Everything happens for a reason : and other lies I've loved

Summary: Thirty-five-year-old Kate Bowler was a professor at the School of Divinity at Duke, and had finally had a baby with her childhood sweetheart after years of trying, when she began to feel jabbing pains in her stomach. She lost thirty pounds, chugged antacid, and visited doctors for three months before she was finally diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. As she navigates the aftermath of her diagnosis, Kate pulls the reader deeply into her life, which is populated with a colorful, often hilarious collection of friends, pastors, parents, and doctors, and shares her reflections on faith, friendship, love, and death. She wonders why suffering makes her feel like a loser and explores the burden of positivity. Trying to relish the time she still has with her son and husband, she realizes she must change her habit of skipping to the end and planning the next move. A historian of the "American prosperity gospel"--The creed of the mega-churches that promises believers a cure for tragedy, if they just want it badly enough -- Bowler finds that, in the wake of her diagnosis, she craves these same "outrageous certainties." She wants to know why it's so hard to surrender control over that which you have no control. She contends with the terrifying fact that, even for her husband and child, she is not the lynchpin of existence, and that even without her, life will go on.

Item details

ISBN: 9780399592065
ISBN: 0399592067
ISBN: 9780399592072
Physical Description: print
xviii, 178 pages ; 20 cm
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Random House, [2018]
Copyright: ©2018
Badges:
- Most Copies: 1 / 5.0
- Top Circs: 3 / 5.0

Contents / Notes

Formatted Contents Note:

Diagnosis -- Object lesson -- Magic tricks -- Seasons -- Surrender -- Christmas cheer -- Certainty -- Restoration -- Ordinary time -- Appendix 1: Absolutely never say this to people experiencing terrible times: A short list. -- Appendix 2: Give this a go, see how it works: A short list.

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Autobiographies.
Biography.
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