Buy the book online (also at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca)
Media? Blogger? Read This.
That morning she left for work a little tired. At lunch I got a call that she was in the ER; she had suffered a cardiac arrest. That evening she was in a medically induced coma, and the doctors were completely unwilling to speculate on the outcome.
What happened? Why did it happen? Will my children grow up without a mom? Doesn’t God care? Why doesn’t God just fix this, right now? These questions and more flooded my mind and the minds of those who gathered to support us.
Do we ask these questions rhetorically, or are we prepared to consider that there may be answers? Are we open to the possibility that God has good reasons for allowing our broken world – a world filled with suffering and hardship – to continue without “fixing” it?
Is it possible that a world without suffering might actually be much worse than this world?
In this book I explore these questions and I consider the possibility that maybe God actually knows what he is doing by allowing this broken world to continue. Maybe God knew what he was doing when he allowed my wife to suffer a cardiac arrest. Maybe he has a bigger perspective than we do, a perspective that gets lost in the midst of tragedy.
Buy the book (also at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca)
What’s in the book?
The book is divided into three sections. In the first section I explore the philosophical and theological questions surrounding the subject of suffering. I also explain how a world without suffering would actually involve some negative, unintended, consequences that most people probably don’t normally think about. I also consider the possibility of “suffering” (of sorts) in Heaven, animal suffering, and much more.
The middle section contains a short story I wrote called “Perfect World” that imagines what might actually happen if we really got the world we sometimes think we want. It’s the same concept I described in the first section, but in narrative form. Not quite the utopia we imagine it might be. Hopefully it gives you a better appreciation for this world, warts and all.
In the final section I share all the Facebook status updates I posted during that time in our lives. Because Facebook became the means for us to keep communication lines open for our extended family it was a very important medium for sharing what was going on, and I still have people who thank me for posting on her situation and recovery. For our family and friends this was their way to walk with us through the shock, and subsequent awe, of the entire episode. This provides a very real-life perspective on the subject of suffering, as experienced by one family.
Buy the book (also at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca)
Speaking
I am available for public speaking on the subject of suffering, and the story of my wife’s nearly fatal cardiac arrest and unexpected recovery. I am willing to present to groups of almost any size. If you would like to inquire about this possibility, please contact me.
Paul K Buller 