After a grim medical diagnosis 11 years ago, Ed Dobson shared his difficulties with viewers of a seven-part film series titled “Ed’s Story.” Learning to live with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, the now-retired pastor gives readers a further glimpse into his life in Seeing Through the Fog: Hope When Your World Falls Apart (978-0-781-40555-3, $17.99), releasing this month from David C Cook.

When diagnosed in 2000, Dobson knew there was no cure for ALS, which causes the neurons in a person’s nerves to die. Electrical impulses from the brain then fail to reach the muscles, and then the muscles die.

“There are no times when it stabilizes,” Dobson writes of the disease. “There are no times when it is reversed. ALS is a downward spiral, month after month. It is a fatal, terminal disease.”

Dobson wasn’t kidding himself when he learned what disease he had, but he also wasn’t afraid of death. He had settled the question of his eternity at age 11 after hearing his father preach in his native Ireland. But, he writes: “Initially, I sank into a fog of despair about my future. It took me months to really begin to come out of it. Along the way I learned some great lessons.”

Named Pastor of the Year by Moody Bible Institute, Dobson had served with Jerry Falwell at Thomas Road Baptist Church and now is pastor emeritus at Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Mich. The now-late Rev. Falwell was one of several well-known ministry leaders of whom Dobson felt he had to ask forgiveness for some particular offense. He offers his account of clearing the air with Falwell, James Dobson and Bob Jones, among others, in order to keep his conscience clean before God—one thing ALS has taught him.

Although he believes heaven is “better by far” than life on Earth, as his dad used to say, Dobson naturally wants to be healed. Still, a Pentecostal pastor offered some wise words about seeking healing: “If you get obsessed, you will lose your focus. Get lost in the wonder of God, and who knows what He will do for you.” Responding from that new perspective, Dobson writes: “I needed to trust Him with my life, not because I was sick, but because I should trust Him that way always.”

Although Dobson, who relies on his wife to care for him from day to day, is not obsessed with being healed now, he still prays for it, “but mostly I simply try to focus on God; sometimes He feels close and sometimes I can only see Him through a fog,” he writes. “But I know He’s there.”

To order Seeing Through the Fog, released in hardcover, call 800-323-7543.

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