Disrupted

On Fighting Death and Keeping Faith

I should not be writing this. I had a malignant brain tumor. I had an extremely malignant brain tumor. By all medical statistics, I should be dead. Last time I checked, dead people don't write. So begins Julie Anderson Love's memoir. It is the funny, horrifying, compelling story of her battle with an extremely malignant brain tumor. The good news is, she survived; the scary news is, according to medical statistics and prognoses, she wasn't supposed to. Her book is not just a How-To-Be-The-Patient-From-Hell, although one could read it for that; it is the story of a woman of faith who believes in a loving God, who faces the possibility of her imminent death. As one reader described it: This is a fully realized story of faith, the dissolution of faith, and the redefinition of faith. As she battles the tumor, and as the reader travels the journey with her, she takes God to task. Using biblical reflections, theological and philosophical deliberations, journal writings, and sermons she'd written (she's been a Presbyterian pastor for over twenty years), she ponders the nature of God's power, miracles, and forgiveness. Disrupted will make you laugh and cry. It will compel you to think deeply about the nature of God, the experience of being alive, and what it means to forgive.