About the Book

Book: DRAW NEAR: How Painful Experiences Become the Birthplace of Blessings

Author: Hadassah Treu

Genre: Christian Non-Fiction

Release date: March 15, 2024

Can something so painful, even tragic, actually be God’s way of blessing?

As believers, we generally expect good things to happen in our lives. We expect a blessing upon blessing because we love God and He loves us and we form an expectation of prosperity (relational, emotional, and physical). And when the tragedy strikes and we enter a season of unwanted changes and suffering, we are shocked, angry, disappointed, and confused. We start doubting God’s love and His good intentions and plans. We begin questioning His ways and methods. We don’t understand. It is difficult to reconcile the pain we feel with what we know about God. This encouraging book aims to help you not only identify and accept specific losses but to realize that painful experiences could be the birthplace of blessings. We lose something, but there is more to gain.

What is God using your pain for?

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Hadassah Treu is an international award-winning Christian author, blogger, poet, and speaker, and contributor to several faith-based platforms like Koinonia and Devotable, and a dozen devotionals and poetry anthologies in English and Bulgarian. She is a COMPEL Provers 31 Blog writer and Freelancing Community Group leader. Her writing is featured on (In)Courage, The Upper Room, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Her View From Home, Living by Design Ministries, Thoughts About God, Today’s Christian Living and other popular sites.

More from Hadassah

Why me? Why this? Why now? How am I going to heal from this pain? Where are you, Lord?

These are the questions I often asked when I stayed awake in the night, with tears burning down my cheeks. I needed a new perspective, a deeper understanding, and the assurance of God’s love and good plans in my painful experiences. I longed for comfort and hope, and help to fix my eyes on the divine transformation going on in my heart.

Do you face the same struggles?

We all do. We all need a biblical perspective and a new look at suffering to help us reconcile our painful experiences with what we know about God. Suffering remains a mystery and there is no simple theological answer to it. But what is our role? What are we supposed to think and do when we go through undeserved and unexpected pain and trauma?

The first and most important is to learn to see our dark moments as new chances and opportunities to draw near to God. We can choose to take off the glasses of loss and replace them with the lenses of God’s love, biblical truths, and thankfulness. Then our outlook will change and we will see more of the bigger picture. We can choose to live with open minds, believing God’s Word, with hands raised in prayer. We can commit to putting every effort into finding the balance between the reality we live in and the reality in which we live with God. It is in this balance of our reality and God’s reality that we find peace instead of fear, rest instead of anxiety, and wholeness instead of destruction.

Our painful experiences are glorious opportunities to draw near to God, to bond with Him, and to enjoy intimacy and fellowship with Him amidst the pain. This is the most important thing we can do in our lives because everything else results from bonding and connection. A loving connection with God births maturity, growth, transformation, and eternal blessings. Besides that, suffering is a privilege and a possibility to take part in our Lord’s sufferings and to know the power of His resurrection.

When we choose to listen and draw near to God in our pains, something miraculous will happen. God’s Spirit will birth blessings and precious gifts out of the pain.

Are you ready to unpack them?

Interview with Hadassah

How long does it take you to write a book?

I’ve written 6 books (2 poetry books, one nonfiction book, 2 devotionals, and a memoir, which is still not published) and the writing time for every book was different. Poetry is a special thing–I wrote the poems for my first poetry book for about a year, and for my second–in the period of 2-3 years. The memoir took me about 8 months, but this included 2 editing rounds, too. Finally, my nonfiction book “Draw Near” took me about 3 months. My devotionals took me about a month.

What is your real-life work schedule like when writing?

I plan daily time blocks for writing, usually in the afternoon or in the evenings. Even if it is only an hour or two, I try to stay consistent and maintain the habit of writing daily. I don’t work on books all the time, but I am doing a lot of freelance writing, content creation for social media posts, content repurposing, and blog posts. For me, it is important always to schedule time for writing but also to be flexible.

What are your favorite books to read?

I have a lot of favorite books in different genres. Some of my favorite genres are science fiction, fantasy, and Christian non-fiction books, as well as poetry. There are books I can re-read many times.

Among my favorite authors are Isaac Asimov, Stanislav Lem, Frank Herbert, Lysa TerKeurst, John Eldredge, Michelle Cushatt, Allen Arnold, Henry Cloud, John Townsend, the sisters Bronte, Jane Austin.

My top favorite book is Boundaries by Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend.

How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

As I mentioned before, I’ve written 4 books (3 published), and 2 devotionals, published on Gumroad. These are:

• “Draw Near: How Painful Experiences Become a Birthplace of Blessings” released in March, 2024, by Calla Press Publishing. The book aims to help the readers not only to identify and accept their losses but more importantly to show them that each painful experience could be a birthing place of specific gains, benefits, and blessings. This is definitely my favorite book because it contains all the precious lessons I learned while dealing with painful and traumatic experiences. This book is raw and vulnerable and I give the reader access to some of the most tender and intimate parts of my heart and story.
• 2 poetry books in Bulgarian: “A Guarantee for Another Life” and “Memories Keeper.”
• 2 devotionals – “The Book of Comforts” and “How to Find the Courage and Strength Your Hearts Craves,” which you can find on Gumroad.
• I am also a contributing author to over award-winning 12 devotional and poetry anthologies.

Here you can find info about my books: https://onthewaybg.com/my-books/

Where can readers find out more about you and your books?

Readers can find out more about me and my book on my website onthewaybg.com, my social media channels, and in my newsletter, which I send out twice per month to my subscribers.

Here are the links:

Website: https://onthewaybg.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onthewaybg/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/onthewaybg

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hadassahtreu

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.at/onthewaybg/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hadassahtreu-author

Medium: https://medium.com/@hadassah.treu

Gumroad: https://hadassahtreu.gumroad.com/

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/hadassah-treu

Join my community: https://subscribepage.io/joinmycommunity

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Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Hadassah is giving away the grand prize of a $30 Amazon card and copy of the book!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/00adcf5457