Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved
Published by Penguin Random House Audio
4/5
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Currently unavailable
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About this audiobook
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.
Editor's Note
Raw honesty…
There’s a raw, heartbreaking honesty in author Kate Bowler’s memoir. After being diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer, the Duke Divinity School professor began to reexamine some of Christian prosperity principles. A reassurance in the beauty of life even in the face of death.
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Reviews for Everything Happens for a Reason
104 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5very honest and optimistic in the same time. has its funny moments and its sad moments. love it!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A stirring, sobering, humorous and very human window into the life of a dynamic woman who is wrestling with, and through, terminal cancer diagnosis advd treatment. I recommend this book because of its raw, yet polished, engagement with humanity, its hopefulness and it's realism. Kate's experiences may be particular to her situation, but there is something deeply and universally human flowing throughout her story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great for anyone who has lost a loved one going through cancer. if you were side-by-side with them through their process it kind of gives you an Insider of what they may have been feeling or thinking.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hi. Kate. Thanks for allowing someone like me to tap into what you went and are going through since your diagnosis. This story felt authentic to me and I loved it. She spoke about something true: Christianity doesn't always have to look good (Prosperity Gospel) and a rationale not always clear. Yes, a lot of moving parts but I hope for the ultimate triumph to unfold as the will of the Father is realised and I pray you will always be a part of it and for GOD to Psalm 25:4 you. He is never failing.
Well, I still hope that you'll be the 'woman who reached out for Jesus' cloak'. GOD has HIS eyes on you, arms around you and HE is AMAZING in HIS ways, higher than ours as high as the heaven is above the earth. It will all be revealed. Stay steadfast Katie soul, let HIS words lead you on.
He is faithful and our earthly eyes sometimes blind up to that. FATHER loves you, and hope if it comes to you, hold on.
Best regards to Toben and Zac ?2 people found this helpful