When James Wolfer goes to visit his old friend Walter Schrader in a nursing home, he expects to find his former professor as depressed as the last time he visited. He also hopes to get a chance to talk to Jillian Moore, the attractive psychiatrist at the nursing home, about Walter's condition.
Instead of a dour Walter, mourning the disabilities left him by a recent stroke, James finds his friend excited to tell him about a compelling dream he had the previous night. In that dream, and many dreams that follow, Walter believes he is seeing a day in the life of Jesus. And it was a day in which a great multitude came to him, with a whole range of physical and spiritual ailments, and he healed them all.
For Walter this means a new reason to live. For both Jillian and James the dreams become a fascinating revelation of the unbounded grace and mercy of the one who perfectly reflected the image of a loving heavenly Father.
That revelation challenges James to break out of his self-sufficient life without church or the faith of his childhood. With Walter and Jillian by his side he has to navigate the meaning of the dreams as well as the condition of his own soul.
As a small boy in Lincoln, Nebraska, I listened enrapt to my grandmother reading me children’s stories, such as The Little Engine That Could. I also recall the elementary school librarian who read us Winnie the Pooh, imitating all the voices. And I remember the first summer I was allowed to ride my bike to the library on my own.
Writing started for me in school. Teachers encouraged me to pursue what they perceived as a gift. For me, my imagination was a challenge as much as a gift. I found the real world so much less enthralling.
In my Christian high school, the English teacher supplied me with unassigned novels. I wrote the senior class play and served as editor of both the yearbook and the school newspaper.
At Houghton College, I majored in writing, including coursework in poetry and fiction. But I also majored in biblical studies and was persuaded to take my writing skills in a more “respectable” direction—academia and nonfiction writing. Remember that less enthralling real world?
When all my academic work led to no great employment breakthrough, I hopped from there onto that rapid conveyor known as the tech industry. Starting in the 1990s, I shaped a new career, eventually starting my own computer consulting firm.
During those years, I focused on raising two boys and cherished the role of doing the bedtime reading, including attempting all the voices in The Chronicles of Narnia series. I also composed a few stories from scratch for my attentive little audience, usually around a campfire.
I started writing again in 2006. Following a friend’s suggestion, I meditated on scripture by imaging myself present on a day when Jesus healed an entire multitude. That meditation turned into my first novel, And He Healed Them All. Closing the gap between the sparse descriptions in the Gospels and what must have been a rich miraculous experience enticed me.
A series of unusual events (ask me someday) prodded me to write my second novel, The Reign: Out of Tribulation. I began self-publishing with those first two books. My third novel, Seeing Jesus, expanded into a series when numerous readers begged me for more. As it turns out, that kind of begging is hard to resist.
In all, I have published fifteen books on Amazon, fourteen of them as installments in one of my series. I am constantly working to improve my skills and to better share my message with the reading public.
Anyone tracking my address could guess that I’ve had some setbacks in my life. But God has stayed the same, even as I evolve and have to start over again.
Now I am married and living in Vernon Hills, Illinois, attending a vibrant church and meeting new people. I work part-time on my computer consulting business, and I devote much of the rest of my time to writing and marketing my books, with my wife as my highly motivated marketing director.
About halfway through this book, I was tired of the redundancy of the healing stories but then I thought, "If I'm tired reading about it, how much more tired was Jesus while healing people all day long?" After all, he was sent to us in human form so he likely could get hungry, tired, and run down with the constant push of people wanting His attention. He is also God, which means He has an endless supply of love for all of us - and a desire for us all to follow Him.
Then there were a couple of instances in which people were described as homosexuals, prostitutes, etc. and I wondered why there wasn't a command to go and sin no more. But then I thought,"God loves us where we are. He has a plan that's bigger than we can imagine. And, how is their sin any greater than my own?"
Hmmmm...in a phrase, this book made me think. And made me grateful for a loving and forgiving God who heals, no matter how frustrating we can be or how we all sin. This book reveals a day in the life of Jesus in a way I never considered. It opened my eyes to the possibility that even when I think I'm not being judgmental, I am. And that God still has some work to do in me. And I think that's the best thing of all.
Inspiring book, gratitude for the author! This was an excellent book, which made you examine your own beliefs while the main character examines his. Truly inspiring, thoughtful and interesting. Would definitely recommend it to anyone but especially those interested in healing to examine the patience, love and focus on healing of all. Would like to thank the author for having taken the time to write such a lovely book.
I like the journey of faith that both James and Walter went on, but I found the dreams a little repetitive. More seriously, I think something was missing. Yes, Jesus loves everyone completely and unconditionally and healed and will heal anyone. But His healing is more than physical healing. He healed the paralytic, saying "your sins are forgiven." He saved the woman caught in adultery from being stoned and told her to "go and sin no more."
In this story, Jesus heals prostitutes and homosexuals of physical ailments without addressing their spiritual condition. I don't think that's the complete Gospel. He would have been more concerned about their spiritual welfare than their physical welfare.
What a wonderful book! This book takes one verse from the gospels and brings it to life in the dreams of a dying man. As he narrates the dreams to his friend, you get to be there with Jesus while he heals people in the crowd, and see their reactions.
In the present world of the friend and a doctor in the nursing home, you see how hearing the dreams affects their lives as well.
Then the next step - a student hears recordings of the dreams and you know that the wonder will continue....
I felt closer to my Lord and Savior because of this book. Any book that can manage that is well worth reading!
My first thought is Jesus was more than the healings he performed. I got stuck on that thought as I was reading this story. I wanted more of his words, his insight. Those thoughts didn’t diminish when I finished this book. That explains my three star rating.
I wanted to give a fair review, so I took a step back before writing this review. I thought about the compassion which was the undertone of the story. I thought about the definition of the word healing, not only of the people in the dream and the dreamer but those who hear the dream as well. I thought about the relationships and the brokenness of the main characters of the story.
I feel some people would be moved by this story and it has its place in this world. Unfortunately I didn’t feel drawn into the story. I was just an observer. I didn’t feel invested in the main characters. It was meaningful to think of Jesus as a healer. I would have been more interested if it included some aspects of Jesus as a teacher. I liked the human side of Jesus that was shown but the story was just ok for me.
What is this story about? Is it about a day in the life of the teacher from Nazareth as the subtitle states or about the character who dreams about that day and his friends? I think Jeffrey Jones had a good idea for a story, but failed to bring it to it's full potential. In fact, with fewer mentions of the healings, the book would've been excellent. If the book was entirely a fictional account of a day of Jesus healing people it would've been fairly good. Overall, I think the author missed the mark on this one.
As in every book that I have read by Jeffrey McClain Jones, I get a great hunger to be the lead person in his story! What if-it was really possible for Jesus to be visible and spend time with me. What would I do if Jesus came out of my closet? What would I learn from a dream about Jesus healing everyone who came and asked for healing? I have found a deeper hunger to get closer to Jesus and understand why He and God loves me so much, when I don't deserve what, all, that they freely offer.
Compelling, inspiring, and thought provoking. An excellent personalization of the biblical truth of Jesus healing all who came to seek it. Further, having a philosophy professor have this revealed to him in a series of dreams, and sharing it with a protege that has struggled with his own faith is poetic.
This is a must read! Thank you Mr. Jones for bringing the greatest stories in our history to our present day lives.
How often I have read these words in the Bible and moved on to something more exciting. Never again! This book opened my eyes to so much more, even the price that Jesus paid to heal all of them. A really worthwhile read, but make time to reflect on it too!
Walter is 87 years old and recuperating from a stroke. He was ready to give up until he started having dreams about Jesus. Each dream showed him more about the love Jesus showed to all that came to be healed. Never judging anyone. I finished the book and want to read more by this author.
Awesome, touching, inspiring & encouraging! Great read!!!
So grateful to have found this jewel! I cried and praised with the crowd on many of those pages! A must read for those who need a reminder of God’s power to heal!
This book was so much more than I expected! Well written, it was easy to put myself in the place of the story teller, and be drawn further in. An excellent read!!
Felt like I was part of the story, sitting in and listening with them. Book was like, Tuesday with Morry, yet this made you question your faith and hopefully win. It's always interesting where the author finds his insight and inspiration...
This book is totally awesome! it is very Well written and kept my interest the entire time. A good bit of it shows how much God loves us through the healing Jesus did.
Not at all what I expected this book to be about. But it offered so very much more. An excellent read. Thoroughly enjoyed the ‘dreams’ and the characters. I would go so far as to say this book was ‘divinely’ inspired.
Once again Mr. McClain Jones challenges his readers to think outside of the box and see the reality of Yeshua/Jesus in a broader, deeper way than preconceived religions allow!!!
Felt the power of the commands of Jesus in the book. They resonated in my spirit as if the Lord was showing me how the release of healing was done and the impact of the believer. Although fiction of a real God, His reality seems to come alive in the reader.
I felt like the book was like the James Professor; it presented the information, yet never seemed to commit to it enough to be changed. The portrayal of Jesus was excellent. It would have been nice to take the leap to life changing in a greater way.
Jeffrey McClain Jones consistently finds ways to retell the truest story of all ... That God loves us, heals us and forgives us. One of my favorite writers.
Ones of the most amazing books I've ever read. Definitely on my short list of favorites. Really gets to you. Loved the realistic portrayal of Jesus. Highly recommend!