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When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough

A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist

ECPA Top Shelf Award Winner

Taylor Schumann never thought she'd be a victim of gun violence. But one spring day a man with a shotgun walked into her workplace and opened fire on her. While she survived, she was left with permanent wounds, both visible and invisible.

In When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough, Taylor invites us to see what it means to be a survivor after the news vehicles drive away and the media moves on. Healing is slow and complicated. As she suffered through surgeries, grueling rehabilitation, and counseling to repair the physical injuries and emotional trauma, she came face to face with the deep and lasting impact of gun violence. As she began grappling with the realities, Taylor experienced another painful truth: Christians have largely been absent from this issue. Gun violence undercuts God's vision of abundant life and community—and the silence of the church rings loudly in the ears of survivors and families of victims.

Taylor weaves her own incredible story of survival and recovery into a larger conversation about gun violence in our country. With compassion and honesty, she encourages readers to reconsider their own engagement with the issue and to join her in envisioning a more hopeful, safer future for our nation. Move beyond thoughts and prayers and enter into grace-filled dialogue and action.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 24, 2021
      In this gripping debut, Schumann fuses conviction and experience in a passionate testimony for stricter regulation of guns in America. In 2013, Schumann was shot by a shotgun-wielding student at the community college where she worked, leaving her with a permanently disabled right hand and deep emotional scars. She recounts the shooting and her slow recovery, and delves into harrowing details of her post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, including a nightly fear someone would harm her while she slept. An evangelical Christian, Schumann reflects on how the event challenged and deepened her relationship with God: “In the years since being shot, I’ve learned to be honest with God about my anger and my grief.” Her recovery also involved becoming more honest with herself, a quality evident in her narrative: “Being honest about the losses, the anger, the jealousy, also created the space for me to be genuinely grateful at the same time.” In the book’s second part, Schumann argues for tightening gun control laws (particularly closing loopholes in laws regarding gun ownership eligibility and background checks) and urging others to speak out, positing that only when gun culture is confronted will America ever see changes. Schumann’s powerful, grounded critique and heartfelt lament lays bare the uniquely American scourge of gun violence.

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  • English

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