NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A meditation on sense-making when there’s no sense to be made, on letting go when we can’t hold on, and on being unafraid even when we’re terrified.”—Lucy Kalanithi
Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward “blessing.” She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son.
Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.
The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with “a surge of determination.” Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you “can’t do” and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before.
Frank and funny, dark and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything Happens for a Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live.
Praise for Everything Happens for a Reason
“I fell hard and fast for Kate Bowler. Her writing is naked, elegant, and gripping—she’s like a Christian Joan Didion. I left Kate’s story feeling more present, more grateful, and a hell of a lot less alone. And what else is art for?”—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and president of Together Rising
“This is a beautifully written, intelligent, soulful book, necessary reading for all of us who long to walk faithfully and honestly through the darkest and most desolate of seasons.”—Shauna Niequist, New York Times bestselling author of Present Over Perfect
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Summary
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved was our latest church book club pick. The author is a professor at Duke Divinity School and an expert in the evangelical creed known as the prosperity gospel, which she has studied extensively and written a book about. She was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer at the age of only thirty-five, which of course was a stunning blow. This book is primarily a memoir of her experiences with battling cancer and how that has affected her life. But at the same time, she relates it to the irony of being an expert in an ideology that espouses health, wealth, and happiness when she herself is dealing with a life-threatening illness.
I have to admit that I was a little reluctant to read this book. I have friends and family members who have been affected by both cancer and other terminal illnesses, so reading about someone who was going through that wasn’t necessarily appealing. I honestly thought the book might be depressing and morose, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t. Ms. Bowler conveys an unanticipated optimism despite her situation being quite dire, and yet at the same time, she doesn’t gloss over what she’s going through on an emotional level. I found her story and her insights to be very inspiring and uplifting. And I was shocked to actually laugh out loud a few times at her witty observations. There’s a pervasive sense of calm throughout the book that made me feel at peace with a topic that I’m not usually eager to think about. I couldn’t help hoping that if one day I’m faced with the kind of challenge she is that I could do so with equal grace and dignity. This was a short little book that didn’t take me long to read and I can honestly say that I enjoyed it. I think people who are facing illnesses or other troubling circumstances might find hope, humor, and inspiration within its pages, and I definitely recommend it for its uplifting message. I’ll certainly be keeping it around to give me a pick-me-up when the world has me down.
Review provided by The Hope Chest Reviews (http://www.thcreviews.com)