Product Description

There is no hurtso great that lovecannot heal it

Nathan Hurst hated Christmas. For the rest of the world it was a day of joy and celebration; for Nathan it was simply a reminder of the event that destroyed his childhood until a snowstorm, a cancelled flight, and an unexpected meeting with a young mother and her very special son would show him that Christmas is indeed the season of miracles.

From the beloved author of the international bestseller The Christmas Box comes another timeless story of faith, hope, and healing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25906 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-09
• Released on: 2007-10-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416550013
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Evans (The Christmas Box) returns with narrator Nathan Hurst, a frequently traveling, Tourette's-suffering security chief for a retail chain. When Nathan gets snowed in at the Denver airport at Thanksgiving, he offers half his hotel suite to a stranded needy family: recently divorced single mom Addison (a massage therapist), and her two children, Lizzy and Collin. Collin, who has leukemia, cures Nathan's Tourette's with his gift of healing touch. Exercising his secret gift makes Collin sicker, though, and as news of his healing powers eventually leaks out, leading to a demand for his services, his condition worsens. Nathan, meanwhile, feels emboldedened by his cure, and moves to address childhood woes when visiting his nursing home–bound mother. The tightly honed narrative, brimming with good intention to find courage in shared suffering, soon brings everyone together. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
RICHARD PAUL EVANS is the #1 best-selling author of The Christmas Box. His thirteen novels have each appeared on the New York Times bestseller list; there are more than thirteen million copies of his books in print. His books have been translated into more than 22 languages and several have been international best sellers. He is the winner of the 1998 American Mothers Book Award, two first place Storytelling World Awards for his children's books, and the 2005 Romantic Times Best Women Novel of the Year Award.  Evans received the Washington Times Humanitarian of the Century Award and the Volunteers of America National Empathy Award for his work helping abused children.  He is the founder and CEO of BookWise, an international direct sales business. Evans lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife, Keri, and their five children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

C H R I S T M A S 2 0 0 6

It's Christmas night. Everyone is asleep in the house but me. From my den window I see it has started snowing, but not in earnest. It seems to me a kind of curtain falling on the day.

There is a tranquillity to the moment that permeates my thoughts. I sit with a pencil and a pad of paper. I am prepared to write a story. This is not a Christmas story. Christmas is nearly over, dying like the fire in my fireplace, sharing the last of its warmth and light. Tomorrow the ornaments and decorations will come down, and we'll put Christmas away in boxes and bins. But first our family will visit a cemetery only a short drive from our house. I'll brush the snow from a headstone, then lay a potted poinsettia plant on its marble table. I'll hold my wife and daughter, and we'll remember a little boy.

Ours will not be the fi rst footprints in the snow or the fi rst flowers left. There will be two bouquets waiting. They're there every year.

You might already know some of our story -- or think you do. Some of it made the news. But what you heard was just a few bars of a song, and badly played at that. Tonight this weighs heavily on my mind. I believe it's time the world knew the whole truth, or at least as much as I can give them. So tonight, I begin to record our story for future generations. I know from the outset that many will not believe it. You may not believe it. No matter. I was there. I knew the boy and what he was capable of. And some things are true whether you want to believe them or not.

Chapter
One

I was born with Tourette's syndrome. If you're like most people, you're not sure what Tourette's is but suspect it has something to do with shouting obscenities in public. You'd be about ten percent right.

Tourette's syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive, involuntary movements; things that make "normal" people uncomfortable. Some of us, about ten percent, curse in public. Some of us bark or make other animal noises. I have tics. I've had more than twenty different manifestations, from vocal tics like clearing my throat and loud gulping to repeated eye blinking, shrugging, head jerking, and grimacing. My last tic was in my hands, and even though it hurt, I still preferred it to a facial tic, because you can't hide your face in your pocket.

I also have a compulsion to spit in the face of famous people. I've never actually spit in anyone's face, probably because I don't know anyone famous, but the impulse is there. I once saw Tony Danza at a Park City restaurant, and I put my hand over my mouth, just to be safe.

The most peculiar of my symptoms is my need to touch sharp objects. If you were to go through my pockets you would find dollar bills folded into sharp corners. There's linen in paper money, which gives it an especially sharp corner. But anything sharp brings me comfort. On my desk at work there are always a dozen or more highly sharpened pencils.

People sometimes ask if my tics are painful. I invite them to try this experiment: blink sixty times in one minute and see how your eyes feel. Now do that for sixteen hours straight. I remember, as a boy, holding my face at night because I couldn't stop it from moving, and it hurt.

But more painful than the physical hurts were the social ones, like sitting alone in the school cafeteria, because no one wants to sit by someone making funny noises. The panicked look on a girl's face when your own face is doing gymnastics as you ask her out. (Tics are usually exacerbated by anxiety, and if asking a girl out doesn't make you anxious, what does?) Or being surrounded by every kid at summer camp, because they want to see what the freak will do next. There's a reason I learned to keep to myself.

Not surprisingly, I read a lot. Books are the most tolerant of friends. There were great books back then. Old Yeller, Andy Buckram's Tin Men, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Flying Hockey Stick. But my greatest love was comic books. Not the kiddie rags like Archie and Jughead, but the Marvel ones, whose heroes had muscles on muscles, bulging through skin-tight costumes. Characters like Spiderman, Captain America, Ironman, and the Incredible Hulk. I would read my magazines before and after school and long into the night, falling asleep with the lights on. I was always dreaming of being someone special: able to walk through walls (or knock someone through one), to fly, to burst into flames, or to wrap myself in a force field -- safe from whatever the bad guys could throw at me. Tellingly, the power I wanted most of all was to be invisible.

In a way I got my wish when I was eight years old. I became invisible. Not to everyone. Just to those who mattered.

***

Tourette's wasn't the worst part of my childhood. Five weeks after my eighth birthday, on Christmas Day, a tragedy destroyed my family. Ten months later my parents filed for divorce. But it was never finalized. My father took his life on December twenty-fifth, one year to the day tragedy struck.

My mother was never well after that, physically or emotionally. She spent most of her time in bed. She never again hugged or kissed me. This was about the time my tics began. The month I turned sixteen, I moved out. I dropped out of school, piled everything I owned in the back of a Ford Pinto, and drove to Utah to live with a former schoolmate. I never even told my mother I was leaving. There was no reason to. I was rarely home, and we never spoke when I was.

You might assume that I was the victim of whatever bad thing happened. But you'd be wrong. It was something that I did. I suppose that's why I don't really blame my mother for how she treated me. Or my father for taking the back door out of life. It was my fault my life was such a mess. And Christmas was just another day on the calendar. I never believed it could be otherwise until I met Addison, Elizabeth, and Collin.

***

The Bible says that God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. My story is about one of God's weak things. His name is Collin, a frail, beautiful little boy with a very special gift.

Copyright © 2007 by Richard Paul Evans

Customer Reviews

The Gift
THE GIFT by Richard Paul Evans
January 1, 2008


Amazon Rating: 4/5 stars

In Richard Paul Evans latest novel, a man witnesses a series of miracles performed by a young, terminally ill boy, and learns lessons in love and giving. Nathan Hurst doesn't realize what is missing in his life, but upon the start of this new relationship, Nathan makes some changes in his own life and also learns the lesson of forgiveness.

Nathan works for a retail store in which he is to prevent and catch employees who are stealing from the company, in particular, merchandise. During one of his business trips visiting one of the stores, he encounters a boy and his family while waiting at the airport on a very snowy night. This young boy is terminally ill, but Nathan discovers a gift that this young boy has. It's a type of gift that is kept secret, because once it is known, the boy's mother knows that the media will be on their backs, as will the rest of the world. For the sake of the boy's health, his mother tries her best to hide this special gift from the public.

Nathan gets involved with the woman and her two children by volunteering his hotel room for the night, as their flight has been cancelled due to the snowstorm. This act of kindness leads to one thing and another, and soon he has fallen in love with the woman, as he also learns lessons in unselfish love from the young boy.

THE GIFT is the type of book geared toward the holidays, a story filled with miracles. It's an emotional story, so be sure to have a box of Kleenex by your side! Readers who enjoy reading books by Mitch Albom will love THE GIFT.

Very Fulfilling Story
Richard Paul Evans has written his best novel in years! I was not planning to read this book in one sitting, but I could not put it down. This was a wonderfully emotional book. I enjoyed so many relationships from Addison to Nathan, Collin to Elizabeth and Nathan to his mother. I was completely enthralled in their world and it made me reflect on my own life and relationships. As always, the diary entries are such a great part of the story. My favorite "Small kindnesses often, unintentionally, produce the biggest payoffs." It's what life is all about. This is a truly amazing book from an incredible writer.

Another Wonderful, Inspiring Story from Richard Paul Evans!
What can I say that hasn't already been said? If you enjoy reading Richard Paul Evans' novels year after year, you certainly won't want to miss this one. If you've never read a RP Evans before, this is as good a place to start as any. The story moves along at a nice pace and the characters are well defined. We understand their thoughts and actions and the reasons that they do things. Under the pen of other authors, this is not always accomplished. RP Evans knows how to bring characters to life and make us feel like we know them personally. As you read a RP Evans novel, you'll think you're reading an article in your local newspaper or magazine. The characters and stories feel that real.

Inspirational without being mushy or over-dramatic. He tugs at just enough heartstrings without leaving you feeling overwhelmed or exhausted with emotion.

I look forward to Mr. Evans novels year after year and he never disappoints. My only complaint is that I get through the book so darned quickly, I'm left hanging for another 11 months looking for something to fill that void (nothing ever really does!) I look forward to many more books and wonderful reads from truly one of the most inspirational authors of the 21st century!

If you like Nicholas Sparks, Debbie Macomber, Luanne Rice, Kristin Hannah then you'll love Richard Paul Evans!