Walking Lois Home

Serious illness can leave patients and their caregivers feeling isolated, confused, and overwhelmed. This hopeful and research-based book offers insight from Harvard professors and experts in the palliative care field who cast a vision for communities of healing within the church to live out Jesus' call to care for the sick and the dying. Practical Christian wisdom for walking alongside the sick and dying Lois was a retired ballroom dance instructor with a terminal cancer diagnosis and no one to call. The day she received her prognosis, she tentatively reached out to the pastor of a church she had attended as a child. In response, Michael and Tracy Balboni brought Lois into their home to care for her through her final months. Caring for the sick and dying is not optional for followers of Jesus. But most of us feel wholly unprepared for it--uncertain what to say, what to do, or how to enter someone else's suffering with grace and love. In Walking Lois Home, Michael Balboni, a pastor and scholar of spirituality, and Tracy Balboni, a physician and palliative care researcher, fill that gap. They draw on both research and their lived experience to equip individuals, congregations, and patients to navigate serious illness with faith, grace, and love. Framed by Lois's story and illuminated by multiple patient accounts, this book offers medical, theological, and pastoral wisdom to help Christian communities answer Jesus's call to care for the sick. Practical Christian Wisdom for Walking Alongside the Sick and DyingLois was a retired ballroom dance instructor with a terminal cancer diagnosis and no one to call. The day she received her prognosis, she tentatively reached out to the pastor of a church she had attended as a child. In response, Michael and Tracy Balboni brought Lois into their home to care for her through her final months. Jesus said that visiting the sick is visiting him (Matthew 25). Caring for the sick and dying is not optional for followers of Jesus--but most of us feel wholly unprepared for it, uncertain what to say, what to do, or how to enter someone else's suffering with grace and love. Walking Lois Home fills that gap. Written by a uniquely qualified husband-and-wife team--Michael Balboni, co-director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at Harvard and a pastor in Boston; and Tracy Balboni, professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at Harvard--this book draws on both rigorous research and lived pastoral and medical experience to equip three distinct audiences: ● Individuals--who want to know what to say, what to do, and how to show up for a seriously ill friend, neighbor, or family member with grace rather than awkwardness ● Congregations--who want to build a culture of care for the seriously ill and dying, understanding this ministry as central to the church's calling rather than peripheral to it ● Patients--who are navigating serious illness themselves and want to do so with faith, meaning, and the support of a Christian community Framed by Lois's story and illuminated by multiple patient accounts, Walking Lois Home offers medical, theological, and pastoral wisdom woven together in a way that no other book in this space has attempted. It is at once a call to the church, a practical guide for individuals, and a companioning resource for patients--grounded in more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in spirituality and medicine and in years of ministry and clinical care alongside the seriously ill. Jesus calls us to care for the sick as an act of service to him. Walking Lois Home will show you how to answer that call--with faith, grace, and love.