Chronic Blessings: Finding Life's Greatest Joys within Your Deepest Heartache

by Cristy Maddox, Ali Cheff (Read by)

Overview

DO YOU WANT TO ENJOY THE LIFE YOU ARE LIVING, EVEN AS YOU FACE SIGNIFICANT LIFE CHALLENGES?

Are you grieving the loss of the life you planned?

Is your body or mind failing you?

Can you ever and joy, peace, or fulfillment in these challenging situations? The answer is a resounding YES.

Cristy Maddox searched for answers that were not coming; answers for a diagnosis to explain her symptoms. For nearly ten years, Cristy and her husband Greg researched an illness they had never heard of, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or POTS. An illness affecting over 2 million Americans and 1 in every 100 teenagers!

POTS, the invisible intruder, not only places Cristy at risk but her children as well. Feeling isolated and misunderstood, Cristy grieves the loss of the life she once knew.

But now, Cristy brings her findings and insights to you in this compelling, honest, and often too-real story, providing answers to the many perplexing questions surrounding chronic illness. She takes you on a journey of learning the purpose of hardship, a better way to view pain and how to allow God to recycle it for good.

Are you ready to discover that your greatest joys in life may be hidden in your deepest heartache?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982640316
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	04/02/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

Cristy Maddox is an author and mother of three who loves Jesus. She and her BFF, Greg have been married for 20 years. A true love for God was birthed through her chronic illness. Cristy has a passion for helping others find the hidden gems He has waiting for them in their broken dreams. Cristy loves people, but is a homebody who writes from her kitchen table in the middle of rural Virginia.

Editorial Reviews

”The author’s prose is taut and emotional.. her problems are real and rendered in detail, and the positive spin she is able to place on them is sincere and encouraging. Chronic Blessings is an earnest, thoughtful reminiscence by a woman who found solace in a renewed relationship with God.”
~Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2019-03-20
Maddox tells her story of keeping faith in times of illness in this debut Christian memoir.

Maddox had a good life: Raised in a loving family in rural Virginia, she met her future husband on the first day of college. Even so, she found herself losing her strong Christian faith in her early 20s, feeling that God wasn't talking to her the way he talked to her friends and fellow parishioners. As it turned out, God's silence was just evidence that everything was going well, and she would hear his voice soon enough, during her struggle to get pregnant, two miscarriages, and the terrible grief she felt having to give up an infant she was fostering for 10 months. Through these times, Maddox's faith in God grew, and so did her family. She and her husband, Greg, managed to have two sons and adopted a daughter from Rwanda. The greatest test still lay ahead of her, however: postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or POTS. It began with dizziness and numbness on the right side of her body: "In retrospect, Greg and I are probably a little too chill about things like this, especially with both of us working in the medical field. If this happened to anyone else, I would have told them to go to the emergency room." As the reality of her new disease and the limitations it placed on her life began to sink in, Maddox doubled down on her faith and continued to find God's lessons in the daily problems in her life. The author's prose is taut and emotional, particularly when describing the effects of POTS on her life: "I'm crying because of how utterly helpless and pathetic I feel. I'm an adult who can't figure out how to book a hotel! I'm an adult who can't figure out how to use my phone to let my husband know what's going on!" Maddox is deeply and unquestioningly Christian, and her fairly frequent conversations with God may turn off secular readers. Even so, her problems are real and rendered in detail, and the positive spin she is able to place on them is sincere and encouraging.

An earnest, thoughtful reminiscence by a woman who found solace in a renewed relationship with God.

Kirkus Reviews