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Jake Minear #18

Professor Robert Campbell

Foundations of Wellness

29 August 2013

“You Gotta Keep Dancin’”: A Debrief

A click of a mouse, a scrolling screen. The great depths of Amazon are

being explored. Tapping begins on a keyboard. At last it is found! Purchase,

ship, and there it is, piled amongst other books on a high shelf. Finally, a

class requires its opening. As the front cover peels away from the first page,

a journey has begun, only ending with the final closing of the back cover.

The book has been read. And much has been taken away from the text,

hopefully to be transcribed later on in this document.

“You Gotta Keep Dancin’”, if you haven’t figured out was a required

reading for a class (and thus was this paper assigned). But it was required

rightly. This book speaks of a man who had been hiking, basking in the

crispness or nature. After thanking the Lord for this masterpiece, he takes

an unexpected fall. This fall left him grasping at the last signs of life. As he

is rushed to the hospital, he starts progressing from his state of shock to

one of immense pain. He can’t handle it and, after being released from the

hospital, goes through fits of sleeplessness and passing unconsciousness.

He struggles with his faith in God, not begging for healing in his spine, but

now, just comfort and relief.

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He struggles with figuring out the rest of his life. How can he cope?

Can he? Why isn’t he being granted relief? Will he be? After consulting

multiple doctors, he finally has his answers. He is refreshingly told that the

injury and the pain cannot be solved. To him, this is the greatest relief.

Instead of trying medication after medication, he is happy to know that this

is not going to cause him to be restricted his whole life. After fears of not

being able to live his life fully for fear of further hurt or injury, he is told

that all he has now to fear is just the pain. And so he works to cope with

that. He realizes that joy is only a matter of choice and that difficulties are

an expected part of life.

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This book was profound. After approaching it out of hesitation and

duty, I realized that it was well written and intriguing. Not only does his

story inspire, but so do his sayings and excerpts. The fact that joy can come

from anything, despite an injury as awful as his is inspiring. He mentioned

how the darkest point of a struggle shadows all light. No positives can be

found, nor can God’s voice be heard. But he will answer. After faltering in

his faith, God stepped in to reassure it. And that describes a struggle so

perfectly. I enjoyed how he was personal and transparent in his novel

writing. It showed me how others go through the same thing, if not worse. It

put in light my struggles and was an effectual comparison between mine

and his.

The joy he found after his struggle contrasted between life’s never-

ending highs and lows. I felt contentment when I read of his, just as I felt

despair when he was in the darkest of hours. It made me realize that there

is a brighter side. Even his sayings, such as “Pain is inevitable, but misery is

optional” are inspiring. This goes without mentioning his Biblical tie ins. As

one who has struggled with faith at times, it’s nice to have a written

reminder that troubles serve to strengthen these weaknesses, including any

in our faith. All in all, I did enjoy this book and felt that it would help me

with my emotional and spiritual wellness.