Heart of Iron

I started reading this book last week and it's made quite an impression.  It's amazing.  I love Kyle's ability to tell ridiculous stories (like when he was drugged to make his second bone marrow test a little easier and he wasn't sure if it was the doctor or the unicorn dancing around the room that pierced his bone), detail his everyday life and then share something profound.

Seriously profound.  I keep telling everyone about this one part and each time I do, I tear up and can't get through it without sounding slightly strangled.

Kyle shares feelings experienced while waiting in his first waiting room for his first radiation treatment at the age of 17.  While waiting he watches a young boy and his mother and thinks about God.  This is what he had to say,

"Where is God when a young child like that is stricken with terminal cancer?  Where is the beauty in having a promising life snatched away before it begins?

It's in the humanity that the mother and son still maintained in spite of a lot in life that could have easily stripped them of it.  It's in the love that they shared in that small room, on that particular afternoon, that I was privileged to witness.  It's in the hundreds of thousands of people that deal with daily struggles so immense that surely their spirits should collapse - yet not only does that spirit endeavor to endure, it flourishes."

The opportunity to read and learn from the journey of others is a great blessing.  If you have the opportunity, I would greatly recommend this book.  It will make you stop and think.  It will make you thankful and hopefully, give you the urge to love your life and those around you a little more.