I have found this book, helpful, encouraging and faith building during my cancer journey, although I suggest that you don’t have to have suffered cancer in order to find the book uplifting.

The third book of this author and journalist, Kate Nicholas, after Sea Changed and Soul’s Scribe, her books seem to get better and better.

There are traumatic incidences in the book following Kate’s chemotherapy. Firstly when she suffers from sepsis. However, rather than dwelling on the illness and the way it affects her, she instead dwells on her deep experience with God when unconscious. She feels that she is diving deep into the ocean right down to the actual ocean floor,where she finds God in the depths and makes a real connection with him in a new way.

Then, there is her experience of having a Pulmonary Embolism and huge blood clots right around her lungs. In her weakness and loss of blood she almost loses her life and has to be resusistated. However, while all this is happening to her she feels Jesus climbing up onto the operating table with her and becoming one with her so that she feels completely full of him and his presence in an almost mytical way. I found this particularly moving especially as this is against the background of Covid when she had to travel to the hospital without her husband and family.

My cancer has been much more minor than that of Kate’s, but I still found it comforting and consoling that even though bad things and diseases happen in this life God can be with us in our pain and despair – a despair which Kate also feels at times – and bring us through the other side with a deeper faith and hope. I would recommend it for anyone suffering difficult circumstances.