K.J. Ramsey

A poetic, darkly funny memoir of one woman’s trip across the national parks straight into life-threatening illness and the joy that still holds us, no matter how much life hurts. “Unapologetically raw, defiantly humorous, this book is the bravest of journeys. . . . A memoir that makes no promises except to tell the truth about joy in the dark. We’ve needed this.”—Cole Arthur Riley, New York Times bestselling author of This Here Flesh After over a decade of fighting chronic illness, trauma therapist and beloved author K.J. Ramsey was the healthiest she’d been in her life. She packed up her Jeep and set out on a summer of road trips, returning to the places where she first glimpsed joy as a kid. More than adventure, her aim was a personal dare to discover that joy is more trustworthy than trauma. The plan was simple but bold: Drive. Write. Heal. What could go wrong? It turns out, everything. The woman who just wandered through Redwood forests and ran naked into the Pacific suddenly found herself in the hospital fighting to stay alive. A mysterious illness struck like lightning, splintering the best days of her life into the absolute scariest. Ramsey went from being afraid of dying to afraid of living the life she was left with—losing both her mobility and the language of her faith, medically gaslit, with no map out of her misery. Was joy actually a trick? Or was joy still possible—even in inescapable pain? Told with unhinged humor, lyrical honesty, and zero patience for toxic positivity, The Place Between Our Pains is a true story that reaches past our expectations of what joy can survive. From banana slugs to bedpans, mushrooms to the Mayo Clinic, hospitals to holy rage, Ramsey invites us into the unlikely places where joy lives. Through a full year of recovery, she encounters love that doesn’t leave—even when life doesn’t get easier. This is a love letter to every life seared by pain or autoimmune disease and a fierce permission slip to show up in the stories we never would have written for ourselves.

A Memoir of What Joy Can Survive

The Place Between Our Pains

Walking through Psalm 23 phrase by phrase, therapist and author K.J. Ramsey explores the landscape of our fear, trauma, and faith. When she stepped through her own wilderness of spiritual abuse and religious trauma, K.J. discovered that courage is not the absence of anxiety but the practice of trusting we will be held and loved no matter what. How can we cultivate courage when fear overshadows our lives? How do we hear the Voice of Love when hate and harm shout loud? This book offers an honest path to finding that there is still a Good Shepherd who is always following you. Braiding contemplative storytelling, theological reflection, and practical neuroscience, Ramsey reveals a route into connection and joy that begins right where you are. The Lord is My Courage is for the deconstructing and the dreamers, the afraid and the amazed, for those whose fear has not been fully shepherded but who can't seem to stop listening for their Good Shepherd's Voice.

Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love

The Lord Is My Courage

This book is not a before-and-after story. Our culture treats suffering like a problem to fix, a blight to hide, or the sad start of a transformation story. We silently, secretly wither under the pressure of living as though suffering is a predicament we can avoid or annihilate by working hard enough or having enough faith. When your prayers for healing haven't been answered, the fog of depression isn't lifting, your marriage is ending in divorce, or grief won't go away, it's easy to feel you've failed God and, worse, he's failed you. If God loves us, why does he allow us to hurt? Over a decade ago chronic illness plunged therapist and writer K.J. Ramsey straight into this paradox. Before her illness, faith made sense. But when pain came and never left, K.J. had to find a way across the widening canyon that seemed to separate God's goodness from her excruciating circumstances. She wanted to conquer suffering. Instead, she encountered the God who chose it. She wanted to make pain past-tense. Instead, God invited her into a bigger story. This Too Shall Last offers an antidote to our cultural idolatry of effort and ease. Through personal story and insights from neuroscience and theology, Ramsey invites us to let our tears become lenses of the wonder that before God ever rescues us, he stands in solidarity with us. We are all mid-story in circumstances we did not choose, wondering when our hard things will end and where grace will come if they don’t. We don't need to make suffering a before-and-after story. Together we can encounter the grace that enters the middle of our stories, where living with suffering that lingers means receiving God's presence that lasts.

K.J. Ramsey

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