By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
Anyone who knows me at all knows I am “nutz about neuroscience.” I was exposed to it while I was in Iraq, and I am unashamedly hooked. It never takes long in a conversation for me to get to the fact that we as humans, and especially our brains, are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and that I now believe there is absolutely nothing you can go through that cannot be completely redeemed. In a word, you were designed to heal, and now you can have new and better tools to do so.
And it is not only a matter of faith. Scripture and science have been proven to have collided and kissed, and there is measurable proof. It can be seen on scans that illustrate the difference between a brain that has been harmed by life, and a brain whose owner has learned how to perform what combat neurosurgeon Dr. Lee Warren calls “self-brain surgery.”
For me, what makes Dr. Lee’s work so commendable is the fact that the guy has been through literal hell himself and has the hope of heaven as one of his trusted “scalpels.” He also has a simple, no-nonsense approach that works irrespective of your level of education. And, perhaps the most important is that through the miracles of technology, he is building an army of fellow travelers that provide the irreplaceable quality of support and ongoing proof that you are not alone on your journey.
As to Dr. Lee’s personal story, the man was in Iraq when I was, stationed at Balad, which is about 40 miles north of Baghdad, and serving in a CASH, better known as a Combat Area Service Hospital. He literally was blood-stained from performing more than 200 neurosurgeries due to combat-related injuries, but that isn’t all. His marriage was falling apart (something that I unfortunately observed often while working in Morale, Welfare and Recreation) and as far as PTSD is concerned, one day Dr. Lee was out doing his mandatory Physical Training run and got caught in the middle of incoming to the tune of 200 mortar rounds. As bad as all of that was, what nearly did him in was the violent death of his 19-year-old son, Mitch.
Dr. Lee’s testimony is that in short time his hair literally turned grey and he broke his molars. He had been a Christian all his life, and he was living in the “shadow of death” on a level that most folks can’t begin to imagine, let alone experience. He had to find healing and purpose, or he was done. And, by God’s grace, he has, and while he is still performing surgeries, he has written three books that tell the story and weave together to dish out wonderful doses of industrial-strength hope. In a word, Dr. Lee “has the receipts.”
The books are called, No Place To Hide: A Brain Surgeon’s Long Journey Home From The Iraq War, followed by Hope Is The First Dose: A Treatment Plan For Recovering From Trauma, Tragedy And Other Massive Things, and his most recent, The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery: Connecting Neuroscience and Faith to Radically Transform Your Life. He also has a YouTube channel, podcasts, lots of resources, and he wants to help. Whether you feel you are a Capital-T-Trauma-train-wreck and are hanging on by a thread, or a typical lower-case-t-trauma human walking around with wounds no one sees, you need this guy. More importantly, you need the God who brought Lee through and taught him how to bring others along with him. Help that helps is here; please take it.
