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