“Cancer has an immense impact upon the life and faith of patients and caretakers. Yet, the complex relationship between faith, medicine, and cancer has received very little serious theological attention. In this ground-breaking work, Deanna Thompson connects the enigmas of cancer stories with a spacious telling of the Christian story, showing how the category of trauma can bear theological fruit. As she does so, Thompson creatively orchestrates a conversation between a range of theological voices about how to address the challenges raised by a traumatic experience with cancer. Throughout, she guides the reader toward a constructive vision of Christian hope that avoids triumphalism. Highly recommended!” –J. Todd Billings, Author of Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ, Gordon H. Girod Research Professor of Reformed Theology, Western Theological Seminary, Holland MI

“With a clear, honest, and bold theological voice, Thompson reframes experiences of living with cancer beyond the moralizing narratives on illness that Christianity often offers. Speaking from inside both the experience of cancer and the Christian faith, Thompson lifts the weight of medical diagnoses and Christian prescriptions of suffering from those living in the “land of the ill.” She breathes new life into the most familiar sites for Christian engagements with suffering—the Psalms, Job, crucifixion, Pauline resurrection—and insists that faith resides in the uncertainties, that Christ appears there, and that the church can hold space for grief and loss. Bringing life-threatening illness into the sphere of trauma, she rewrites the relationship between the cancer story and the Christian story. “ –Shelly Rambo, Associate Professor of Theology, Boston University School of Theology