I've Seen the End of You: A Neurosurgeon's Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know by W. Lee Warren, MD

I've Seen the End of You is a fascinating look into the life and faith of a neurosurgeon, US Army veteran, writer, husband and father.  Obviously he is a brilliant man, but like most of us ordinary folk, has had struggles and trials in both his work and his personal life. This book tells not only his story, but the stories of several of his patients, all diagnosed with brain cancer or other brain trauma.

In the Prologue, Dr. Warren summarizes the book so well: "I used to look at my patients' brain scans, see the glioblastoma [a fatal form of cancer] I knew would ravage their minds and destroy their lives in the coming months, and say to myself, I've seen the end of you. But in the aftermath of war, divorce, rebuilding, and then unimaginable loss in my personal life, I realized I was standing at the deathbed of my shattered faith.

I'd seen the end of me too.

So I faced the greatest surgical challenge of my life: stitching together fatal cancers, dying children, and Christian cliches to heal the faith I'd lost and hoped to resurrect in some unforeseen new form.

What happens when our messy lives mess with what we think we believe?"

What happens when our messy lives mess with what we think we believe is that we have a choice to make.  We can either turn away from God or turn toward him.  Dr. Warren chooses the latter and finds a renewed faith.  As he says near the end of the book, "Faith, my friend, is being able to look for hope even when it seems impossible to find.  Faith is hope waiting for tomorrow."  Because God already knows what tomorrow holds and he will be there to hold us in the midst of whatever it brings.
If you too struggle with your faith.  If you too are living with trials or have been through a war of any sort.  If you have experienced loss or brokenness, you will find hope for your own tomorrow in I've Seen the End of You. 

Free to Believe: The Battle over Religious Liberty in America by Luke Goodrich

I was not at all certain that I would like this book, but I must say I really did!  Honestly, Luke Goodrich had me already engrossed in the Introduction.  He began by telling a story and it is my favorite kind of story, a true story.  It is the story of a small Christian school in Michigan (which is my home state so of course that made it even more interesting to me).  The school had a fourth grade teacher who became ill so the school had to hire a replacement for her.  The teacher got better  but the school felt it wasn't right to fire the replacement and asked give the first teacher her job back. She demanded they hire her and threatened to sue.  The school was upset at the teacher's behavior and after failed reconciliation, they fired her.  The teacher did ultimately sue the school and the case ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court. The case stands as crucial standard in religious freedom cases.  Riveting stuff and Free to Believe is full of stories like it.

Author Luke Goodrich is an attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and has tried may Supreme Court cases.  He is a frequent guest on TV shows and in newspapers and magazines where he discusses religious freedom.  Although he is obviously highly educated and intelligent, he is able to make the law relevant and interesting to a casual reader.  He gives many examples of real cases and explains the repercussions of each case.

But more than just telling stories about legal cases, Goodrich details why religious freedom is so important in the United States and why Christians should care about it.  He has great ideas on how Christians can respond to threats to their religious rights and presents solid Biblical arguments for those responses.

If you are interested in the current battles going on in the US over gay rights, abortion rights, Muslim law, or religious discrimination, then you'll certainly be fascinated by this book, as I was.