What it's like being married to me

OK, this is a blog that’s long overdue. Overdue, but appropriate on this day, a few days in front of a day of thanks, a day set apart to say “thank you” to God for his provision in our lives.

How many times has my wife had to endure hearing questions from those of you not privy to an inside look at my life? Too many.

The questions come in some variation of this theme: “Oh, Dr. Kraus, how do you do it all?” Surgeon, novelist, missionary, father, husband. I usually mumble something about grace. The answer is true, but perhaps not specific enough.

The grace I’m referring to (undeserved divine favor) comes to me predominately through one source: my wife, Kris. While I ignore life’s daily details, functioning as the visionary of our wedded duo, Kris plods on, suffering the blunt end of my decisions, the one who has to be sure everything continues to work.

And she’s done it for twenty-six years. Mostly behind the scenes. Without credit. While my few fans step up with smiles and ask, “How do you do it all?”

It’s not easy being married to me.

Not easy is the polite way to say it.

She knew I was on my way into medicine when we met and married. That part wasn’t an unpleasant surprise. But for anyone, expectations are a given.

What would you expect from a life with a physician as a spouse? Security? A comfortable income? The right schools, the right church, a nice house in the country or the suburbs? None of that would be out of the ordinary for a modern physician.

But I’ll admit, I’m not one for following the status quo. Not as a physician. Not as a Christian (and admittedly, I think that status quo Christianity paves the road to hell).

So imagine the vague anxiety my wife must have felt when I announced my first life-altering decision in our young marriage: I want to be a surgeon.

That meant at least five years of residency hell. Back in those days, no one limited your hours. And the military style obedience and dedication weren’t so family friendly. We were one of the couples who survived the torture, looking forward to a better life beyond.

And we had it, for a while. Until just after we’d built my wife’s dream house, the doctor-country house. And then I announced another visionary stressor: I think we should take the family to Africa for a year.

My wife buckled under, sold the dream house, and made it happen. Moving a family of three boys to Africa isn’t easy. There is adjustment. Different friends, a different school.

But one year wasn’t enough. After a year, we moved again, this time back to America to a smaller house in town. Not a “doctor-house.” My wife adjusted down her expectations. Again.

Then we returned to Africa for three years. A chance to make a real difference. And my wife adjusted and made it happen. Three and out, she hoped. But now, after two years back in our modest house in America, we’re talking about a return to Africa. Another three years.

My wife is holding on, hoping it will be the last time that need grips my heart and passion fuels a vision for great things. I look ahead to impacting an unreached people group. Kris looks at three more years of bad roads, inconvenience, personal risk, and a living situation far from American-doctor luxury.

No she’s not selfish. She’s normal. She likes America. Who doesn’t?

And yes, she will go along with the dreams God has birthed in my heart. But she will ask him, “how long?” and “why us?”

Consider the orientation of the wonderful woman I married on a Nebraska hog farm in 1983. She grew up in a little close-knit community wanting little more than to live in the same house for twenty years. OK, maybe forty. She yearns for stability and sameness. Instead, she got me.

She wanted to make a home place, a retreat for kids and eventually grandkids. Instead, we’ve moved a dozen times in twenty-six years, including back and forth to Africa twice.

I’ve had crazy ideas. I think I’ll write a novel. Or a dozen. Whatever made me think I could spend the hours necessary to do that?

Because Kris takes care of everything that I ignore. Including herself.

I write. She cooks, cleans, shuttles kids to school, and finds time to study herself, in pursuit of a nursing degree.

I see patients, do surgery. She makes sure someone pays the bills, gets the cars inspected, makes appointments with our accountant and keeps the financial records.

I accept yet another opportunity to speak or travel on a short-term medical mission. She makes all the travel arrangements and watches over everything at home while I’m gone. I don’t worry about a thing.

I get the credit for giving an inspiring talk about grace. Kris does all the behind the scene stuff, gets no credit and looks at my busy life wondering where’s the grace he’s talking about?

Well for me, I know it’s a struggle to practice everything I preach. Speaking, writing and doing surgery crowds out personal devotion and private worship. My audience doesn’t see the inconsistency. My wife does. And she calls my number on it.

Good for her. I don’t like it, but I need it.

And that’s why I’m telling you about her during thanksgiving week. She is God’s biggest blessing to me. He knew I needed a woman to manage everything I don’t. I think she often wonders why God would put two so different individuals together in a union of marriage. Well, if we were both like me, we’d have exploded long ago.

I need her. Badly. She’s unappreciated, often ignored. And far too often, I haven’t given her the credit she deserves.

I want everyone to know. She’s amazing. She’s underrated on the radar screen of publicity. I get the credit for work I do standing on her shoulders.

I’ve talked before about how people put others up on pedestals. Missionary. Published novelist. Surgeon. People hear the titles and prop me up with their own ideas of importance. But I tell them that it’s all grace. The only pedestal I want to stand on is a pedestal of grace.

Most of the time, for me, that pedestal of grace is spelled “K-r-i-s.”

April Release: The Six-Liter Club

I was sitting in a Sunday morning service listening to my pastor, Phil Smuland tell a story. Ever notice how everyone perks up when preachers do that? (OK, digressing early...) Anyway, he told a fascinating story about a missionary family living in the Congo during the Simba rebellion in 1964 (Simbas were revolting against the new government that had obtained freedom from Belgium not so long before). For several months, many Christian missionaries had been gathered under guard in Stanleyville. As the UN forces arrived to free them, nearby Simbas conducted a house-to-house slaughter of westerners who had remained in their homes. As the story goes, a Christian missionary man went out his front door and looked to the north up the street and saw the Simbas going door to door killing everyone. He looked to the south and witnessed the same horror. Knowing they would be at his home in minutes, he knew he had little time to act. Quickly, he took several live chickens and slaughtered them, spraying the blood around the entrance to the house and kitchen. He then took his family and hid under the house. When the Simbas arrived, they saw evidence that the slaughter had already touched that home and passed over to the next house.

Wow. What a powerful picture of the passover.

And of course, that started me thinking of a story of my own....What if I wrote a story from the viewpoint of a survivor of the Simba Rebellion, perhaps the child of martyred missionaries? What if the child wasn't told about the horror from the Congo, but has partial memories of hidden evil?

Now, over six years after hearing that story, the novel whose seed found its beginning in that sermon illustration is going to hit the shelves.

The Six-Liter Club tells the story of Camille Weller, the first black female trauma surgeon at the Medical College of Virginia. The time is 1984 and academic surgery was still dominated by white men.

OK, I can imagine you are thinking, Kraus has proven he can write from the standpoint of white male surgeons, but can he write through the eyes of a female? A black female?

First, let me remind you that fiction writers are continually getting into the heads of characters that are nothing like themselves. Fiction writers don't have to be murderers or child abductors to write convincingly from that viewpoint.

My agent asked bestselling African American female author Vanessa Miller to read the manuscript. Here's what she said: "I absolutely loved this book. And I believe other women will enjoy reading about Camille's journey also. Great job!"

She gave me this "blurb" to use for promotion:

A Story of heartbreak, love and tenacity that will have your rooting for the main character until the very last page. Unforgettable!
Vanessa Miller, Bestselling author of Forgiven and Yesterday's Promise

Coming from Vanessa, I couldn't be happier.

What is the meaning of the title? The Six-Liter Club is the club surgeons don't want to be in! You get in the club by having a patient shed six or more liters of blood during their surgery and still survive (the body has only five liters of blood, so someone has to be working pretty fast to replace all that blood!). My protagonist joins the club on the first day of her new job as trauma attending at Medical College of Virginia.

Does that guarantee that Camille Weller will be respected for her work? Far from it! She has to fight to be respected for something other than her physical attributes.

Over the years, Camille has compromised to be a part of the boys club. Now, as a young surgery attending, she discovers that as a woman she brings something special to her occupation. Maybe her gender isn't the hindrance that she always thought....

Mix in a love story and a boyfriend with a cheating heart...

Add the mystery of a hidden past that threatens to unravel Camille's cool facade with memories of horror...

Sprinkle in the controversy that raged in 1984, that is, can Camille offer breast cancer patients an operation other than removal of the breast (lumpectomy which is now known to be appropriate, but in 1984 was just being proven) and survive the criticism of her male peers that live and die by surgical dogma (breast cancer means mastectomy. Period!)

Here's the first paragraph, just a tease....

My heart beat with the exhilaration of knowing I hid in enemy territory, a woman in a men’s bathroom. Moments ago, I blew in here to make a poignant statement about this sexist university, but right now, I feel a bit short-winded, like I need to recover an ounce of the passion that has fueled my daily survival in this hospital for the greater part of the last decade. There are trite metaphors to describe what I just did. Threw down the gauntlet. Drew a line in the sand. Aunt Jeanine would have called it career suicide, but I never did give much for her opinion of my actions. Thirty seconds ago, I thought my statement was precisely what this stodgy establishment needed. But at this moment on the day I became the first woman surgeon to join the prestigious six-liter club, I cowered in a stall of the men’s bathroom, desperate to find the fire that emboldened me to barge into this inner sanctum of testosterone. I peered through a crack at the doctor’s locker room, appreciating only a small vertical slice of the room at a time. It was much like the nurses, except larger and smelling a bit like my sweat-socks after a run in the Virginia heat. I leaned forward until my forehead touched the cool surface of the metal door, tuning my ear to the voice of Dr. Bransford, my mentor and the chief of general surgery.

It is still a few months away, but I promised I'd give you a sneak look. Release date is April 6.

Or should I say "due date"? Sometimes this book-writing stuff does seem like labor!

With special appreciation for my former pastor and current friend, Phil Smuland. Thanks for the idea!

Harry

Get to versus Have to

Last week, I was in a "creative access" country. That's mission-speak for a Muslim country with laws against evangelism or conversion.

Our involvement there began a few years ago when I visited with a director of a secular NGO and asked the dean of a small struggling medical school if he could use the help of a team of medical doctors who could give lectures, do operative cases and make rounds with the medical students. His enthusiasm was apparent. OK, I thought, that's an open door. Now for the weighty question. "I am coming from a Christian church hospital in Kenya. The type of doctors I would find would likely be Christians."

His response. "That's fine." The understanding is that we are there for medical work, not for making Christian converts. In fact, he assured me that he assumed we would be Christian. After all, most of the physicians I work with are from America. They assume that because America is a "Christian country" that anyone from there will be Christian. That's the way it works for them. They are born in a country where there is no separation of Islam from their government. By their constitution, it is illegal for a Muslim to convert to another religion. If you are born there, you are Muslim. Automatically. You have no choice.

That began what has become a wonderful relationship between a Muslim medical school and a Christian hospital. We work for a week at a time doing dozens and dozens of surgeries, giving lectures and seeing patients with the students. Over the years, we have returned to see the young medical students graduate and become interns. And our relationships with the faculty blossom.

And as we work, we are open about our lives, our families, and our faith. No, we are not seeking conversions. But we are doing what Jesus commanded. Loving. Serving. Being light in a dark place.

I love my time in this country. I truly love the people there. they are sincere, and hardworking. Their willingness to stay there in a hard situation and serve their own countrymen is admirable.

I'm impressed in particular by one of their doctors who has started a program to help women who have developed vesico-vaginal fistulas. (what is that? A condition caused by prolonged arrested labor when a baby's head is too big for delivery. In the US, that means an urgent C-section; out in the bush of this country, the woman may labor for more than a day resulting in a pinching of tissues between the mother's pelvic bones and the baby's head. This means that eventually the pinched tissue dies from the pressure, like a pressure sore on the back of an old person who can't roll around, resulting in a connection between the urinary bladder and the birth canal. This has an unfortunate result: the woman drains urine through her vagina constantly, without restraint. This means bad odor, ostracism, divorce, and financial ruin. There are thousands of these women, a huge social problem.) This particular doctor has performed nearly 400 of the corrective operations in the past year, all for free. I asked this doctor about his motivation. "Why are you doing this?" I asked.

It didn't take long for him to reply. He is seeking Allah's favor. Then, he looked at me and added, "It is the same way for you. You travel all the way over here to donate your services to our people."

With gentleness, I pointed out the error in his thinking. "You are doing this to earn Allah's favor. I am doing this out of gratitude, because I HAVE God's favor."

Maybe outwardly, it looks the same, but the motivation is miles apart (as well as the final outcome!) This conversation mirrored another one I had with a Muslim intern. We compared our faiths. Good deeds for the Muslim are "have to"; for Christians, it's "get to." The Islam religion can be summed up by the phrase "serve him." For the Christian, it is "love him." It's the radical difference between wages and grace.

The best the Muslim can hope for is that the good deeds of a lifetime outweigh the bad and that you arrive at the gates of paradise to find Allah in a good mood. If he's not, there goes a lifetime of good deeds out the window.

For the Christian, we boast only in the cross of Christ. Salvation is by grace alone and faith alone. Good works are only the evidence of heart-faith.

There are many reasons why I love making trips like this, not the least is that I'm surrounded with continuous reminders (by contrast) of God's grace!

I'm back home safely after nearly three days of travel. Next week, I promise I'll give you a sneak look at my upcoming novel, "The Six-Liter Club."

Also, if you're interested, I've joined another blog where I will contribute on occasion: visit http://internationalchristianfictionwriters.blogspot.com

Grace,

Harry

What it takes to be a master writer

Fellow writer Mary DeMuth has posted an interesting article @ http://michaelhyatt.com/2009/10/what-it-takes-to-become-a-master-writer.html

In her blog "What it Takes To Be A master Writer" Mary answers a question fielded by most published authors.

And Mary tells the grinding truth about improving the craft, the answer listeners steeped in an instant-gratification world don't want to hear: 10,000 hours of practice.

Wow. Break that down. That's a full time job (assuming 40 hr week and two weeks off a year) for FIVE YEARS. And that's before publication, so let's make it ten years of twenty hour weeks because you need another job to support your writing habit.

Most good writing doesn't happen without a long period of craft-work. But that runs counter-culture to our instant-potato, microwave-everything culture. We want washboard abs in two weeks, a complete work-out in four minutes a day and our success overnight.

But greatness for a writer rarely comes without a willingness to spend long weeks alone and learning to be OK without publication.

As God's children, we understand His sovereignty over all. Sure, he could make me or any other writer and overnight success, but he'll likely use the hours of solitude in perfecting the craft as a means of grace to accomplish his plan. And He rarely measures success the way man does. In Isaiah 28:10 we read, "for it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little."

I've often read that verse and thought, boy, Isaiah sure hasn't met my editors! They would have never let me get away with repetitive words like that. The red marks would have been all over that text. But God isn't in a hurry and the prose gets repetitive for a reason. God is interested in quality. And not necessarily quality.

Take a look at Mary DeMuth's blog. Don't despair. In God's universe, great writing is almost always accomplished "line upon line, line upon line."

As always, I'm hoping that you will understand your need for grace every moment, Harry.

"I thought you were a woman!"

OK, I'll admit to a little vanity. I often look at what people are reading in public places, like in airports when they are waiting around for a flight. I dream of someday seeing someone actually reading a Harry Kraus novel so I could sneak up and ask them what they are reading.

Well, it actually happened to me....once. But the person's response wasn't what I was expecting.

A few years ago, I was in Scottsdale, Arizona at a surgery meeting, eating alone in a restaurant. A couple came in and sat at the next table. The man was quickly absorbed in some sporting event on the large-screen TV while the woman picked up a book to read. I casually looked over. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was one of mine, "Could I Have This Dance?"

So now what to do? I HAD to talk to her. I waited until they stood to leave and then I stood up as well and said something lame. "Excuse me. I happened to notice you were reading. Where did you get that book?"

The woman looked at me like I was some creep daring to hit on her in front of her husband. And that had to be the worst come-on line in history. She answered, "The library back home."

By this time, I was committed. I launched ahead. "Well, believe it or not, I wrote that book."

She did a quick double take of the cover and looked back at me. "I thought you were a woman." (what she meant was I thought the author of this book was a woman).

Granted, my name carries little recognition with readers. She was reading a book with an attractive young woman on the cover and the story is written from the view point of a woman in medicine....so, of course, she assumed the writer was a woman!

In a way, she'd paid me a huge complement. As a man, I'd pulled it off, writing in a believable way from a woman's point of view.

She quickly looked down at the book again. "It does say,'Harry.'"

"Yes," I said, pointing at my chest. "That's me."

At this point, I did something even lamer, pulling out my driver's license to convince her. "See?"

She was polite and believed me. In fact, a few minutes later, she came back into the restaurant and wanted a picture with me as she held up the book. I think she wanted proof for the librarian back in Wisconsin.

Anyway, that was my ego-moment, wrapped up in a bow of misconception: "I thought you were a woman!"

Have a great day. The weather is turning a bit cooler in my part of Virginia. The leaves will be changing soon. I love it.

Harry

If you want your evangelism program to fail, read this.

If you want your evangelism program to fail, read this.

Programs with a focus on converting the lost, however well-intended, are going to fail.

In our post-modern culture (and all around the globe where pre-modernism and modernism is still in vogue for that matter), recipients of evangelistic efforts are savvy enough to know when they are being targeted for conversion. And the natural impulse will be to run! Far away! 

No one wants to be a project, a notch on the back of someone's King James Bible.

If you want your evangelism to succeed, stop counting nickels and noses.  Stop keeping records.

You mean my goal shouldn't be to convert the lost?  

RIGHT!  

EXACTLY!

I can hear the criticism:  but Jesus commanded us in the Great Commission to make disciples.  Go into all the world!

I get that.  Believe me, I do. I've been there, working on a foreign soil. For years.

And I'm all for the Great Commission. 

What I'm saying is that our goal shouldn't be to convert the lost.  Our goal should be to LOVE the lost.  And if we do......guess what? Conversion will follow.

When Jesus talked about love, he instructed us in the strongest language:  "A new COMMANDMENT I give to you."  (Capitalization is mine.)

This is the missing ingredient in failed evangelism programs. If our goal is simply to love (work benevolently on behalf of someone else for their benefit, not yours) the lost, they will be closer to conversion than if they heard a set of four spiritual laws or the Roman road. 

I've come back to 1Corinthians 13 over and over and over.  You can do everything, even give all your money away to the poor, work tirelessly walking door to door, preaching a message, but if you do not love, your words and actions will not sound a clear message. It will be as effective as a cracked cymbal.  

I know from personal experience that especially in cross-cultural, cross religion (Muslim) evangelism efforts, love in deed will carry your message much farther than a factual word alone.

I'm not against evangelism programs. I'm only saying that they must be grounded in a heart of love for the lost or all program efforts will be ineffective.

OK, I've vented now. I'll get off my soapbox and go back to writing.

        And I hope, loving my readers well with a good story. 'Cause if I'm not loving them with a good story and only "messaging" them with the Gospel, my communication will be ineffective, see?

Grace,

Harry Lee

PS:  The picture is a friend of mine, Mark Newton, MD, showing love in ACTION. I've been with Mark on numerous trips into a country closed to open evangelism.  But guess what? No country is closed to love!

Never Forget!

     On the morning of September 10, 2001 my wife and oldest son discussed the plans for the day. Should they visit the twin towers on the 10th or the 11th? After some debate, they decided to visit on the 10th, never knowing that they would be some of the last tourists to ever set foot on the top of the towers.

     That evening, as we sat watching the pouring rain in Yankee stadium, we ate overpriced hot dogs and waited for the game to begin. Eventually, Joe Torre came out onto the field shaking his head and the game was cancelled. I'll forever remember my words of comfort to my disappointed son, who had wanted to see a major league baseball game. "Don't worry, Joel. Tomorrow we have tickets to a Broadway show. That won't be cancelled for rain. Nothing cancels Broadway."

     Little did I know.

     Of course, Broadway was cancelled on 9/11 because of the unthinkable. America was attacked. And many of us felt vulnerable for the first time.

     For most of us, it was our first up close and personal encounter with radical Islam.

     I've often thought it a bit ironic that I would end up reaching out to the people who hold fast to their Muslim faith. In Kijabe, Kenya, many of my patients were Muslim and I learned a lot in my dealings with my Muslim patients:

     Most Muslims want Islam to be judged by things other than violence. Most Muslims want to exist peacefully with their neighbors. (Most Christians do not want to be judged by dark chapters in our history such as the crusades either!)

     Most Muslims cannot be converted with an intellectual argument, pointing out inconsistencies between the Bible and the Koran, even when other historical books have proven the authenticity of Christianity's sacred writings.

     Most Muslims from Africa that I've met believe they understand Christianity, but in reality, they know little about the gospel message. All they have been told is that our book is corrupt, that we worship multiple Gods and Western culture is confused with our faith.  Just as they don't want me to judge their religion by 9/11, I have to ask that they not judge Christianity by popular US culture!

     Love is the best way to begin to relate to a Muslim. If they sense that you have an agenda beyond this (i.e. conversion), evangelism falls flat. Remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13? All evangelistic efforts fail if they are void of love!

     Nonetheless, there are radical groups with a violent jihad philosophy, with a goal of Muslim domination by force. For these, we can only pray, and hope that if our lives intersect with theirs, they will realize that they are loved (by us and by our Savior).

Anyway, I'm beginning to ramble. I really only wanted to remind my readers to make love your highest aim. Let's let 9/11 be an anniversary that prompts us to remember that there are many, many Muslims who are dying in need of a Savior. Our job is not to correct their doctrine, or preach. Our job is to love. Someone smart once said, "people will not care what you know until they know that you care."

     I'm including a photograph. It's my son and my wife, a souvenir photo taken on the top of the twin towers on 9/10/2001. 

     I know I'll never forget!