A Cup of Living Water for a Hurting Soul

by William P. Young

Like Veerman's devotional, Young uses spiritual encounters to address profound pain—but he does it through narrative rather than reflection. Where Veerman offers bite-sized wisdom on 100 topics, Young takes you on a single transformative weekend that wrestles with the same kinds of suffering, asking harder questions about why a loving God permits hurt.

by Paul Kalanithi

This is your surprise pick—it's a memoir rather than devotional, but Kalanithi writes with the same urgent tenderness toward suffering that Veerman brings to his reflections. A neurosurgeon confronting his own mortality, he explores meaning and pain with philosophical depth, offering the kind of hard-won wisdom that feels earned rather than prescribed.

by Rick Warren

Warren structures his book similarly to Veerman—short daily readings with Scripture and reflection—but expands the lens from immediate comfort to lifelong purpose. If you appreciated Veerman's accessible, topic-by-topic approach, you'll find Warren's 40-day journey offers a complementary framework for understanding how pain fits into a larger spiritual narrative.

by Joan Didion

Published in 2005, this memoir sits in a different era and genre entirely—literary nonfiction rather than devotional—yet it's perhaps the most honest American account of grief ever written. Where Veerman offers consolation through Scripture, Didion offers something rawer: the unflinching documentation of how the mind copes (and fails to cope) with sudden loss, written with crystalline prose.

by Sarah Young

Young's daily devotional shares Veerman's format and spiritual intent, but she writes from the perspective of Jesus speaking directly to the reader—creating an intimate, almost conversational tone. The Scripture integration feels more poetic, and the reflections lean toward reassurance and presence rather than explanation, which might resonate if you found Veerman's approach helpful but wanted something slightly more contemplative.