RRwG

The Ride I Never Expected

Life rarely warns us before the ground shifts beneath our feet.

For Kyle Mauldin Sutton, the ride began with a diagnosis few men ever expect to receive: breast cancer. Before he could fully understand what that meant, the journey expanded to include major heart surgery, recovery, caregiving, family illness, and profound loss.

Each new turn brought uncertainty. Every climb seemed to reveal another sudden drop. There were moments of fear, exhaustion, grief, and the unsettling realization that life would not return to what it had been.

Yet God was present through it all—not always by changing the circumstances, but by changing the person moving through them.

More Than A Medical Story

A LIFETIME OF PEAKS AND PLUNGES

Riding Rollercoasters with God is not simply an account of cancer and heart surgery. It is the story of what happened within Kyle as illness stripped away his assumptions about strength, control, faith, and the future.

While recovering, Kyle was also drawn more deeply into the lives and illnesses of the people he loved. Caregiving blurred the line between patient and protector. Grief arrived before one crisis had ended, and faith was tested outside the safety of easy answers.

The experience forced him to confront questions medicine could not answer:

What remains when the life we expected disappears?

Where is God when healing does not look the way we hoped?

Can joy survive when circumstances give us every reason to surrender it?

The answers did not arrive all at once. They emerged through hospital rooms, difficult conversations, acts of care, unexpected grace, and the choice to keep moving forward.

The Meaning of Joy

JOY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RIDE

Joy is often confused with happiness.

Happiness responds to circumstances. Joy reaches deeper.

The joy Kyle discovered did not deny fear, pain, anger, or grief. It did not require him to pretend that everything happened for a reason or that faith made suffering easy. It became the quiet assurance that even in the most uncertain moments, he was not facing them alone.

God did not remove every hill, drop, or unexpected turn. He remained beside Kyle through the entire ride.

That presence became the source of a joy illness could not take, grief could not erase, and uncertainty could not silence.

What You Will Find Inside

Riding Rollercoasters with God explores:

• receiving a male breast cancer diagnosis
• facing major heart surgery and recovery
• becoming both patient and caregiver
• walking beside loved ones through illness
• experiencing loss while still trying to heal
• questioning God without abandoning faith
• releasing the illusion of control
• discovering the difference between happiness and joy
• recognizing grace in places where it was least expected

This is not a guide to suffering correctly. It is an honest testimony from someone who discovered that faith can remain present even when certainty does not.

Who This Book Is For

This book is for anyone whose life has changed without permission.

It is for patients, survivors, caregivers, and families living through illness. It is for those carrying grief while the rest of the world expects them to continue as though nothing has happened.

It is also for anyone who has questioned God during suffering and wondered whether doubt means faith has failed.

Riding Rollercoasters with God offers no shallow promises and no demand for constant optimism. It offers companionship, honesty, and the testimony of a faith that learned how to hold fear and joy at the same time.

A Note From Kyle

WHY I AM TELLING THIS STORY

I did not choose the events that created this book.

I would not have chosen cancer, heart surgery, the illnesses of people I loved, or the losses that followed. I would not have chosen the fear, helplessness, or uncertainty that came with them.

But I can choose what I carry forward.

This book is not my attempt to explain why painful things happen. It is my testimony about what happened when I stopped asking faith to protect me from every difficult experience and allowed it to accompany me through them.

The ride changed me.

It taught me that courage does not require the absence of fear. Faith does not require the absence of questions. And joy does not require a painless life.

Kyle Mauldin Sutton

Riding Rollercoasters with God