The Gift of Pain more directly tells the story of my coauthor Dr. Paul Brand, a renowned British surgeon who discovered that painlessness is the root cause of the damage leprosy patients incur.  He led the most fascinating life of anyone I’ve ever interviewed.

Pain is not something that most of us would count as a blessing. However, Dr. Paul Brand’s work with leprosy patients in India and the United States convinced him that pain truly is one of God’s great gifts to us. In this account of his fifty-year career as a healer, Dr. Brand probes the mystery of pain and reveals its importance. As an indicator that lets us know something is wrong, pain has a value that becomes clearest in its absence. Indeed, pain is a gift that none of us want and yet none of us can do without.

(Zondervan, 1994 and 1997)

Zondervan

“…a beautiful, sensitive book about life…There is so much I’d like to say about this book and what it can teach us about treating, living with, and healing pain of all sorts.  Since space is limited I can only say, ‘Read it!’” —Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles

“I took the day off from regular office work and read this marvelous book…” —President Bill Clinton

“On every page I was fascinated, instructed, and uplifted by this magnificent memoir that is rendered with uncommon gracefulness.” —Richard Selzer, author of Mortal Lessons and Confessions of a Knife