On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living

Book Description:

Christianity Today Award of Merit

Meditations on Why Life is Worth Living

We aren't always honest about how difficult normal human life is.

For the majority of people, sorrow, despair, anxiety, and mental illness are everyday experiences. While we have made tremendous advancements in therapy and psychiatry, the burden of living still comes down to mundane choices that we each must make—like the daily choice to get out of bed.

In these pages, you'll find

• Alan Noble's deeply personal yet universally relatable consideration of the unique burden of everyday life,
• Insight that offers hope and challenge without minimizing the reality of ordinary suffering, grief, and mental illness, and
• Noble's ultimate conclusion that the choice to carry on amid great suffering—to simply get out of bed—is itself a powerful witness to the goodness of life, and of God.

Author:

O. Alan Noble (PhD, Baylor) is associate professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, a fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, and author of On Getting Out of Bed, You Are Not Your Own, and Disruptive Witness. Noble has published articles at The Atlantic, The Gospel Coalition, First Things, and Christianity Today. He lives with his wife and three children in Oklahoma City.

Endorsements:

"Alan Noble unveils the sheer paralyzing terror of a full-blown panic attack as well as just what chronic low-grade melancholy feels like inside. Some days it's all you can do just to get out of bed. Noble has no quick fixes to recommend. Rather, he points suffering Christians to the suffering Savior as the sole reason to keep on keeping on. In God's kingdom little things count: a cup of cold water given in Jesus' name, for instance. Alan Noble reminds us that simply doing the next thing can be a courageous act of faith—like getting out of bed when we'd rather not."
--Harold L. Senkbeil, author of Christ and Calamity: Grace and Gratitude in the Darkest Valley and executive director emeritus of Doxology: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel

"Alan Noble has given us another great gift in writing this short, honest, and deeply moving book on the powerful witness to the goodness of life and of God of simply getting out of bed each day, especially when we experience mental suffering or affliction. It contains many gems of wisdom and profound truth, such as living one day at a time, one step at a time, accepting God's love and grace and the help of others—including mental health professionals and lay people—and reaching out to others in community. Highly recommended!"
--Siang-Yang Tan, professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Christian Perspective

"I read everything Alan Noble writes, and this latest book is a tour de force. Having lost a son to his battle with mental health, I've personally seen and felt what Alan writes about in this beautiful, encouraging book. It is not a sin to be sick, and your illness is not your identity. I recommend this book to everyone."
--Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life

"To be human is to suffer. And to suffer is, in its essence, to continually bear our pain in isolation with no imagined future in which our pain will cease. With On Getting Out of Bed, Alan Noble enters with us into our suffering—but not suffering as an abstraction. Rather, suffering as the fully embodied thing that it is, occupying as it does every single one of us. Most importantly, our guide does not simply come in and sit with us. He speaks—by his own authoritative experience—of a way not so much to rid ourselves of our suffering but to open ourselves to God and each other in its midst, so that we may be transformed. Read this book and find that this is so. Live this book and witness your own transformed life being the conduit by which God transforms the lives of those around you."
--Curt Thompson, MD, author of The Soul of Desire and The Soul of Shame

Additional Information:

• Pages: 109
• Cover: Hardcover
• Publisher: Intervarsity
• Date: 2023