As a cardiologist for over a quarter century, I dealt with life and death circumstances on a daily basis. I came to fully appreciate how precious and tenuous life can be; it can change in an instant. On June 30th of 2009 such a dramatic shift occurred in our family when our son, Tyler, was involved in an automobile accident sustaining a severe spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed.

As John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” In a Nano-second, our entire family was thrust into the midst of one of the fiercest storms imaginable.

Why do disruptive, terrible things like this happen? Why must there be such anguish? Does it serve any purpose?” These were questions that had answers . . . but it would take quite some time for me to sift through the quagmire in order to uncover them.

There were three things that helped me navigate the storm:

John tightened his grip on the control bar and said, "Are you still pissed at me for all the shit I did to you when we were kids?" I just mumbled, "Time to find out."

Well, back then, when we were kids, John had been a bully but I did not put that together then. His main mode of operation was  baiting and intimidation.

My first memory of his strange sense of brotherly love was when I was 3 or 4 years old. He was 2 years older than me and liked to play house with his playmate friend. I had to play the part of their baby.

OK, so John can complain about my having an overactive imagination but I remember floating in the bowl of water, crushed oleander leaves, which he says was really grass. It was supposed to be my dinner and refusal to fall for that meant that I had to be punished. There was a barn behind our house that had the biggest bench vice that I have ever seen, but then I was only 3 or 4 years old. Anyway, my head went between the jaws and I was not going to knuckle under - - - until I felt the jaws touch both sides of my head.

Author of 101 Relationship Myths – How to Stop Them from Sabotaging Your Happiness

Just days before the release of the book, my annoying alter ego woke me up in the middle of the night saying …

Oh my God, Tim, what have you done!

What?

I just read one of the first chapters in your new book “101 Relationship Myths – How to Stop Them from Sabotaging Your Happiness”.

Yeah… so?

Well, quite frankly, I’m shocked. The title of the chapter is “Stay away from women in their 30s”!

Last month I turned 42. Just like every year of my life, I had been looking forward to my birthday with giddy anticipation. I just LOVE getting older, there's absolutely nothing I don't adore about it.

Invariably, people gave me surprised stares when I replied to the inevitable: “Oh, is it your birthday?” with an excited: “Yes it is, I'm 42 today!” I suppose it's not the usual thing to do, stating one's age as a woman of the so-called “certain” age. People just omit the number altogether or famously “turn 29” over and over again every year.

The Way is in the Unknowing.*

Some of us have the courage to free ourselves from blind, ignorant unquestioning loyalty to long-held identity-entangled beliefs, and, to stare into the vast abyss of uncertainty which consequently unfolds before us. For me the unraveling began with a belief that God wanted to be known, and would allow me to ask any question I wanted, to explore any path I chose, even if it meant questioning his existence in the pursuit of knowing him personally, deeply, intimately. I could struggle and argue with God, in the tradition of Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah. If God were God indeed, he would withstand the assault of my scrutiny. He would never abandon me. I could leap into the Void, not as a test, but as a yearning to know the truth of him, and he would catch me in his arms.