FROM THE FOREWORD "Michael Card's unabashed love for Peter shines through these pages and permits him to probe the emotional complexity of the man without romance or sentimentality. While the traditional adjectives applied to Peter--impetuous, headstrong, reckless and stubborn--find firm foundation in the Gospels, they threaten to reduce him to a caricature."The reader feels that Michael Card has stepped into the trembling Peter's sandals when the terrifying splendor of Christ's divinity shines through the rags of his humanity on Mount Tabor, when the stricken apostle implores Jesus, 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, ' when the unambiguous Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, when the crushed Peter meets the eyes of his Master as the cock crows, when the spiritually intoxicated Peter is embraced by Jesus in the upper room, when the deliriously happy fisherman swims at breakneck speed to his Lord on the Tiberian seashore, when the fierce, primal energy of Peter propels him from hiding to fearlessly proclaim the risen Christ in the power of the Spirit."Card is not a neutral, dispassionate observer when Jesus dismantles Peter's false self of inner agitation, drivenness, bravado and emotional turmoil in order to shape a new creation who will become the unquestioned leader of the apostolic community."A Fragile Stone speaks to wobbly disciples who never seem to get it all together and to naive leaders who think they have, Michael Card has written a lyrical love song about Peter, and personally, I found the melody contagious."Brennan Manning, author of A Glimpse of Jesus
