"It sounded at first like
something out of an old horror movie. I
thought maybe someone was just playing
around, but then I heard it again and
again, a loud piercing cry, and less
like Hollywood every time. The windows
were down in my police cruiser on that
warm fall day, but I still couldn't
tell where the sounds came from. I
began looking around for the unlikely
sight of someone being disemboweled in
a mall parking lot on a Saturday
afternoon. Seeing nothing, and still
hearing the screams, I called in
a 'disturbance.' Around the next corner
I found the source of the commotion."
So begins Greg Lucas' captivating
account of life as a husband, a police
officer, and Jake's dad. Jake Lucas,
the first of four children, lives with
severe physical and mental challenges.
Caring for him each day is an ordeal
few of us can imagine, and this story
of Jake's first 17 years is not one you
will soon forget. But the remarkable
thing is how the whole narrative is
saturated with wonder at the grace and
goodness of God, who brings hope and
promise through his Son into the
darkest of circumstances. In this book,
we see that Jake's problems are our
problems, only bigger, and the
challenges of caring for him carry
profound lessons about God's care for
us. Wrestling with an Angel is about
tragedy and laughter and pain and joy.
It is about faith and grace and
endurance and God's unfailing, loving
wisdom daily being worked out in each
of our lives, whatever the nature or
extent of our difficulties. Here is a
book that may explain faith to you in
ways you never quite grasped, through a
life few of us can relate to. When it
is all done, we come away better able
to live as Christ calls us to live.