“With all due respect to my surgeon, in a perfect world he would be out of a job.”
Russ Ramsey“With all due respect to my surgeon, in a perfect world he would be out of a job.”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death“The world we inhabit is one where children feel sorrow long before they have the words to express it.”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death“This woman did not know me, but she knew this stretch of trail. She didn't know if I was kind or mean, gentle or abrasive, honest or a liar. She didn't need to know what I had accomplished in life or what I had wasted. She just knew that if I was there in her hospital on my birthday, I was probably feeling a little lost. On that basis alone, i mattered to her.”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death“Often the best gifts we can give each other cost nothing.”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death“If I wanted, I could come up with reasons to be angry with everyone I know; there are sins of commission or omission I could hang on every last person in my life… The truth is, I will never run out of people to indict. We are all guilty of so many failures to love well that if I wanted--and sometimes I do want--I could find some fault or transgression in everyone I know that I could then use to justify writing them off. I could blaze that trail to hell if I wanted to, and just the thought of it scares me off”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death“There is something holy about taking up the task of stewarding a life, especially our own. If we come to this work at all, we must come with humble expectations and a willingness to be led. We submit to the process, trusting that the science is sound, even when what we’re called to do hurts.”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death“We want the people around us to show us a satisfactory measure of genuine empathy, but no one has any idea what that looks like. This puts everyone in the precarious position of guaranteed failure. I know that no one knows how to deal with stuff like this. There are no experts here.”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death“Walking through suffering is a work that is bound by limitation. Often it isn't that the afflicted are unwilling to let others in. It is just that there comes a certain point in a person's suffering where there is no apparent port of entry.”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death“I, the infirm, find myself caring for the sorrows and fears of the well.”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death“To walk in faith is to confess that we do not know what awaits us, and the faith I have embraced does not promise an easy road.”
Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death