Displaying the beauty of Christ through the story of suffering

Meet our author

Erin Ostergren

a memoir

What can God do with a self-proclaimed pessimist? He can pour grace upon grace into that life until His joy spills over!

After a tumultuous first two years of marriage, Erin and Kyle found themselves in a relationship that had hit rock bottom. For a year God poured grace into their marriage through counseling and they emerged the best of friends, more deeply in love and full of hope. Was this transformed foundation strong enough to survive the trials ahead? When chronic illness threatened to crush, God would use this suffering as a gift to display his overflowing grace, drawing them near to his heart.

For anyone weary from life’s adversity, Glass Half Empty: Finding Peace in the God of Overflowing Grace is proof that God specializes in redeeming broken things and uses our trials for his glory. Follow Erin’s and Kyle’s journey through the deepest pain, finding freedom and purpose by living in authentic relationship with God. And each other.

Excerpts from the book

  • Suffering has become a strange gift that continues to remind me that I'm weak, that life spent in the pits of addiction, debauchery, and searching for pleasure to numb our pains reveal the vanity of created things.

  • Sometimes I long for the shell of the former me, the healthy me, and want nothing more than for things to be without pain.

  • If Christ best displays his perfect love and infinite strength for the church through a broken bride, then it ought to come as no surprise that through our own marriage he’s doing the same thing with us.

  • Don't believe the lie that God is unapproachable. He tells us to come boldly to his throne of grace and promises we will find strength and comfort for our time of need.

  • Sometimes, reflecting on the past work of God’s sustaining power in our most trying times is the way God propels us forward to face whatever new obstacle lies ahead.

  • Suffering, it seems, has the power to either break relational bonds or bond broken relationships.