Quiet Mind to Suffer With, A: Mental Illness, Trauma, and the Death of Christ

Suffering has been made holy by Christ’s proximity to it

2024 Christianity Today Book Award Winner - Christian Living/Spiritual Formation

2023 Southwestern Journal of Theology Book Award Honorable Mention for Counseling

This is the story of Christ’s nearness to my own suffering—my mental breakdown, my journey to the psych ward, my long, slow, painful recovery—and how Christ will use even our agony and despair to turn us into servants and guests of the mercy offered in his gospel.

We cannot answer suffering. And yet suffering demands an answer. If Jesus is the answer to suffering, what kind of answer is Jesus? Everything that could be taken from a person was taken from him. The worst things a person could be made to see and feel were seen and felt by Christ.

All of this came to a point in the nails driven into his hands and became a word that cannot be unspoken—his body broken and his blood poured out for us. Suffering has been made holy by Christ’s proximity to it.

312 pages.

Our lives are not tidy nor are our personal stories always a cheery ‘upward and onward’ narrative. Instead, we often face deep valleys with frightening darkness and endless unknowns. John A. Bryant’s book is not ‘tidy’ either, but because of his experience with and honesty about mental illness and trauma, we can learn from him; more importantly, because he points us to Christ crucified, we have more than a story, we have hope.

—Kelly M. Kapic, author of You’re Only Human and Embodied Hope