![]() ![]() ![]() I actually go to bed these days wondering if I’ll wake up in the morning … is it the smoking that’s causing my problem? … when will The Reality Shoe drop -> “ you dumb bastard, did you think your decades of smoking will come without consequences?!“ I am currently experiencing health problems (which shall remain private) that are causing me concern. (When did that happen?) I see the daily obituaries, and the loads of people dying in their 60s, 50s, and even younger. ![]() Second, I wonder how much longer I have left in this world. This book, like no other book I’ve read, is preparing me for that inevitable outcome. So, every morning I awaken with the fear that her own desire to go to The Great Beyond will be a self-fulfilling prophecy or, that God will finally answer her prayer. Perhaps this book speaks volumes to me because I am afraid that I soon may “ have to face such a time”.įirst, I wake up with a sense of dread every single morning will I find that my mom died in her sleep? She’s 90 years old and certainty not in the best of health, in constant pain, and throughout the day repeats her favorite mantra “ Dear God, why won’t you let me die?“. God forbid you ever have to face such a time, but if you do, do not look for sense or order in the process, because none shall be found.” The stages were not defined within the context of how people handle great loss in their lives, although they are commonly used in that way. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s famous five stages of grief were outlined to explain how people cope with the news that they are dying. What happens when our messy lives mess with what we think we believe?įollowing are just a few of my favorite excerpts from the book the author’s words are in black, my comments are in blue. So, I faced the greatest surgical challenge of my life stitching together fatal cancers, dying children, and Christian cliches to heal the faith I’d lost and hoped to resurrect in some unforeseen new form. But in the aftermath of war, divorce, rebuilding, and then unimaginable loss in my personal life, I realized I was standing at the deathbed of my shattered faith. I used to look at my patients brain scans, see the glioblastoma I knew would ravage their minds and destroy their lives in the coming months, and say to myself, I’ve seen the end of you. Then with my patients and in my own story, I thought I saw grace disappear under the onslaught of brutal reality, a reality that could never be changed and that time would never heal. But I learned early on, in the trenches of a crumbling first marriage and the bunkers of the Iraq War, that dogmatic belief is not life sustaining. I have been a person of faith all my life. But often the things we think we know are just that - things we only think we know. I thought when I wrote my story of being a combat surgeon at Balad Air Base in Iraq, operating on soldiers, civilians, and terrorists alike while coming to terms with the end of one life and the beginning of another, that was the story. This moral dilemma put me in touch with my spiritual mentor, Phillip Yancey, who encouraged me to write about it. My experience with this tumor made me ask questions about how I could honestly pray for my patients or give them news with any credibility or integrity when I already knew they would die. In the story that follows, you will learn that the title of this book refers to a kind of brain tumor - glioblastoma multiforme - that is almost 100 percent fatal. I had to do something no surgeon would ever do in the operating room. The most difficult and dangerous surgery I’ve ever performed, I wasn’t trained for. “ They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.” - Psalm 78:35
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