Will Medicine Stop the Pain?

Today a good friend alerted me to a new book co-authored by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Laura Hendrickson called Will Medicine Stop the Pain?: Finding God's Healing for Depression, Anxiety and Other Troubling Emotions. Both authors are biblical counselors and Laura Hendrickson is a medical doctor who used to practice psychiatry. The following is from the back cover:

Where do my feelings come from?

Is emotional pain a disease?

Can I really change?

What is wrong with me?

Countless women struggle daily with depression, anxiety, out-of-control moods, and other troubling emotions. Will Medicine Stop the Pain? offers clear answers to help women handle emotional problems in a stable, God-honoring way.

The authors, both seasoned biblical counselors, include stories from real people and practical advice on issues like how to talk to your doctor. Read this book to learn:

• How your body and your emotions affect each other.

• Why drugs that help you feel better may end up making your emotional problems worse.

• How applying biblical principles can help you deal with the true sources of your pain.

• Why it is possible to respond to emotional pain in faith and hope.

“God is with you—no matter how you feel. His promises are stronger than all your feelings.”

I urge you to read this book all the way through—with a prayerful heart and an open mind. It may be one of the most important, helpful books you have read. It will likely challenge your thinking on many fronts. It will certainly give you a vision for how your suffering (and the suffering of others) can become a path to great blessing and growth and can result in the display of God’s glory in this fallen world.

From the foreword by NANCY LEIGH DEMOSS

I've had the pleasure of reading and speaking with Elyse Fitzpatrick and am extremely grateful for her commitment to helping Christian women look at life through scriptural lenses as opposed to the smudged spectacles of pop-psychology and biological reductionism. Hers is one of the all too few voices calling women to take theology seriously and see that the question of worship, whether of the true God or a substitute, is central in every relationship and situation. I'm sure this new title, like those before it, will stimulate thought, praise, and Christ-grounded hope.