Christian band MercyMe’s lead singer Bart Millard has co-authored “The Hurt & The Healer” with Texas Pastor Andrew Farley, to be released on August 15. The book bears the same name as MercyMe’s 2012 album, and highlights how the Lord can meet us in our pain and suffering. The product description for the book reads, “We all experience fear, shame, loneliness, broken homes, or broken hearts. We all hurt and need true, lasting healing.”
MercyMe has won several Dove awards, and was nominated for the Billboard Music Awards Top Christian Artist and Top Christian Album for their record, “The Hurt & The Healer.” The album’s title track was in the number one spot on the Billboard Christian AC chart for several weeks. Through their music, MercyMe hopes that its audience will draw “further from their hurt and closer to the Healer.”
The book depicts God’s desire for His children to draw near to Him in their pain – many examples of which are found in the Psalms. The authors relay some of their own struggles and painful experiences, and how they sometimes felt as though they were suffering because they had displeased the Lord. The book aims to correct wrong-thinking about a Christian’s standing before the Lord, in light of the effective price that Christ has already paid on the cross for the believer’s sin.
Jesus died and rose from the grave in order to forgive sinners, and because of Christ’s merit, God loves those who receive Him unfathomably. Like King David in the Psalms, believers should run toward God in their suffering and remember that God promises to work all things for the good of those who love Him (see Romans 8:28). Through their book, Millard and Farley hope to relay that “God can be the gentle Healer of all our hurts.”
"The Hurt & The Healer" Lyrics:
Why?
The question that is never far away
The healing doesn't come from being explained
Jesus please don't let this go in vain
You're all I have
All that remains
So here I am
What's left of me
Where glory meets my suffering
I'm alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I fall into Your arms open wide
When the hurt and the Healer collide
Breathe
Sometimes I feel it's all that I can do
Pain so deep that I can hardly move
Just keep my eyes completely fixed on You
Lord take hold and pull me through
It's the moment when humanity
Is overcome by majesty
When grace is ushered in for good
And all our scars are understood
When mercy takes its rightful place
And all these questions fade away
When out of the weakness we must bow
And hear You say "It's over now"
Jesus come and break my fear
Wake my heart and take my tears
Find Your glory even here
When the hurt and the Healer collide
