From age five to thirteen, David Cowdery endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse that left him a broken and enraged teenager. By sixteen, the pain he’d swallowed for years began turning outward, and for the next decade he became, in his own words, both a victim and an abuser.

On the night before his twenty-sixth birthday, he reached the end of everything he had left to carry. Then a small, quiet thought broke through: Just wait one day.

Hope for the Hurting is the raw, honest story of what happened during those formidable years that ended in what David called his pendant moment. In David’s own words, that event split his life into before and after. It’s the story of a man who was, at different points, a victim, an abuser, and finally a victor, and who found the courage to be honest about all three.

This isn’t a story with the hard parts filtered out. David writes openly about the abuse he suffered, the rage it produced, and the years he spent looking for relief anywhere but God — before finally discovering a Father who delights in His children, rather than one who simply tolerates or punishes them.