Description: "We tend to use words like miracle and mystery in the context of serendipity. In this frank and eloquent account of life transformed by cancer, Deanna Thompson explores these articles of faith as they are also wont to appear--on the hard edges of hope and the dark side of joy." --Krista Tippett, from the Foreword Hoping for More is a story of a young religion professor with a stage IV cancer diagnosis and a lousy prognosis for the future. Amid the grief and the grace of her fractured life, this theologian--who is also a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend--searches for words adequate to express her faltering faith. More Anne Lamott meets Harold Kushner than the teller of a pious, God-saved-me-from-cancer tale, Thompson unpacks the messy realities that arise when faith and suffering collide. Told in shimmering prose, Hoping for More takes readers on an unsentimental journey through the valley of the shadow of cancer--beyond the predictable parameters of prayer, the church, even belief in life after death. What emerges is a novel approach to talking faith and accepting grace when hope is all you've got. Endorsements: "Deanna Thompson's honest and faithful book shows how healing happens in community, and how blessing is found amid doubt and pain. This is a book of grace." --Sara Miles Author of Take This Bread (2007) and Jesus Freak (2010) "I learned so much by reading this book, as a pastor, friend, and mother. Thompson's insights are for everyone who has ever struggled with serious illness or loved someone who has, which means that this book is ultimately for everyone. If you have ever wondered, "What do I say?" or "What do I do?" this book offers wise counsel, with humor, intellect, and, most of all, grace. In Hoping for More, you get to eavesdrop on the intimate thoughts of someone worth listening to. In the end, Thompson's deepest theological insights are not about cancer but about life itself." --Lillian Daniel Senior Minister, First Congregational Church UCC, Glen Ellyn, Illinois Author of This Odd and Wondrous Calling (2009) and Tell It Like It Is: Reclaiming the Practice of Testimony (2006) "Thompson stands in her cancer with rare, radical awakeness to its bracing truth . . . and gives us a moving, life-lived testimony to the graciousness of grace." --Serene Jones President of Union Theological Seminary "In Hoping for More, Deanna Thompson presents her extraordinary journey of diagnosis and treatment of stage IV breast cancer.