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The Beautiful Ache: Finding the God Who Satisfies When Life Does Not
Even as believers take joy in this world, it is clear that life on earth is not perfect. Many struggle with unrequited love, infertility, the pain of separation, failure, uncertainty, and unfulfilled plans. But somewhere between seeing life as all rosy and seeing it as a vale of tears, Leigh McLeroy takes readers on a journey through the beauty and joy in this sometimes painful world. With exquisite writing and soul-deep reflections, Leigh weaves her own personal stories with biblical narratives to engage readers in the compelling mystery of living in between this world and God's kingdom. In The Beautiful Ache, she calls readers to embrace the gap between life hoped for and life as it is-to press on for that which fully satisfies.
256 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2007
5 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Leigh McLeroy
12 books16 followersLeigh McLeroy writes and speaks with a passion for God and a keen eye for His presence in everyday life. A former ghostwriter with seven books to her credit, Leigh's first solo effort, Moments for Singles, was published in 2004. She was a contributor to Rebecca St. James's Sister Freaks in 2006, and is the author of The Beautiful Ache (2007), The Sacred Ordinary (2008) and God's Cigar Box (2009). Leigh is also the creator of Wednesday words, an email devotional with a life of its own. She makes her home in Houston, Texas, where she is raising Owen - who may be the most adorable spaniel ever named after an Inkling, a John Irving character, and a Puritan preacher.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 27, 2023
Oh boy. If I could give 6 stars, I would! This book is radiant and I soaked up every single word. This just made the top of my favorite books list. I think it’s a must-read!!!!!!!
The author shares such captivating stories, bases everything off Scripture, and reminds us of hard truths on every page. This book stirred my affections for the Lord on every level!!!!
The ache of longing for heaven. I loved this so much. I’m ready to read it again!
The author shares such captivating stories, bases everything off Scripture, and reminds us of hard truths on every page. This book stirred my affections for the Lord on every level!!!!
The ache of longing for heaven. I loved this so much. I’m ready to read it again!
December 15, 2012
I’ve never seen such an expanse of emptiness as I saw on that four hour drive alone across 250 miles of Montana’s Big Sky country this September. Two and a half hours passed before I saw a gas station or a windmill. Miles grew wide between distant ranches and idle tractors. Sallow fields, recently harvested, stretched in either direction of my two-lane highway to the bruised jawline of the Rockies.
It seemed to me an aching emptiness, like arms cast open. It beckoned, somehow, as if that concave mountain-land-mountain space actually arced, yearning for embrace. And yet strangely, it was a fuzzy, familiar kind of emptiness, as if the land and I were trying to remember, trying very hard to remember someone.
There in that emptiness, I saw a reflection of all creation’s relationship with God. Despite how we try to fill our spaces with skyscrapers and mini-malls with crowded schedules and places to be, we cannot cover up this secret. I jotted it down in my journal that day. I too am longing. I too am vacant. I too am a beautiful ache. The land and I heave with longing for God, longing for the distant memory of Eden, longing for the embrace of the infinite.
I’m reminded often of this ache. It comes to me in both joy and pain, in beauty and in decay. I read it in a line of poetry, “I yearn to belong to something,” says Rilke, “to be contained in an all-embracing mind that sees me as a single thing,” and run into it in the face of a godly friend struggling with an illness that won’t seem to go away. Sometimes, it is the ache in beautiful moment I wish would last forever. But mostly the ache seems to me like an unwanted burden, like the pack strapped to my back in this long pilgrim’s journey. Yet always, the ache is my companion.
When I first heard about Leigh McLeroy’s book, The Beautiful Ache, I knew before I read the first word that it would be a book that would resonate with me. I thought to myself, this is a conversation I’ve been hoping to have with someone. But part of me didn’t want to read it, because the ache, after all, is something I mostly try to deny or keep at bay. Though it bobs to the surface of my consciousness, I try hard to submerge it. Sometimes I think I’d drown this companion if I could.
But the book tantalized with the promise that there is something to learn from the ache; some reason to welcome it; to sit and stay a while with it and listen to what it is that it has to whisper to us. And I found within the author’s own words, that she too feels ambivalent toward the ache. That helped me read along; to take the journey with her.
McLeroy’s book is an honest book. To be truthful, sometimes I don’t like such honesty. I’d rather have someone tell me lies: like if you work hard enough, it will turn out okay; if you believe firmly enough, it will get better; if/then books. I somehow still hope I’ll run across a book that has five easy steps that work because I somehow still hope that God would work a little more like a vending machine. Insert coin; get candybar. Many days I want that kind of God.
The chapter on hope, for example, I sobbed through. Leigh’s longings and my own, so similar; her waiting and my own, so painful. But Leigh’s is the kind of honesty that we also long to hear. It is the kind of honesty that Proverbs 24:26 talks about. “An honest answer is a kiss on the lips.” It is the “wounds of a friend that can be trusted” kind of honesty (Proverbs 27:6).
I mentioned earlier that The Beautiful Ache tantalized with the promise that there is something to hear and discover if we follow the shadow of our longings. This wasn’t a false promise. Chapter after chapter, we get to glimpse the lessons God has taught our author through her attentiveness. And Leigh leaves us with Biblical passages and questions and prayers to meditate on. I appreciate that. Because as surely as God has spoken to Leigh, I believe He wants to speak to us through this ache, and the words and messages we hear may be different than the ones God has spoken to Leigh. We have her example and an invitation. I think this speaks of the author’s respect of her readers’ uniqueness. She will not force-feed her lessons on us.
McLeroy covers a breadth of topics: the ache to persevere, the act to celebrate, the ache for adventure, the ache for healing, the ache of labor, the ache to worship. I particularly liked the chapter on the ache of memory and the invitation therein, not to run, but to face our memories, especially the painful ones, head-on with our Savior’s help.
Perhaps, each of us could write our own extra chapter to add to The Beautiful Ache. One of my chapters would certainly be the longing for home. I’m thankful to Leigh though, for opening up this conversation.
Certainly, she has touched on a subject that is the elephant in so many of our living rooms. I’m glad to find someone brave enough to ask the elephant what he has to say.
It seemed to me an aching emptiness, like arms cast open. It beckoned, somehow, as if that concave mountain-land-mountain space actually arced, yearning for embrace. And yet strangely, it was a fuzzy, familiar kind of emptiness, as if the land and I were trying to remember, trying very hard to remember someone.
There in that emptiness, I saw a reflection of all creation’s relationship with God. Despite how we try to fill our spaces with skyscrapers and mini-malls with crowded schedules and places to be, we cannot cover up this secret. I jotted it down in my journal that day. I too am longing. I too am vacant. I too am a beautiful ache. The land and I heave with longing for God, longing for the distant memory of Eden, longing for the embrace of the infinite.
I’m reminded often of this ache. It comes to me in both joy and pain, in beauty and in decay. I read it in a line of poetry, “I yearn to belong to something,” says Rilke, “to be contained in an all-embracing mind that sees me as a single thing,” and run into it in the face of a godly friend struggling with an illness that won’t seem to go away. Sometimes, it is the ache in beautiful moment I wish would last forever. But mostly the ache seems to me like an unwanted burden, like the pack strapped to my back in this long pilgrim’s journey. Yet always, the ache is my companion.
When I first heard about Leigh McLeroy’s book, The Beautiful Ache, I knew before I read the first word that it would be a book that would resonate with me. I thought to myself, this is a conversation I’ve been hoping to have with someone. But part of me didn’t want to read it, because the ache, after all, is something I mostly try to deny or keep at bay. Though it bobs to the surface of my consciousness, I try hard to submerge it. Sometimes I think I’d drown this companion if I could.
But the book tantalized with the promise that there is something to learn from the ache; some reason to welcome it; to sit and stay a while with it and listen to what it is that it has to whisper to us. And I found within the author’s own words, that she too feels ambivalent toward the ache. That helped me read along; to take the journey with her.
McLeroy’s book is an honest book. To be truthful, sometimes I don’t like such honesty. I’d rather have someone tell me lies: like if you work hard enough, it will turn out okay; if you believe firmly enough, it will get better; if/then books. I somehow still hope I’ll run across a book that has five easy steps that work because I somehow still hope that God would work a little more like a vending machine. Insert coin; get candybar. Many days I want that kind of God.
The chapter on hope, for example, I sobbed through. Leigh’s longings and my own, so similar; her waiting and my own, so painful. But Leigh’s is the kind of honesty that we also long to hear. It is the kind of honesty that Proverbs 24:26 talks about. “An honest answer is a kiss on the lips.” It is the “wounds of a friend that can be trusted” kind of honesty (Proverbs 27:6).
I mentioned earlier that The Beautiful Ache tantalized with the promise that there is something to hear and discover if we follow the shadow of our longings. This wasn’t a false promise. Chapter after chapter, we get to glimpse the lessons God has taught our author through her attentiveness. And Leigh leaves us with Biblical passages and questions and prayers to meditate on. I appreciate that. Because as surely as God has spoken to Leigh, I believe He wants to speak to us through this ache, and the words and messages we hear may be different than the ones God has spoken to Leigh. We have her example and an invitation. I think this speaks of the author’s respect of her readers’ uniqueness. She will not force-feed her lessons on us.
McLeroy covers a breadth of topics: the ache to persevere, the act to celebrate, the ache for adventure, the ache for healing, the ache of labor, the ache to worship. I particularly liked the chapter on the ache of memory and the invitation therein, not to run, but to face our memories, especially the painful ones, head-on with our Savior’s help.
Perhaps, each of us could write our own extra chapter to add to The Beautiful Ache. One of my chapters would certainly be the longing for home. I’m thankful to Leigh though, for opening up this conversation.
Certainly, she has touched on a subject that is the elephant in so many of our living rooms. I’m glad to find someone brave enough to ask the elephant what he has to say.
June 19, 2015
It reads like an intimate conversation with a close friend, talking transparently about our deepest needs and desires. It reminds me of a less academic version of C.S.Lewis...a bit more accessible. (Of course, I still love C.S.Lewis). :)
Aside: When my uncle was preparing for his death, he set aside some books for Stephen. William Lehman was a Lutheran minister and he knew Stephen liked to read and that he had an interest in theological reading particularly. I have found some pleasant surprises in those 2 boxes of books. I wonder if Uncle Bill knows that he is still blessing us from beyond the grave.
Aside: When my uncle was preparing for his death, he set aside some books for Stephen. William Lehman was a Lutheran minister and he knew Stephen liked to read and that he had an interest in theological reading particularly. I have found some pleasant surprises in those 2 boxes of books. I wonder if Uncle Bill knows that he is still blessing us from beyond the grave.
November 15, 2008
There might be something wrong with reviewing a book you wrote yourself. The fact that I gave it five stars says only one thing: I'm happy to have written it, and even two years after its pub date, I would not change a word of it. Not because it's perfect. It's not. But it's as true as I knew how to be when I wrote it. My mother read The Beautiful Ache and said "It's very personal." I'm sure there's a world of subtext there, but who else would I be? If this book helps readers connect with the beauty in their own imperfect lives, the risk will have been well worth it.
June 27, 2018
I read this as a devotional, a short chapter each night. It is well-written, encouraging, and perfect for night-time reading. As with most devotional literature, depending on the aspect of the reader, some parts will strike an internal chord of recognition; other parts will not.
McLeroy's style is literary, thoughtful, meditative and transparent.
McLeroy's style is literary, thoughtful, meditative and transparent.
November 17, 2025
I picked this up on All Saints Day in honor of Leigh. Reading this now as a way of honoring and remembering her life. Reading this book was equal parts heart wrenching and deeply comforting, Knowing how much she longed for the culmination of all things which she now tastes in its fullness. A testimony to the deep waters she swam in all her life.
June 26, 2019
I read Leigh McElroy every Wednesday and also have read a couple of her other books. This was by far the best because the devotions (if you want to call them that) were much longer, deeper, and more moving. I cried several times. Highly recommend.
May 6, 2025
in terms of quality of writing, a Hallmark card; but peppered with sweet reminders of the abundance of God's goodness and faithfulness. An easy read good for devotional times where you are a little too mentally overloaded to take on a theological tome.
January 23, 2018
Wise and well-written. It feels like it was written with a female audience in mind.
November 29, 2018
This book spoke to the parts of my heart where I before felt alone. It revived, challenged, and comforted me all in the same breath.
May 21, 2008
I'm reviewing this book right now for Windsor Crossing. The subtitle says "finding the God who satisfies when life does not." I didn't expect it to be any good. I've found that I do not like most authors and most books. The last one I reviewed was certainly a matte-laminated-clad horror. However, Leigh McLeroy is a surprisingly good writer. And one part of the book in particular has stopped me cold.
She talks about how as a 7-year-old the first thing she ever bought with her own money was a book she picked out (for the cover) called "Beautiful Joe." It was the story of a dog who suffered untold abuse and was only beautiful to one person... and it was his struggle to find his way back to that one person who actually found him beautiful. McLeroy talks about how she wept as a little kid over this dog in a book, but it never once occurred to her to just "check out"... to put the book down and quit reading it because it was too sad or painful. She was in it to win it and determined to hope beyond hope that Joe would find his way back home.
Then she talks about a parallel to Abraham and Isaac... how God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, whom he loved. She writes about wondering what Abraham's sleepless prayers were like that night. Did he beg God to kill Isaac in his sleep so that he wouldn't have to follow through? Did he beg God to change his mind that night? What must have been going through his head?
God, of course, provided the ram, and the story ended happily enough (no word on the costs of therapy for Isaac). But McLeroy points out something astonishing to me: NEVER does it say in the text that Abraham checked out of the story, emotionally. Never does it say that he tried to diminish the beauty of the gift in order to abate the pain at its departure. He never said, "Well, Isaac's not really that great of a son. I could do better." He never thought, "This is just part of the game of Life. I'll get a new kid." He never shrugged and said, "Oh well. Isaac's just a boy. God can bring me a new one."
The parallels to my life and, I suspect, many others' lives, are uncanny. I find myself often denying the beauty of something that I lost so that I can ameliorate the pain of its departure.
On p 142 McLeroy writes, "The Christmas I'd call best so far was the one I almost spent with a man I loved twice-- one I double-mindedly prayed would either lead to something lasting or at least not add the kind o new memories I'd have to work hard to forget. I wanted it to be wonderful or horrible-- all good or all bad-- and it was neither. God must have seen past my shortsighted, bed-hedging request, because my holiday that year was crammed full of mostly good moments, lots of them, strung together like tiny lights, each one a glowing reminder that once upon a cold December, we were at home with one another. That Christmas we made snow angels, shopped in three states and veered into Canada, sang, and played Scrabble in our stocking feet. Our comfort barely lasted into January, but I still treasure it, even now."
That is life, in all its painful glory. That's the life that I want to embrace and not run from. I haven't been doing it well. But this author has helped me to see the beauty past the heartbreak.
She talks about how as a 7-year-old the first thing she ever bought with her own money was a book she picked out (for the cover) called "Beautiful Joe." It was the story of a dog who suffered untold abuse and was only beautiful to one person... and it was his struggle to find his way back to that one person who actually found him beautiful. McLeroy talks about how she wept as a little kid over this dog in a book, but it never once occurred to her to just "check out"... to put the book down and quit reading it because it was too sad or painful. She was in it to win it and determined to hope beyond hope that Joe would find his way back home.
Then she talks about a parallel to Abraham and Isaac... how God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, whom he loved. She writes about wondering what Abraham's sleepless prayers were like that night. Did he beg God to kill Isaac in his sleep so that he wouldn't have to follow through? Did he beg God to change his mind that night? What must have been going through his head?
God, of course, provided the ram, and the story ended happily enough (no word on the costs of therapy for Isaac). But McLeroy points out something astonishing to me: NEVER does it say in the text that Abraham checked out of the story, emotionally. Never does it say that he tried to diminish the beauty of the gift in order to abate the pain at its departure. He never said, "Well, Isaac's not really that great of a son. I could do better." He never thought, "This is just part of the game of Life. I'll get a new kid." He never shrugged and said, "Oh well. Isaac's just a boy. God can bring me a new one."
The parallels to my life and, I suspect, many others' lives, are uncanny. I find myself often denying the beauty of something that I lost so that I can ameliorate the pain of its departure.
On p 142 McLeroy writes, "The Christmas I'd call best so far was the one I almost spent with a man I loved twice-- one I double-mindedly prayed would either lead to something lasting or at least not add the kind o new memories I'd have to work hard to forget. I wanted it to be wonderful or horrible-- all good or all bad-- and it was neither. God must have seen past my shortsighted, bed-hedging request, because my holiday that year was crammed full of mostly good moments, lots of them, strung together like tiny lights, each one a glowing reminder that once upon a cold December, we were at home with one another. That Christmas we made snow angels, shopped in three states and veered into Canada, sang, and played Scrabble in our stocking feet. Our comfort barely lasted into January, but I still treasure it, even now."
That is life, in all its painful glory. That's the life that I want to embrace and not run from. I haven't been doing it well. But this author has helped me to see the beauty past the heartbreak.
September 24, 2009
Leigh McLeroy is one of my new favorite authors. Discovering her was a huge "yes!" I like her books and her Wednesday Words blog. Her writing is the kind that inspires you to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." It also makes you stop and notice things and appreciate the small and great details of life. It is beautiful and poetic while also digging deep to the core matters of life both good and bad. I like her writing style and how she is not afraid to risk opening a part of her soul. Because of that, her words have meant a lot to me and touched me deeply. Through her writing, she has encouraged and challenged me in huge ways in my own walk with Christ.
September 10, 2013
This wasn't quite what I expected. I actually bought it for a friend who was finding her life to be incredibly disappointing, facing one heartbreaking trial after another. The subtitle made me think this book would be an appropriate gift. I'm glad I started reading it first, because I don't think the subtitle actually captures the heart of the book very well. It's less about "when life is totally unsatisfying an awful" and more about "when life is wonderful but not quite enough and your heart still aches for more" or "when life is bittersweet."
That said, I do enjoy the author. Her writing is appealing--vivid, warm, vulnerable, truth-telling. Probably 3.5 stars.
That said, I do enjoy the author. Her writing is appealing--vivid, warm, vulnerable, truth-telling. Probably 3.5 stars.
August 27, 2009
This book really helped me to see how those things that I ached and yearned for were type and shadow of the ache and yearning I have for my Jesus and a relationship with him. It helped me to see that when I desire a relationship with a man, it really is a manifestation of my desire to have a closer relationship with Him.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 11, 2010
I had never heard of Leigh McLeroy but her writing makes you feel like you're talking to your best friend about some of your deepest questions, longings and desires. It's a satisfying conversation that leaves you feeling enriched, provoked and encouraged. I used this book as a devotional. It gave me something new to think everyday. It is definitely one to read again and again.
September 29, 2009
Poignant, filled with sentiment of the most beautiful kind. If you wonder why you always long for more in your Christian journey or your journey in general, this book will satisfy you like few others. I can't stop rereading it.
June 12, 2008
Leigh McLeroy is an outstanding writer. With complete transparency she expresses those deeper longings we all feel and puts it into an eternal perspective. Highly recommend.
July 20, 2008
I'm almost finished with this one...a collection of short stories tied to biblical verses, but set in an every-day circumstance. Excellent!
May 9, 2010
This is a sort of devotional book - I'll be reading it for quite awhile. Well worth using , believe me.
November 12, 2009
I wrote about this book on my website. Read more at http://www.lkayjohnson.com/page/page/...
February 9, 2017
Rather a quick and easy, feelgood read.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews