James D. MacArthur, Ph.D. 
Psychologist

I have been a psychologist in a largely Latter-day Saint area in central Utah for many years. There is no question that the problem of dealing with stress is one of the most common dilemmas we face-even if we have a testimony of the gospel and try our best to live its principles. The lives of even the greatest Saints have been riddled with the challenge of overcoming stressful aspects of life. We are not free of stress because we live the gospel.
        I have known John Turpin for many years. He is devoted to the gospel and has given a great deal of attention to developing ways to help others overcome the symptoms and underlying causes of excessive stress. Excessive stress gets in the way of serving the Lord. John has successfully identified ways to approach stress reduction that are consistent with our beliefs as Latter-day Saints. I recommend to you his work and hope it will help you to reduce stress in your life and to offer your life to the Lord as his faithful servants.

Pretravel suggestions from Your Travel Agent, the Author

        I have come to believe that one of the tools of the adversary in our modern era is stress. I have had much stress in my own life. You probably have, too. My stress has often been caused by my many weaknesses and mistakes. I have survived because of my relationship with the Lord. With his support and love, I have known great joy when there seemed little to be joyful about. My prayer is that you can also know joy. Since high negative stress destroys joy, the goal of this book is to help you learn how to reduce your stress.
        President Spencer W Kimball taught that "God does love us and he watches over us, but it is usually through another person that he meets our needs." The Lord inspires those who want to help his children. This book is the result of seeking the Lord's help so that I might be able to help you, his children, in reducing your stress.
        Seek the Spirit of the Lord as you read this book to learn what applies to you and how to apply it. As you become more effective in dealing with your stress, you will also become more effective in serving the Lord, and the Lord will bless you. As S. Dilworth Young said, "God is more anxious to bless you than you are to bless yourself"
        I hope that by understanding and applying the concepts discussed in this book you will learn how to strengthen your faith, how to relax, and how to lower your stress. I will point out scriptures that you may have previously overlooked, or may not have thought of applying as you attempt to cope with stress. I sincerely believe that the principles in this book can help you learn how to deal with influences and situations in your life which are causing you undue stress.
        Undue stress decreases your ability to be the person the Lord wants you to be. When highly stressed, most people are more likely to give in to weaknesses they are normally able to control. I have seen too many give in to temptations because stress levels became too high and then use stress to justify the sin. They used the rationalization that "I will just do this once and get it out of my system" only to learn to their chagrin that sin does not "get out of, their systems as much as it "gets into" their systems. The same
people learn that many tendencies and weaknesses, once created, must be dealt with for the rest of their lives.
        We all have our trials. As explained in John 14, the Lord can send them to us. In addition, life can naturally provide,
or we can create, our own trials. These trials can cause tremendous stress in our lives. It is not always possible to
get rid of the trials, but our goal should be to learn to deal with life and its stresses with faithfulness by becoming
more loving and by moving closer to the Lord.
        Applying the scriptures, praying, and fasting are the most effective stress-reduction methods. They bring us to a greater
appreciation of the atonement of the Savior-which can become the center of our lives. The atonement enables us to
repent of past sins and is the greatest healing balm of the gospel-the final and ultimate answer to stress problems.
        The concepts of this book will be much more helpful if you are using the atonement of the Savior as the foundation
for your life. If you apply the teachings of this book along with the scriptural stress-reduction foundation of the
atonement, you will find peace.

 6/14/00 rdh