Hope Without Platitudes
A Review of
God Meets us in Our Suffering: Hope and Encouragement for Those Journeying Through Cancer
Rolf A. Jacobson, Karl N. Jacobson, and Michael Pancoast
Paperback: Brazos Press, 2026
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Reviewed by Diane Roth
I picked up God Meets us in Our Suffering: Hope and Encouragement for Those Journeying Through Cancer at the church I have been attending after moving back to Minnesota. One of its authors, Rolf Jacobson, was a seminary classmate of mine. The three authors are bound by profession (they are all pastors), by friendship and family, and by a shared experience with cancer. I was curious to read it simply for the connection with my classmate. I could hear Rolf’s voice as he told his part of the story.
This book is about cancer. It is unflinching in its honesty about the pain, fear, uncertainty, and humiliation that cancer sufferers bear. The authors recount in detail symptoms they ignored, hospitalizations they suffered, and treatments they endured. Sometimes their stories are difficult to read, but they often include humility and humor in their telling. The authors appreciate sharing laughter as well as grief. The book also contains advice about what to do and say when someone you love has cancer, as well as grace for when you say the wrong thing.
God Meets us in Our Suffering is about friendship. The friendship between the three men is integral to the story of their journey through cancer. The presence of friends who are willing to share burdens, doubts, and faith, willing to sit together, and reach out with honesty and humor is part of their stories of healing.
This book is, finally, about faith and hope, Christian hope. There are no platitudes here; there are no claims that “Everything happens for a reason.” There are simply stories shared with the conviction that in conversations, in silence, in pain, in treatments, in the love of our friends, God meets us.
Initially it was Karl’s idea to write God Meets Us in Our Suffering. In the preface, Rolf writes that their book would be different than other cancer “memoirs” because it would be written by three friends, three pastors, going through cancer together. It would be written from the perspective of “the theology of the cross,” the view that God is not present to us primarily in our great victories and successes, but in times of pain, loss, and suffering.
At the beginning of God Meets Us in Our Suffering, Karl writes that “This book starts with cancer, but it doesn’t end there.” It is also about life, about faith, about friendship, about love. The love of three friends. The love between families. The love of God, who meets us where we are, no matter where that is.
This book starts with cancer, but it doesn’t end there. There is a surprise ending of sorts, but I won’t tell you what it is. All I can say is that the book may start with cancer, but it ends with life.
Diane Roth
Diane Rothis a retired pastor and spiritual director, practicing the presence of God, however imperfectly. She writes at https://dianeroth.substack.
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