If you have no cause worth dying for,
do you have a reason to live?

“Jedus say, ‘Come folla me!’ Bot de man ansa um say,
‘Sah, fus leh me go an bury me papa.’”
Luke 9:59, De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa Luke Write (Gullah)

While sorting through family papers following his father’s massive stroke, Dr. Luke Tayspill, Yale Medical School’s top infectious disease specialist, stumbles across a manuscript written decades earlier by his beloved grandfather. The book bears an ominous title, The Deaths of Lukas Tayspill– not death, but deaths.

A closer inspection reveals that the book is about three characters with the same name. The first two Lucas Tayspills were 19th century Quakers who suffered martyrs’ deaths. The third story–set in the future–ends abruptly with the arrival of a Dr. Lucas Tayspill in a plague-ridden, war torn African land. Was his grandfather foretelling Luke’s own life story–and prophesying his death?

Luke sets out on a deeply personal journey to Sierra Leone. But his pilgrimage to understand death leads to a powerful and unexpected encounter with the essence of life. Will Luke fulfill his grandfather’s vision?

This contemporary look at the spiritual journey of a doctor named Luke, The Healer’s Heart thoughtfully brings the Gospel physician into our twenty-first century world.


From the Trade Paperback edition.