thing. It is meant to entice and unsettle you, and draw you closer to the God who truly satisfies. In The Beautiful Ache, Leigh McLeroy's powerful writing offers the hope you need to embrace the gap between the life you know...and the life you can't help longing for. "Leigh is a careful thinker with a deep grasp of God's Word who has the rare ability to translate her insight into prose that sings, dances, and remains fixed in the reader's memory."--Steve Halliday, president, Crown Media Ltd., Portland, OR "I so resonate with Leigh's descriptions about a little-understood longing in our hearts. Surely this book will help others identify their own longings . . . and the only Source that satisfies."--Carol Kuykendall, MOPS International "Leigh McLeroy holds my hand in a place I know, but that I fear. With honesty and hope, she leads me to lean into the longing and find joy on the other side. Her fearlessness has become my courage, and I am eternally grateful."--Judy Nelson, editor-in-chief, Worldwide Challenge magazine, Orlando, FL