Description:
- EPA 2018 Christian Book Award Finalist - Biography and Memoir
"When my doctor told me I was dying, I came alive." What happens when you come face-to-face with your mortality? When your body fails you, what happens to your faith? Russ Ramsey was struck by a bacterial infection that destroyed his mitral valve, sending him into heart failure and requiring urgent open-heart surgery. As he faced the possibility of death, he found himself awakened to new realities. In the critical days and months that followed, Ramsey came to see the world through the eyes of affliction. He grappled with fear, anger, depression, and loss, and yet he experienced grace through the suffering that filled him with a hope and hunger for the life to come. This profoundly eloquent memoir gives voice to the deepest questions of the human condition. In the midst of pain, we can see glimpses of eternity.
Brief description:
Russ Ramsey is a pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He was awarded the 2016 Christian Book Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. He is the author of Struck, The Passion of the King ofGlory, and The Mission of the Body of Christ. He lives in Nashville with his wife and four children.
Review Quotes:
"Russ Ramsey writes from his own incredible journey of near-fatal heart disease in real time. I was quickly caught up in the journey with him and felt like I became friends with him and the fascinating people he meets along the way. As a therapist who frequently references and recommends books, I moved this to the top of my list for many of the hard issues that we all face. Russ is vulnerable and honest about the deepest questions of life and leaves us with a peace that makes the unanswerable questions much less important. Russ combines Lewis's A Grief Observed, Keller's The Meaning of Marriage, and Kübler-Ross's On Death and Dying in one place and gives us the head and heart knowledge for trials that we all are familiar with. I'm proud to say that Russ is as real in his roles as my pastor and friend as he is in this book."