Steph Penny

Surviving Chronic Illness: Grace in the Flames is a quirky self-help book for people of faith seeking to survive the daily challenges of living with chronic illness, pain, fatigue and mental distress.

Chronic illness can affect all facets of life, including our work, relationships, sanity and faith. Even worse, medicine cannot always deliver the relief we need; and God does not always heal either. Surviving Chronic Illness is a book of hope, looking for humorous and creative ways of responding to sickness that just won’t go away.

Steph shares her lived experience of lupus (also known as ’the great chameleon’) with quirky and at times brutal honesty. She encourages readers ultimately to rely on God’s grace for survival - the grace that awaits us in every hospital bed, every doctor’s surgery, every trying work day, every difficult conversation and every prayer, even the prayers gone unspoken.

Surviving Chronic Illness offers breathing spaces in the form of metaphorical imagery at the beginning of each chapter, seeking to capture the lived experience of chronic illness with pictures rather than words, and a self-care spot at the end. There is also a chapter dedicated to carers, the unsung heroes of the illness world.