July 2004

ARTICLE TOOLS

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As a senior executive at a large investment bank, James O'Donnell had the financial world by the tail. After he left to become an associate professor at an Indiana college, his wife, "sweet Lizzie," was stricken with breast cancer. Doctors gave her only a few months to live.

"Life is dangerous … it is not ours to control," O'Donnell writes.

In this courageous collection of letters sent to friends back home, O'Donnell invites readers to explore one family's response to suffering, the importance of community, and the belief that "we won't have all our questions answered in this world." His words ring with authenticity as he strikes notes of anger and frustration, love and hope.

Nine years after her diagnosis, Lizzie continues to hang on, and O'Donnell remarks: "We are injured, tired, and malnourished in facing the continuing race to stay ahead of Lizzie's next setback." God's love, he writes, is not safe. "He wants us to become changed beings … still, there are strange, dark expanses of His love that I can't explain even today, depths that only mystery and faith can plumb."

In the face of these dark expanses, O'Donnell inspires readers to continue to trust God.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Letters for Lizzie is available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

More information is available from the publisher.

James M. O'Donnell is professor of business and economics at Huntington College.