Beyond the Book with Dr. Brooks: “Disrupted Journey”

In the following Q&A Brooks takes some time to answer a few questions about this new publication and how he hopes it will serve its readers.

You’re pretty straightforward about purpose and target audience in the subtitle of this book, so instead I want to ask, what do you hope this book will accomplish in the lives of its readers?

I hope this book helps people feel seen whose pain is often invisible. Watching someone you love slowly be overcome by pain is a unique form of pain in its own right, especially when you’re powerless to fix the problems that afflict them. This book is an attempt to capture the spiritual, physical, emotional, and relational struggles that chronic pain and illness often create in relationships and to provide encouragement for those whose lives have been disrupted in ways they didn’t anticipate.

What originally motivated you to begin writing “Disrupted Journey”?

Like I share in the introduction, this book isn’t the equivalent of a firefighter writing a book on the proper techniques of fighting a blaze in a commercial warehouse. It’s a meditation of a firefighter who has watched his own house burn down and been unable to stop it. I’m vocationally a counseling professor and a counselor, and this book is my own journey through the darkest valley my family has had to walk through. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1 that we are afflicted so that we can comfort others in their affliction, and this book is my attempt to provide some companionship for fellow travelers who are walking this complicated road.

For people walking with their loved ones through chronic pain, what are some of the greatest unseen challenges that they face?

You can very quickly become a stranger to your own life. Your loved one may change significantly. Your patterns of life — job, budget, relational connectedness to others, hobbies, etc. — may change significantly. Sources of joy now may be sources of sorrow as you’re consistently reminded of happy days gone by and days of struggle looming ahead. It’s difficult to capture just how completely this kind of suffering can change your life.

How does God’s word speak to this kind of suffering and pain which for many people, as you mention in the first chapter of your book, isn’t just a season of life?

When all is said and done, we will have two main seasons of life. There will be the season of our time on this earth and the season of our time on the next one. Thankfully, our time on the next one will be much, much longer! The last chapter of “Disrupted Journey” is a reflection on how the hope of life in the new heavens and new earth gives us strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. There’s a reason one of the Bible’s final sentences is, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

For the readers who pick up this book who aren’t its direct audience but want to empathize better with those walking on this journey – what kind of mentality do you hope they will bring to their reading?

I hope they’ll read with the aim of growing in empathy towards families walking through chronic pain and illness. This book provides a window into a certain kind of suffering that afflicts up to 30% of American families. I find that most people undersell just how pervasive the difficulty brought about chronic pain and illness can be. It often interrupts every single category of life. Hopefully this book can grow our ability to see through others’ eyes, which will raise the quality of care and love in our churches.

How has writing this book shaped you spiritually?

Writing helps me organize my thoughts and forces me to draw together many truths at the same time. “Disrupted Journey” helped me wrestle in a more detailed fashion through the reality that God is sovereign, he is love, and he allows deep pain to persist in our lives that he could instantly relieve. I won’t lie — I’ve had to wrestle with this truth. I think anyone who has sat and honestly reflected on this truth has wrestled with it. Time and again I came back to the truth that God doesn’t call me to understand his will. He calls me to trust him, to have faith in his goodness, and to rest in his promise that one day all tears will be wiped away.