The Road to Grace Paperback - 2013

Summary

Excerpt

PROLOGUE
Note
The sun will rise again. The only uncertainty is whether or not we will rise to greet it.

Alan ChristoffersenâÈçs diary

Several months after I was mugged, stabbed, and left unconscious along the shoulder of WashingtonâÈçs Highway 2, a friend asked me what being stabbed felt like. I told her it hurt.

Really, how do you describe pain? Sometimes doctors ask us to rate our pain on a scale from one to ten, as if that number had some reliable meaning. In my opinion there needs to be a more objective rating system, something comparative; like, would you trade what youâÈçre feeling for a root canal or maybe half a childbirth?

And with what would we compare emotional painâÈ'physical pain? Arguably, emotional pain is the greater of the two evils. Sometimes people will inflict physical pain on themselves to dull their emotional anguish. I understand. If I had the choice between being stabbed or losing my wife, McKale, again, the knife has the advantageâÈ'because if the knife kills me, I stop hurting. If it doesnâÈçt kill me, the wound will heal. Either way the pain stops. But no matter what I do, my McKale is never coming back. And I canâÈçt imagine that the pain in my heart will ever go away.

Still, there is hopeâÈ'not to forget McKale, nor even to understand why I had to lose herâÈ'but to accept that I did and somehow go on. As a friend recently said to me, no matter what I do, McKale will always be a part of me. The question is, what partâÈ'a spring of gratitude, or a fountain of bitterness? Someday IâÈçll have to decide. Someday the sun will rise again. The only uncertainty is whether or not I will rise to greet it.

In the meantime, what I hope for most is hope. Walking helps. I wish I were walking again right now. I think IâÈçd rather be anywhere right now than where I am.

Âû 2011 Richard Paul Evans

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