Sensitive reflections on discovering God in life's challenges Author John Wessells and his wife, Gail, are cofounders of Precious Oil Ministries, an outreach to head-injury patients and their families. Through their ministry---and after losing a young son to cancer---the Wessells have learned to ask very difficult questions about life, love, health, suffering, tragedy, and God. In his work with the comatose, Wessells has found that the voiceless have some crucial, direct, and clarifying things to tell us about our questions. Often during his life on earth, Jesus avoided giving answers and instead offered love. The voiceless ones---the poor, the suffering, infants, prisoners, and the terminally ill---speak for God. Their words to us, like Christ's, are often impractical, inconvenient, and unpredictable. Yet above all, they are a relief. This book is about asking the unanswerable questions and letting them draw you closer to your Lord and Savior.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Wessells spends his days praying and singing worship songs for head trauma patients in comas, something he admits may seem frivolous. He makes the case that these people and their families are among "the least of these" for whom Jesus cares deeply. And his stories are powerful. He talks about a young man who made a decision to follow Christ while in a comatose state. He tells of sharing his faith with Christine Busalacchi before her father got permission to remove her feeding tube and she starved to death—how the girl neurologists described as being "in a persistent vegetative state" had waved to him, smiled and responded to praise music. But more importantly, Wessells discusses the difficult questions that a ministry like his uncovers. Why are some lives cut short? Why do some patients recover, while others' bodies shrivel as their minds slowly lose control? Wessells reassures readers that it's okay to ask questions and not have answers—and that, no matter what, God's love abounds. These are lessons he learned not only through his ministry but also through the loss of his young son to cancer. This is a rare book that offers hope and comfort without ignoring or sugarcoating the painful realities that families of head trauma patients face.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Wessells spends his days praying and singing worship songs for head trauma patients in comas, something he admits may seem frivolous. He makes the case that these people and their families are among 'the least of these' for whom Jesus cares deeply. And his stories are powerful. He talks about a young man who made a decision to follow Christ while in a comatose state. He tells of sharing his faith with Christine Busalacchi before her father got permission to remove her feeding tube and she starved to death---how the girl neurologists described as being 'in a persistent vegetative state' had waved to him, smiled and responded to praise music. But more importantly, Wessells discusses the difficult questions that a ministry like his uncovers. Why are some lives cut short? Why do some patients recover, while others' bodies shrivel as their minds slowly lose control? Wessells reassures readers that it's okay to ask questions and not have answers---and that, no matter what, God's love abounds. These are lessons he learned not only through his ministry but also through the loss of his young son to cancer. This is a rare book that offers hope and comfort without ignoring or sugarcoating the painful realities that families of head trauma patients face. (Jan.) -- Publisher's Weekly
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Helpful and hopeful,
By FaithfulReader.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Conversations with the Voiceless: Finding God's Love in Life's Hardest Questions (Hardcover)
This small book is not an autobiography. John Wessells reveals nothing about his childhood. And of his youth? One sentence mentions a football scholarship-funding dream destroyed by a knee injury. And we learn that he became a Christian in his mid-twenties.
Rather, in eight anecdotal chapters, the book takes us into the world of John Wessells's therapeutic ministry of music, prayer, and Scripture reading in long-term care facilities for patients with traumatic head injuries --- all severely disabled, some in deep comas. Can they hear him? If so, can they understand his message, of God's love and John's worshipful praise, as he strums a guitar and sings at their bedside? These well-crafted personal stories whisper --- or occasionally shout --- yes, yes. There's even a story of "a man who once could not speak but who now says he became a Christian while in a coma," as a result of John's witness. I don't know when I've read such a helpful and hopeful nonfiction book that does not skirt the hard questions asked by people suffering tragic loss of dreams, such as the woman, introduced late in the book, whose face "had the familiar look of a parent whose child has suffered a coma. It's a mixture of bewilderment and desperation." John's very presence seems to engender hope, and ultimately he realizes that might be the point of his ministry: "If you just go and sit with these people, it's enough. God can work through that.... "You don't even need to be strong yourself. [God] works through your caring and listening." And singing. Here is help and hope --- but not without a pointed challenge. "Why is it so much easier to care about causes than about people?" He relates a telling experience of Christians outside a facility picketing against a parent's legal decision to remove a girl's feeding tube. He later learned that "despite all the protesters who had once shown concern for her, no one had ever returned to show similar concern for the other forty or more brain-injured patients who remained there." As I read, I wished for more calendar signposts. The account (near the end of the book) of the death, from cancer, of John's four-year-old son in 1994 was the only story grounded by a specific year-date. The book's title, CONVERSATIONS WITH THE VOICELESS, refers to lessons John has learned from the suffering, sometimes even silent, people he's met, including his son, who seemed uncannily aware of heaven. John Samuel "looked forward to a better place --- even while living fully in the place he was in. "I believe that's the hope for all of us who want to listen to the voiceless. Nothing may change in our circumstances, or in the circumstances of those we love. But it is still possible ... to live with eternity in our eyes and hearts. And that changes everything." --- Reviewed by Evelyn Bence
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Helped restore my faith in God, accept the loss of my son,
This review is from: Conversations with the Voiceless: Finding God's Love in Life's Hardest Questions (Hardcover)
John's story of losing his son, John Sammuel, helped prepare me for not only accepting the loss of my own son, Christopher, (stillborn) but also experience God's love in the process. I have struggled a lot with dis-illusionment, especially with organized religion, and John's story helped me with reconciliation, allowing God's grace to heal me. John's story even helped me turn my "ordeal" dealing with my father's Alzheimers into a spiritual growth opportunity.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Timely book in light of Terri Schiavo case,
By the new Mrs. de Jong (formerly GR, MI, now Canton, OH) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Conversations with the Voiceless: Finding God's Love in Life's Hardest Questions (Hardcover)
As someone recovering from a head injury, my interest was piqued in John Wessells book, "Conversations with the Voiceless." While my injury wasn't nearly as debilitating as those he describes in his book, after losing a year to a rather fog-like existance, I feel a deep sense of empathy toward those whose lives are redefined by their injuries. John Wessells book is an important one, not only for the head-injured, but especially for those who are not. The people we meet through this book challenge us to remember that our lives have purpose and meaning, not because of what we can do, but because of who we are. With all the quality of life debate currently being waged in light of Terri Schiavo's case, this book is a clarion call to the danger of defining life's value based on what other can do for us, and instead, learn to see the reward in seeing the beauty of life itself, in whatever form it takes.
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