Struck Quotes

“Often the best gifts we can give each other cost nothing.”
― Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death

“I also needed what God has brought. I needed to lose control. I needed a broken heart. I needed to be dipped in the crucible of suffering. Why? I may never fully know. But the God who brings his children low does not do it for spite. He does it to awaken desire, like a pang of hunger in the newly risen phoenix that makes it unfurl its wings to fly. He does it to give us new eyes so that we might see the world in a new light. He does it to stop us from continuing down the path we’re on and to set us on a new one. He grants us weakness so that we might not trust too much in our own strength. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
― Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death

“Tim Keller wrote, “Human beings are hope-shaped creatures. The way you live now is completely controlled by what you believe about the future.”
― Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death

“Affliction is not some test that simply exists to build our character. It beats us up. It changes us. It sobers us. It raises ultimate questions.”
― Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death

“Lamentation is the intentional process of grieving and mourning so that we can bid an honest farewell to what we’ve lost and embrace the new identity our affliction has shaped for us.”
― Russ Ramsey, Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death

“Historically, God deals with those he loves by breaking them.”
― 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

“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

“I do not like being thwarted, but shall I receive good from the God and not also trouble? The voices that say Recover so you can get back to normal, grossly underestimate the gift of this wrecked life. Why is it a gift? Because I would have no compelling reason to step from my comfortable existence into the quest for what’s next if my present security wasn’t taken from me. It is rare for a man to plan his own journey toward growth and change. Usually these journeys are thrust on us unexpectedly… If my ego tried to plan this journey, it would be limited by the expectations of what I would already hope to find. There would be no element of surprise, wonder, or faith--just a forced march towards a future my present self assumes is what I need. THat would not be a journey of faith but of control--and a fool’s errand. Faith is the conviction to trust that there are good things out beyond what I can see and would never know to pursue--glorious things God himself will bring to pass. I need those glorious things.”
― 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

“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

“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

“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

“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