I used to feel capable. Then my husband’s Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis four years ago peeled back the veneer of capability, revealing weakness. I felt hopeful and confident in the Lord’s good control until the future looked scary.
Now, time and again, I smack straight into inadequacy and fear like a butterfly breaking against a car windshield. I want to gracefully ride the breezes but instead feel battered by them. Why am I not stronger, happier, more victorious? Aren’t Christian women supposed to thrive?
I found Lindsey Carlson’s book A Better Encouragement: Trading Self-Help for True Hope solidly helpful. Carlson, a pastor’s wife and mother of five, urges overwhelmed and discouraged women to look to Christ, teaching us the substance and practice of true encouragement.
You Are Not Enough
My closest sisters in Christ echo my lament. Never mind thriving—many are barely surviving. We kept the kids alive, got everyone to their activities (almost) on time, and finally made it to Bible study because, for once, the family isn’t sick. But frustration bubbles below the surface. We’re anxious and burdened by life’s sadnesses, and we want to feel better. And we probably feel guilty for feeling bad in the first place.
Perhaps this is why so many women flock to self-help books promising relief. We feel the magnetic pull toward a more peaceful and fulfilling life—like the shine and scent of ripe fruit, what self-help offers looks delicious. It tells us we’re beautiful, capable, and enough. In this world, “you do you” is the ultimate affirmation, and “finding ourselves” leads to happiness.
But finding myself means finding weakness. Digging deep reveals not courage and purity but rather muddy fear and selfishness. I don’t have what I need. When Carlson wrote, “God allowed me to face the discomfort of my need because he knew it would lead me to his better strength” (95), I wanted to cheer.
Finding myself means finding weakness.
In striking imagery, Carlson compares the self-help movement to a mirage—it promises refreshment but is only sand (38). By contrast, A Better Encouragement points to the Savior who offers eternally satisfying water (John 4:10–15). He saves and strengthens us. We don’t have to be enough; Christ is enough.
Better Help of Biblical Encouragement
In answer to the widespread discouragement Carlson has observed and personally experienced (20), A Better Encouragement exposes the harm of self-help and commends the gospel. Carlson also offers practical resources to serve the church, including a helpful “Note on Depression and Mental Illness.” She references Richard Sibbes’s classic The Bruised Reed as she makes her central argument that God’s promises offer true encouragement while the promises of the world fail. This might seem basic to Christian living—it is. Yet it’s a basic truth we need every day.
As I read A Better Encouragement, the book’s margins blossomed with pencil-scrawled amens and exclamation marks. Here are my three biggest takeaways.
1. Be intentional in true encouragement.
Occasionally people say nice things about my crazy, curly gray hair. Surprised and thrilled, I’ve often replied, “That’s so encouraging!” But is it? Carlson does well to define the term. We must know what encouragement is to cultivate it (13). “Better encouragement,” she writes, “provides God’s promises to God’s people in order to help us endure with our hope set on Christ” (48).
Commending Jesus in specific, needful ways takes time and thought. Shallow encouragement is faster and less threatening—maybe that’s why we default to it. Like a retweet or an Instagram heart, it gives fleeting warmth, temporarily boosting our confidence. But beyond making a sister feel good for a minute, true encouragement points her to the powerful work of God on her behalf and for her eternal good. It nurtures hope to survive the flame of suffering.
Our greatest encouragement is that Christ draws near by his Spirit and is with us always. Carlson characterizes this as “Jesus running with you” (144, 145), but I would have loved to see her emphasize Christ’s victorious work as the One who finished the race (Heb. 12:2). Still, Carlson’s point is beautifully edifying—in all our trials, Christ is near.
2. Remember the point.
Maybe my favorite aspect of the book is the way Carlson highlights the purpose of encouragement: strengthening one another to hope in God (57–62). It’s for resisting sin, clinging to truth, and gazing upon Christ as we wait for his glorious return (Titus 2:11–14).
Have you ever placated a toddler on a long flight? The stickers, snacks, and small toys aren’t an end in themselves but are there to encourage endurance until you walk (or stagger) off the plane. Similarly, biblical encouragement helps us wait. Jesus sustains us throughout this weary and joyful journey until he calls us home to eternal peace. So, we encourage one another to cling to God’s promises as we await their fulfillment.
3. Embrace the context.
True encouragement is essentially communal. Self-help turns us inward, but Jesus calls us to look out and away from ourselves, and the context for this is our local church.
True encouragement is essentially communal.
Further, Carlson shows that just as we need the church, our church family needs us (132–34). Echoing 2 Corinthians 1:3–7, she explains that “receiving encouragement for yourself shouldn’t be your end goal. God provides his people with better encouragement and a longer lasting source of hope so that you will go and encourage those around you” (134).
This led me to consider the evangelistic impact of biblical encouragement. Imagine the distinctive witness of an encouraging and encouraged church family in our lonely, self-focused world! May our neighbors hear us commending Jesus and turn to him for their salvation and hope too.
We All Need Better Encouragement
A Better Encouragement nurtures real hope. It will help women who need encouragement and those who seek to encourage others. If you lead a women’s group or ministry, this book will warm your heart and equip you to better love those you disciple. If you’re desperately trying to find strength within—to be your best self—it will show you the freedom of resting in Christ. And if you’re longing for whispers of hope in a dark trial, it will remind you of God’s sustaining promises.
“Ultimately,” Carlson notes, “the God of endurance and encouragement offers his people better encouragement by offering us himself” (47). Let’s together pursue the living water of true encouragement, beholding Christ in faith until we behold him in glory.
The Gospel Coalition