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The Lord of the Rings, Sickness, and Health with Dr. Kristin Collier

Church Life Today

Over the past year, I have been reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to my two younger boys, now age 7 and 9. We were into the third volume––called “The Return of the King”—and had just concluded the chapter entitled “Houses of Healing.” This is after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, from which came great suffering and destruction, but also great bravery and friendship. In the Houses of Healing, the wounded are being tended to, though some are so deeply wounded that their recovery is ...