… but interesting and true medical experiences gleaned from a 30-year medical career as a family physician, and what those experiences can teach us about ourselves and about our approach to God. The stories are relatively short and easy to read, accessible to almost all ages. Some will make you laugh, and some will make you cry.  My hope is that all will make you pray … with a deeper and richer experience of God’s presence.

In a sense, for a primary care physician every patient is a story …

… and a remarkably personal story.  Although the field of medicine is fascinating, challenging, and rewarding in and of itself, ultimately it is the relationship with our patients that makes our career so worthwhile.  We do not just treat injuries or illnesses; we look our patients in the eye and treat them.  We take care of people, not afflictions, and it is when our patients open up to us about their lives that the real excitement begins.  That is the point at which we physicians are invited by the patients to become part of their story.  That also is the point at which we learn so much from them—lessons regarding life, dying, families, priorities, personal strengths, character flaws, insights into our own lives … and, for a Christian physician, lessons about our faith.

It is into these true stories of my patients that I invite you.

Stories can be powerful, igniting our imagination, moving us in ways that scholastic study cannot.  Stories get under our skin, helping us not only to understand, but also to vicariously appreciate lessons of life that we otherwise would not be able to experience.

My audience is anyone of Christian faith who, like me, wishes to develop a richer and more rewarding prayer life but does not have the opportunity (or perhaps the tendency?) to study theology in order to achieve that goal.  Additionally, if we intend to facilitate a more personal, heartfelt prayer life, does it not make sense to achieve that goal through the reading of personal and heartfelt stories?

There is no single aspect of the Christian faith more central and irreplaceable—or more difficult to nurture during our daily rat race—than prayer.  To the Christian, praying is like breathing (hence the title of my book):  indispensible to the life of faith.  And yet, given the demands of our day-to-day lives and the frailty of our waxing and waning energy levels, prayer too easily becomes a frustrating intrusion on all the other things we “have to do”, so it becomes dry and rote, or it is neglected altogether.

My desire is that the stories in my book will ignite your prayer life—as they have mine—to become more personally meaningful and more joyous.  The approach I have taken is more devotional than theological, because I want any improvement in your prayers to come from your core, not simply from your mind. As I state in the book’s introduction, “To put it bluntly, my intention is to affect your guts and your heart more than your head, and my greatest goal in writing this book is that your prayers—however short or long—will become deeper, richer, and more filled with God’s presence.”

Introduction —————————————————————- ix
1.   Pretense or Presence? ———————————————–1
2.   Unique ——————————————————————- 6
3.   The Core —————————————————————-10
4.   Indifference ———————————————————– 14
5.   No Comparison —————————————————— 20
6.   Your Head or Your Guts ——————————————-24
7.   God’s Clinic ———————————————————— 28
8.   Fully Aware ———————————————————— 34
9.   Mirrors  ——————————————————————36
10.  Burst Prayers  ——————————————————– 39
11.  Health versus Stealth ———————————————- 44
12.  Sorrow  —————————————————————– 47
13.  Well Done ————————————————————- 53
14.  Getting in Shape —————————————————- 56
15.  Style ———————————————————————59
16.  Constant Prayer? —————————————————-63
17.  Change? ————————————————————— 66
18.  The Most Frightening Verse ————————————–68
19.  Tracy  ——————————————————————- 74
20.  All That Trouble? —————————————————- 77
21.  Rhinoceros ———————————————————— 82
22.  God Truly Does Answer Our Prayers ————————– 87

23.  Transition ————————————————————- 94
24.  Patients and Patience ———————————————-98
25.  Hunger? Thirst?—————————————————– 101
26.  Steps ——————————————————————-106
27.  Sacred —————————————————————- 108
28.  Tears —————————————————————— 110
29.  Complicated——————————————————— 112
30.  Bone Marrow ——————————————————–116
31.  That’s Who? ——————————————————— 120
32.  Sin  ——————————————————————— 125
33.  Repent or Repeat ————————————————- 128
34.  Incubation Period ————————————————–131
35.  Past and Future —————————————————-134
36.  Hostage? ———————————————————— 138
37.  Ossify?  ————————————————————— 143
38.  Better or Bitter? —————————————————-146
39.  They Can? ———————————————————– 149
40.  As We Forgive Those ———————————————153
41.  No, Even So ———————————————————156
42.  War ——————————————————————– 158
43.  Outside The Door ————————————————-162
44.  Miracles  ————————————————————-165
45.  Miracles: Further Reflections ———————————-172
46.  In The End ———————————————————– 176