God's Physician

Brutally honest and, at times, heartbreaking, God's Physician by author Erich Wyckoff is the sort of book that can change lives. With a plainspoken, urban prose, Wyckoff shares his experience growing up in the poverty of rural Alabama in a family where women allowed men to beat, abuse, and control them. Truly formative lessons in what not to do and how not to live, Wyckoff put his faith in God to take a different path in order to become a medical doctor and a Christian. In eighteen gritty, yet spiritually uplifting, chapters like "Affirmative Action," "Stepping Out on Faith," and "Meeting Angel," the good doctor makes readers believe in the power of God and that if there's a will, there's a way. Taking a chronological path, he first describes his humble beginnings as a rural Alabama son, a bastard who had nothing going for him until he had faith that God would provide, even when the church turned its back. Through his mother's reckless behavior and his baby sister's accidental death, he survived the bad company of naysayers and gangsters who had no interest in a better life. He would also later fight tooth and nail to come to grips with who his father was and support the family that plagued him even as he made his way through his medical school training. With a truly encouraging testament to the national "No Child Left Behind" mandates among other sociopolitical cues, Wyckoff explores his faith and gives all his glory to God. In a similar style of Benjamin Carson's Gifted Hands and Tony Dungy's Quiet Strength, this affecting testimonial to God's power illustrates what it means to have courage in the face of adversity and, more importantly, humility in one's accomplishments.