Jesus, Do Your Hands Still Hurt?: Prayers From A Broken and Healing Heart

By Richard T. Young

About this book . . .

On September 13, 2021, Carol Ann, my wife of 30 years entered the hospital with covid. On October 9, 2021, in quarantine, she took her last breath alone.

I've been a person of prayer all my life, but this never before circumstance caused me to crank it up, to become more serious about it, to make prayer something I more consciously, readily, purposefully chose to engage. I designated a chair in my den as a "prayer chair," and some days I would go to church to pray. As I journeyed through the valley of the shadow of death I started writing my prayers.

This was not the first time I'd written prayers, but previous iterations were in life-journals, not as a collection in a stand-alone journal. In this new prayer effort I wanted to be completely and painfully honest with myself and God about what I was thinking and feeling.

I've always understood that God knows us inside and out, but sometimes I think we try to fool ourselves into thinking that we can hide things from God. Thus the original title of this volume was Honest to God. As I thought about publishing the collection I discovered there are already dozens of works with that title. I changed the name to Unshackled Prayer and continued. Then, as I was perusing my old journals I ran across the Jesus-Do-Your-Hands-Still-Hurt story and instantly knew that was the title.

And, truth be told, Jesus is who I want this work to be about.

I'm not a theologian. There are probably some finer details of Christian theology in these prayers about which the more learned among us could take exception. When Karl Barth was asked about the most central and important theological insight, he responded with "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

I'm with Barth.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FP94849V
• ISBN13: 9798316620821
• Release Date: August 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"