The Healing Path

by Dan B. Allender

None of us escapes the heartache and disappointments of life. To live is to hurt, and we all have the wounds to prove it. Regardless of how we've been hurt, we all face a common What should we do with our pain? Suffering doesn't have to rob us of joy. It can lead us to life -- if we know the path to healing.

Genres: Counselling, Psychology, Christian, Faith, Nonfiction, Self Help, Christian Living

417 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Dan B. Allender, Ph.D, is a fly fisherman who also serves as president and professor of counseling at Mars Hill Graduate School near Seattle, Washington. He is a therapist in private practice, and a frequent speaker and seminar leader. Dan received his M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Michigan State University. He is the author of To Be Told: Know Your Story / Shape Your Future, How Children Raise Parents, and The Healing Path, as well as The Wounded Heart, Bold Love, and Intimate Allies. He and his wife, Rebecca, are the parents of three children.

Reviews

[Mitchell Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book for seminary. Most of the chapters were great, not all though. I thought Allender did an incredible job showing how God can use the pain and suffering in our lives to bring us on the healing bath of sanctification.

[Peter Kiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful, insightful, rich, and pretty practical. I found the end of the book to be very icky, as Allender described sex with God (which feels wrong to even type), dancing with God, and similar imagery that just doesn't seem appropriate for how a creature ought to relate to their creator. Yes, there is a wedding metaphor between Christ and the church, but never an implication of sexuality within that.

[Cole Kliewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for the internship. Super great book in helping one to bring their wounds before Jesus and community. But it get a little long and drawn out at some points. It took me about two months to read. But it was one of those book that I would read a chapter, process it for about a week, and then I would be ready to move onto the next chapter.

[Kaelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a great read that captures the painful reality of living. Allender provides the necessary vocabulary to understand and process hurt and trauma. However, there were times where his stories and illustrations got a little confusing and it was hard to track exactly what point he was going for.

[Noah R Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Healing Path: How The Hurts In Your Past Can Lead You To A More Abundant Life is an insightful and inspiring work of spiritual formation. It is an honest reckoning with the reality of hurt and hopeful call towards a meaningful life amid the hurt. The author, Dr. Dan Allender, (Ph.D., Michigan State University), serves as Professor of Counseling Psychology at the Seattle School of Theology & Counseling and has extensive experience practicing, teaching, and writing on trauma and abuse therapy. His unique experience qualifies him to invite people to confront the reality of personal and corporate brokenness in order to walk the healing path. He winsomely reframes popular remedies to suffering, acknowledging that suffering is not only a reality of daily life, but also something God uses to grow faith, hope, and love in us. For, “if we run from what we fear or find displeasurable, we rob ourselves of the joy God intends for us to experience as we walk through our past, play with our future, and live now with new passion" (x).

Allender utilizes a diverse blend of Scriptures and deeply personal stories to call his readers to journey with him on a path that is hard and unpredictable, but that ultimately leads to a life that is purposeful and abundant. He begins by acknowledging reality: suffering is unavoidable; we hate to suffer, and our methods of escape (paranoia, fatalism, heroism, and optimism) are insufficient remedies (15). Instead, we were meant to wrestle with suffering towards, rather than away from, God. Allender then works to expose the intentions of evil, arguing that we cannot walk the healing path without coming to grips with how evil has worked to derail us (46). Namely, it causes loss: past betrayal leading to a loss of faith, powerlessness to the loss of hope, and ambivalence to the loss of love. Upon this honest reckoning with evil’s effects, Allender invites readers into the transformative path of healing that does not merely remedy the pain, but redeems it. He calls readers to wager in faith that God is telling his story through our own (129), to hope and dream for the future (137), and to join the dance of love to embrace and engage others (169). Finally, Allender illustrates how these concepts can be practically applied by living a radical life of redemptive relationships, inviting others to heal, grow, and live within a community of sojourners who walk the healing path together for God’s glory. Throughout the book, Allender thematically utilizes the loss, recovery, and flourishing of the biblical terms of faith (remembering and reckoning with the past), hope (for the future), and love (in the present) as an organizing framework to show how evil seeks to destroy them, while the healing path of redemption seeks to restore them as the building blocks of abundant life.

In his lecture, Understanding Change, at Covenant Theological Seminary, Dr. Dan Zink bolsters Allender’s thesis, himself arguing that true change is a redemptive process with the goal of moving through suffering and facing difficulty honestly in order to be changed by God’s redemption of the whole person (lecture, Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO, Spring, 2024) Zink utilizes conclusions from Dr. Patricia DeYoung’s Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame, to state that the chronic nature of trauma deems any attempt to remedy, reduce or simply deal with our pain as protective and ultimately, constrictive (Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame: Healing Right Brain Relational Trauma, 2nd ed. (New York), NY: Routledge, 2022). More than a focus on problem solving and reigning in external behaviors, people need a holistic life model that will reorient the “whole person” towards transformation and growth by confronting the heart and struggling through discomfort. Such a model leads to honesty that connects us with ourselves and repentance and relationship that connects us with God and others. Allender similarly engages with these approaches to suffering and likewise argues that attempts at simply remedying suffering are insufficient to address the root issues. What Allender offers in The Healing Path is a “path forward” that attends to both the chronic nature of suffering and trauma and the ceaseless faith, hope, and love available to those who receive and embrace redemption in and through that suffering.

In later chapters, Allender offers a vision “for how the power of redemption takes hold in our daily interactions with others as the force of evil is broken in our lives" (186). Readers will find a plethora of treasures for the soul in this section, calling us to live and invite others to live like Jesus. Amid the helpful content, there are elements that could be clarified. In chapter 10, Allender seems to implicate and conflate the church with the “Christian Ghetto” without much nuance (191-192). In chapter 12, he calls readers to create a “community of sojourners (237),” describes “a church without walls" (241), applies a biblical-marital concept (cleaving) to friendship (248), and frames historic communion as other than a religious church event (255). While there are helpful insights on community present, there is a lack of clarity on whether that community can or should be found within the church. Without nuance, Allender’s flowery and evocative language could confuse readers, leaving them with the impression that its best they leave the church with their “apostolic bands” for the “agora” (common place of commerce and ideas) because that is supposedly where meaningful ministry takes place. These implicit critiques of the church seem to depart from the central themes of the book, reading more like an imposition of “emerging church” movements and “seeker sensitive” pragmatism. While it is apparent that Allender is trying to correct a real deficiency in the church, some of his suggestions risk leading readers too far in the opposite extreme. Greater clarity would be helpful: don’t abandon your church for the agora with an apostolic band but engage the agora with your church as an apostolic band.

This book is not meant primarily for an academic audience, but a popular-level one for those who suffer and want to suffer purposefully. For that reason, this book is suitable for a wide readership. One of its numerous strengths is its personal and accessible language, relating and validating the pluriform nature of people’s individual experience of suffering while at the same time attending to the common pervasity of suffering for all of humanity. Allender accomplishes this by avoiding exclusively “churchy” vocabulary, also maintaining biblical fluency and distinctives, all while keeping the reader’s eyes ahead on the goal that the healing path of faith, hope, and love offers: abundant life with God and His people. This is what Satan seeks to destroy in suffering; but that suffering he means for evil, God purposes for good.

[Rock Rockwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are going to read a few books about working through your pain/hurt issues, you should put this book on the top of the stack. I have gone back and re-read many portions to get a better Christian perspective on how to heal and find joy in the midst of trials and difficulties. I have shared this book with friends who have struggled through various painful situations and each one has noted that the book was powerfully written and helped them deeply.

[Rachel | All the RAD Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was recommended to me by my counselor (he read many excerpts in our sessions, and I knew I wanted to read the whole thing) and I can't rave enough. This book is rich and helpful and meaningful and so incredible -- if you're on any sort of healing journey from any sort of hurt, abuse, pain, grief, etc... read this one. It's a soothing balm for any aching soul.

[Shanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have lived long enough to appreciate when someone talks about life like it’s, sometimes, shockingly painful. It is. It so is. But Dan Allender looks at pure evil and tragedy with eyes wide open and yet finds hope. He calls this the healing path, when you don’t deny or ignore or numb your wounds, but you view those wounds as opportunities to grow. This idea is beautiful and sometimes hard to swallow and I’d be lying if I said I found it easy to embrace. (Self-righteousness is the last idol to die, right?) it’s an important book, one I’ll keep processing I think.

Some ideas that have been most helpful to me are how unresolved wounds cause a forgetting of previous good, which leads to a loss of hope — when I have been at my worst, I have found those points the hardest to rehearse years of providences or answered prayer, and I have, simultaneously, despaired of hope. Also how we can fully agree someone has wounded us *without* hardening our hearts to them - that is just, it, to me. May God keep my heart soft! He also really loves food and how the enjoyment of it points us to our future — I can get behind that 100%.

The final chapter is the most practical and tip-oriented and also, wow, a lot to think about. I’m not sure I agree with all his conclusions (close relationships are mini marriages? Local community is in many ways > church community?) but (!) I am convicted and challenged about how I listen to people, from the grocery clerk to a friend, and hear what they’re really saying, invite more meaningful dialogue.

Not a fast read. Helpful and uncomfortable. Recommended.

[Amanda Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. One of the more helpful Christian books on suffering— I appreciated the perspective of a psychologist. The chapters, “Ambivalence and the Loss of Love” and “The Wager of Faith” were particularly meaningful for me. I suspect I will be considering them for a while, and likely re-reading parts with my therapist. Last thought— if you have ever listened to the Place We Find Ourselves podcast, this book lays a great foundation for the key concepts they discuss there about story work.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick read. Informative, compelling, and genuine. Many stories of people trying to bury and hide their hurts, or wallow in their hurts, or finally grow with God as they face their hurts. Deals with many of the scripture passages that are untidy and life situations that don't make sense.

I recommend this for everyone who has ever had a life experience where they have hurt someone or been hurt. That would be me and everyone else.

[Brian Byersdorf · Rating 5 out of 5]

The healing path is not a straight path. I will read this a second time, as I imagine the content will hit in a new way depending on the stage of life you are in

[Tamara M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book by Allender that I read - and I really enjoyed it. The way the author encourages us to embrace our stories, to know our suffering, and how that can move us towards healing is really refreshing way of thinking and looking on suffering in life journey. I love the way he combines his personal experiences with those coming from his profession as a therpaist and then engaging those with theological/biblical perspective. We all live a life in which suffering, hurts, and pain is inevetable - the question is how do we walk through those times and what do we make out of them? Awesome read, indeed!

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every page of this book spoke to the inner struggles of my own heart. In my mind, Allender does not give a definitive answer to life's suffering and doubts of God's love for humankind. What he does for the reader, or at least for me, is to lead to a greater understanding of my personal need for Jesus by artfully uncovering my pain and sin and teaching me how to walk in my personal suffering by faith, hope, and love. The Healing Path does not lead to a "dying-to-self" at the cross only, but to living a joy-filled life of passion and desire to know God better through personal suffering by means of Jesus' suffering on my behalf.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book. The author empathizes, speaks, and validates pain and betrayal experience, while digging deeper to discover why we may react the way we do to those things, and then seeks to give encouragement on how to be more "response-able" in life. It wasn't really NEW information to me, so much as needed reminders in a calm and kind presentation. Good stuff.

[Susie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a wonderful read while working through childhood hurts, emotional scars, bad ways of coping with life difficulties. I felt like I was able to own a number of my issues and respond to God's invitation to healing.

[Ryan Jankowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely spectacular - one of Allender's best.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life-changing. Beautiful. I need to read it again. Allender comes closer than anyone else I've read to making sense of the mess of life.

[Ruthann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a short read. I didn’t find it helpful. He makes some helpful points but overall it was not memorable for me.

[Steve Penner · Rating 5 out of 5]

My pastors study group has read this together. We have all found it interesting, challenging and worth the effort to read and discuss. Allender describes the healing path using the framework of faith, hope and love. He uses this frame to identify how our past hurts impact our present and darken our future. The more we learn about how our brains work, the more we know that childhood trauma significantly impacts how live our adult lives. Allender gives practical advice throughout and tells some remarkable stories drawn from his practice and his day-to-day life. The last section focuses on the building of a community that practices faith, hope and love in spite of betrayal, damage and suffering and is a profound vision of what many of us want but never experience. Not sure where I will go with this book in terms of leaders and servants in the flock, but it surely deserves a broad reading as it is still relevant 20 years after its writing.

[Stephen Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Without doubt there are some gems in this book at even for me personally I’d highlight the Spirit speaking through it and this is also one thing I deeply appreciated about Allender’s writing is that he emphasizes the Spirit and presence of God at work throughout. However, it was simply a book I found hard to read. I couldn’t recount in detail what the healing path is outside faith, hope and love. There are many stories, lots about Allender’s life, but I wouldn’t say a well anchored theme from chapter to chapter. Also, many of the stories and much of the writing is over sexualized in a way I was not comfortable with. I know some of Allender’s background in significant contribution to helping the sexually abused, but the way some of the stories and teachings were presented were too descriptive in my opinion.

[Tyler Simonds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love The Healing Path. Powerful and poetic at times, Dan shares from his life as he inspires the reader to embrace life. If you get stuck at some point or distracted I hope you won’t give up. He ends it amazingly.

Too many of us have sat on the sideline over the years, merely observing. (Perhaps complaining about others and failing to recognize the good potential in front of us.) We are surrounded by mystery. Adventure calls to you, the good life found in fighting for “us” with open arms.

I cannot do this book justice. Thank you Dan!

[Gideon Yutzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't shut out your past but rather find ways to become more whole by finding better narratives to interpret both the past and the present. You'll find some cliches and shallower content, but overall it's well worth a read through and some parts even call for rereading. I love the part near the end where he had the conversation with the guy on the plane. (He paid me a glorious compliment: "I would have never guessed you to be a Christian!")

[Samuel Kassing · Rating 4 out of 5]

The prose in this book are classic Allender. At times I wish he was more practical and a little less wordy but overall this is a very good book.

Allender takes the three virtues of “faith, hope, and love” and shows us how God intends to use those three virtues to make us more human within the body of Christ. And how we can help our neighbors recover their humanity as well.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this. By enjoy, I mean it was incredibly helpful. It's painful to read and had me looking for kleenex before I finished ten pages. I read it at a time in my life when I was resigned to accepting life the way it is without much hope for the future. Allender invited me to hope and therefore dream again about what God could be doing in my life and in those around me.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars.

A lot to think about, but I think the audiobook shows the lack of clarity in outline and purpose. It's got so many good nuggets and as someone who is REALLY self-reflective, there still was so much that served as a helpful mirror.

I do also think that this would be better in written form to be able to underline, reflect, and meditate.

[Vee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It is a Samson-like suicidal gesture that pulls down the pillars not to escape... but to destroy those who blinded us and made us feel helpless."

I need this book next to my Bible so I can constantly reference it.

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thought provoking book led me on a path to greater healing and peace. Dealing with deeper elements of faith, hope and love Allender brought a new and welcome twist to the dark and difficult task of putting together broken lives.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful overview of how we can put our pain to good use and draw closer to God in our suffering. It also provided specific insight into why we suffer in certain ways and what the root causes of that pain is.

[Kirby Whitehead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about leaning into pain and keeping hope alive. Short and approachable and more anecdotal than academic, but worth a read to develop categories for grief, shame, defense mechanisms and hope.

[Matt Mcmanus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, insightful, challenging, and full of hope. An amazing picture of leaning into your past, holding it's pain and isolation, and creating a path towards wholeness that embraces the fullness of your own history and integrates into a life anchored in intimate community.