[A Saturday Feature of the First Road Blog]
I
feel badly for folks who can’t put categories side by side and see
relationships. The reason is, they miss the wide range of possibilities in a
book like Cary Schmidt’s Off
Script: What To Do When God Rewrites Your Life.
This
is the account of a man’s journey through an unplanned role as a target of
Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Each chapter was written in real time on the stage, not
after the whole scene had played out. But it is much more than a guide through
the ordeal of cancer treatment. It is written in a way which puts the reader
alongside the other kinds of script changes which send us a rejection notice on our life
plans and impose a whole new story line.
With
a mix of satisfactory detail concerning his personal struggle, a healthy dose
of wit, and a strong dose of devotion, the author nudges us toward trusting God
through our own trials. He does not play the role of the super saint; but he spurns
the option of the disillusioned cynic. His theology is robust and not academic.
He puts the truth of God’s sovereignty within reach of everyday life. At the
same time, he does not try to explain the unexplainable.
Yes,
it is one of those books which present a list – “Ten decisions that will
transform your perspective in the midst of your trial.” But the list deals with
authentic, biblical mind-sets, and it unfolds in the process of the scene, not
in retrospection from the vantage point of a favorable ending. Although his journey was successful, the fact
that he wrote in the midst of it makes his words credible to anyone who does
not know what the final dialogue of their own script will look like.
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