Living Pain

In Embodied Hope, Kelly Kapic invites us to consider the example of our Lord Jesus. Only because Jesus has taken on our embodied existence, suffered alongside us, died, and been raised again can we find any hope from the depths of our own dark valleys of pain. As we look to Jesus, we are invited to participate not only in his sufferings, but also in the church, which calls us out of isolation and into the encouragement and consolation of the communal life of Christ.

In dark times, God can seem silent. We feel isolated, confused, and alone. Everyone experiences suffering - even the biblical writers express similar feelings in the Psalms. Through brief meditations on Psalms 88 and 89, Ligon Duncan points to hope in the midst of the pain of feeling abandoned by God. These examples of crying out to God show listeners how to respond to their own suffering, and assure them of our heavenly Father's mercy that sustains trust even in the darkest of circumstances.

Do you sometimes feel as though your body is a problem to solve? Discover how to make it part of the solution instead. It’s now known that the emotional and relational pain we’ve lived through has a profound negative physical effect on our bodies. Alisa Keeton, popular fitness professional, proposes that the reverse is also true: What we do with our bodies can have a dramatic positive effect on our emotions, relationships, and our connection with God.

What will you do when the unthinkable happens in your life? Her parents called her Lenya Lion because of her ferocious personality and hair that had been wild and manelike since birth. But they never expected that five days before Christmas, their five-year-old daughter would suddenly go to heaven after an asthma attack. How do you walk out of an emergency room without your daughter?

On November 3, 2020, Tim and Aileen Challies received the shocking news that their son Nick had died. A twenty-year-old student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, he had been participating in a school activity with his fiancée, sister, and friends, when he fell unconscious and collapsed to the ground. Neither students nor a passing doctor nor paramedics were able to revive him. His parents received the news at their home in Toronto and immediately departed for Louisville. While on the plane, Tim began to process his loss through writing.

Imagine a life in which we literally believe God and take him at his word, one in which we let the trials and tribulations that hit us roll off our backs. We look at those trials as a “life college” and learn everything we can through them. We get better, not bitter. When relationships fail, instead of looking at them as our personal failures, we believe rejection is God’s protection and that he wanted the people out of our lives. The points in this book are all about perception shifts - learning how to take the bad and shift it for our good.

Chronic pain, illness, and disability take so much away. Sometimes it seems as though they take everything we have ever loved and held dear. Our physical abilities and our jobs. Our current passions and future dreams. Our finances and our friends. Our sense of community and our ability to engage the world in ways we could before. Chronic pain takes away our sense of self and who we always thought ourselves to be. How in the world are we supposed to deal with this fact?

When the reality of your pain doesn't line up with what you've been taught in church, then what? While many abandon their faith or embrace hopelessness, it is possible to discover the God who heals your heart in the midst of the pain. Matt Bays has been where you are. His unforgettable stories of loss and healing will usher you into a life where gratitude overpowers anger, hope overcomes despair, and hunger for God replaces indifference to God.

Backbone is a life-fulfilling message about managing chronic pain and living a life of purpose. For two decades, Karen Duffy, New York Times bestselling author, former MTV VJ, Revlon model, and actress, has managed to live an enriching life despite living in a state of constant pain. In this powerful, inspirational, funny, and important manual for surviving pain, Duffy draws on her experience as a patient advocate, trained recreational therapist, and hospice chaplain to illuminate gratifying methods people can use to cope with chronic pain.

This Too Shall Last offers an antidote to our cultural idolatry of effort and ease. Through personal story and insights from neuroscience and theology, Ramsey invites us to let our tears become lenses of the wonder that before God ever rescues us, he stands in solidarity with us. We are all mid-story in circumstances we did not choose, wondering when our hard things will end and where grace will come if they don’t. We don't need to make suffering a before-and-after story.

It's difficult to pray during times of suffering. Words simply may not come. You may feel angry or confused, and that can make it tough to turn to God. Well-meaning friends or family may offer suggestions like “Just be patient” or “Offer it up,” which only leave you feeling worse.

The Pain Companion is a practical guidebook for people living with chronic pain written by someone who has endured debilitating pain for many years and found ways to thrive and enjoy life despite the challenges. The book is intended to be, quite literally, a companion through pain, validating and acknowledging its myriad challenges and offering a pathway to greater well-being, ease, and comfort.

It's unnerving, isn't it? When our faith feels ungrounded, untethered . . . unreal. When our certainty is adrift, as though an undercurrent has pulled us away from shore into the deep, into the darkness. And if this is you—if you're in a dark night of the soul—please know that you are not alone. (And you are not as far away from safety as you may feel or fear.) The night is not your enemy. In fact, the night is necessary. Revered author, speaker, and mentor Dr. Alicia Britt Chole offers a groundbreaking perspective that reveals spiritual disillusionment as an unexpected friend.

Millions of women struggle needlessly with pelvic floor dysfunction, causing bladder urgency, urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and pelvic pain that interferes with sexual function and other daily activities. The topic of women’s pelvic health still suffers from taboo and stigma, making good information and real solutions hard to come by.

What hopeless situation troubles your heart? The death of a loved one? The memories of childhood abuse? The diagnosis of terminal illness? The strain of financial failure? A stormy marriage? A body wracked by pain? A lonely sense of emptiness? Into your hopeless situation comes beloved evangelist Billy Graham bearing God's gift of hope, one of the strongest "medicines" known to humanity, an amazing resource that "can cure nearly everything."

Engaging and insightful, Pain Management and You: A Practical Approach to Living with Chronic Pain and Illness integrates new perspectives and ideas that will assist the listener's healing and recovery. People around the world struggle with chronic pain management, chronic pain syndrome, and live each day with pain and suffering. This audiobook seeks to help each and every chronic pain patient. If you suffer from chronic pain and want to live your dreams, look no further.

Jesus is beside you on your darkest days, and he has good words for you. In thirty-one short, digestible readings, Edward Welch helps you to converse with him honestly amid your pain.

As a trauma-informed professional life coach, Janell Rardon spends a good deal of her day-to-day work with brokenness-broken families, broken relationships, broken hearts and souls. In response to the pleas of her clients, she developed a set of emotional health tools that help them repair the broken parts of their lives. In Stronger Every Day, she shares those powerful tools with you.

In his compelling follow-up, The Book of Waking Up, Seth invites you into the story of healing. He invites you to see your coping mechanisms for what they are - lesser lovers, which cannot bring the peace, freedom, and wholeness you crave. Through guided reflections, sustainable soul practices, and stories from Seth's life and others, The Book of Waking Up points you toward the divine love of God that has the power to transform your life.

Everyone experiences pain at times. It can manifest physically, emotionally, relationally, or spiritually. It can follow tragic accidents, great loss, sudden betrayal, or unexpected and unwanted change. Often it is temporary. But what do you do when it isn't? When the pain just won't go away, when healing does not come, when the grief and hurt settle in? Drawing on her own experience of chronic pain and her years as a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist, Dr. Michelle Bengtson provides a countercultural perspective on pain.