Ross Douthat

And early on in that, I had a bunch of phantom heart attacks where I went to the emergency room and I would think briefly that I was going to die.

And what was striking in those moments was

actually how little I was personally afraid of my own mortality and how much fear I had about my family and my kids.

Your kids are older now than mine were then.

Two of them are grown or as grown, you know, as grown as young people can be, right?

But just tell me how you're thinking about your relationship to them and your own family life in the shadow of death.

You're doing okay right now.

Can I ask?

how you think your kids are processing the experience?

Just on the, you know, front of having something like this change how you think about your own priorities, is there advice that you would give to someone who is, you know, the Ben Sasse father of three at age 40 or age 35 when the kids are young and everything's stressful and chaotic in light of where you are now?

One of my recent guests was Bart Ehrman, who's New Testament scholar, well-known as a skeptic who was a Christian, was evangelical Christian for a time and lost his Christian faith.

And in our conversation, he talked about the idea that he didn't lose his faith because he decided that the Gospels weren't historically reliable, though that was mostly what we argued about, right?

But because of the problem of evil, of human suffering.

And he specifically talked about unanswered prayers.

And...

As you know, I assume you've prayed for healing.

Yes, sir.

Not to be, you know, not to be the guy who just beats the odds, but to be the miracle story.

God hasn't answered those prayers yet.

Are you angry at God ever?