When Work Hurts, Meryl Herr. InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514010242) 2025.

Summary: Moving through workplace disappointments and finding healing and hope through Israel’s journey of exile and return.

I’ve reviewed a number of books on vocation and finding work you love. But this is the first book I’ve read to address the uncomfortable reality of when work hurts. Yet for many, their glowing hopes of fulfilling work have ended in disillusionment. You are part of a “reduction in force.” It could be the boss who unpredictably flies off the handle in temper tantrums. Or it can be toxic relations in a work team. Then there are the terrible instances of verbal, physical, or even sexual abuse in the workplace. Finally, in situations stressing productivity over the value of people, relentless hours and stress can result in burnout.

Meryl Herr has experienced many of these in her own work career. In her research as a former director at the Max De Pree Center for Leadership, she has heard many other stories of workplace hurt. In When Work Hurts she names the different wounds people bear from workplace experiences, including the guilt one may feel as a consequence. But she also explores how we might hope again and reclaim a sense of God’s purpose within one’s work. She does this not only through honest discussions of devastating work experiences. She also parallels that devastation with the experience of Israel as Jerusalem is devastated, they are deported to Babylon, make a new life there, and in a later generation return and rebuild. And she follows this story stage by stage throughout the book. and through that, she explores how we can cultivate resilience and hope as we heal.

Herr begins with the devastation of layoffs and firings, when the walls come crumbling down. She explores the experience of displacement, a kind of exile, when one loses a job or is estranged in relationships. Then there is the darkness of disillusionment, the dark nights of the soul when it is unclear what’s next. Herr discusses the everyday faithfulness that seeks peace and the prospering of those around one during such times.

Disillusioned workers often wonder about God’s calling in this “in between” place of displacement. She explores the opportunity this affords to pay attention to God, community, ourselves, and the world around us. Thus, Israel heard God’s call to return when God raised up Cyrus. Then she gets real practical in terms of staying on task in our job search, not unlike the exiles who needed exhorting by Haggai to redouble their efforts in rebuilding God’s house. Part of moving through work hurt is making sense of it all through seeing a bigger picture. This includes job crafting, seeing one’s calling within work, and seeing one’s work within God’s redemptive story.

Yet sometimes, workplaces may still be toxic or exploitative. Herr likens this to the ways Israel was opposed as they rebuilt Jerusalem and how they both prayed and armed themselves. In the workplace, this doesn’t mean physical battle but spiritual armor to stand, act with courage and care, pursuing peace where possible and discerning when one must leave. And sometimes, we cause workplace hurt and must own it.

Through it all, Herr challenges us to remember hope through remembering God’s faithfulness to us and God’s promises in scripture. She also bids us to remember the new Jerusalem, where we will work with unending joy.

Each chapter includes real life stories of both disappointment and how people pressed through to hope. Each chapter also concludes with a “Work Hurt Clinic” helping the reader or groups reflect on their own experiences in light of the chapter. They identify symptoms, causes, pain, and ways to experience care.

This book is a welcome addition to the collection of marketplace books. Where others touch on workplace hurt, Herr looks it in the eye, naming all the forms it can take. Furthermore, Herr shows the way of cultivating resilience, not by pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps. Rather, she treats workplace hurt as a call to ground ourselves more deeply in “exile faith” and in the God who “makes a way out of no way.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.