The Healer's Heart — Diane Komp

A contemporary look at the spiritual journey of a doctor named Luke that thoughtfully brings the Gospel physician into our 21st-century world. 

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

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?