So what do you do when you're parenting a child who has experienced trauma or has extra challenges? You often feel alone and inadequate. You want so much to help your child, but you are at the end of your own rope. You feel guilty that sometimes you want to just quit.What can you do -- how can you make it through the day -- how can you help your child while also taking care of yourself?Maybe someone you love is parenting a traumatized child. Or perhaps you are a social worker, counselor, or other professional who sees families like these every day. You want to know how to better help them.In Dancing with a Porcupine, Jennie Owens shares with humor and raw honesty the compelling story of her struggle to save her own life while caring for three children she and her husband adopted from foster care. How could she stay loving, giving, and forgiving in the midst of a daily battle with children acting out the rage, resentment, and pain of their own traumatic pasts?When faith, endurance, and creativity are not enough, what's next?

    Through stories, this book helps readers become more comfortable with a faith full of truth and mystery.

    But dont retire. Refire! God is not finished with you. Read along as Barbara and Susan help guide you through the season of transition known as the Empty Nest. Get ready to celebrate whats behind and to prepare for whats ahead.

    It's the only book specifically for parents that reveals the unseen forces that shape every interaction with your kids.- Identify which of the five love styles you have. - Discover the surprising dynamics that shape your parenting. - Get rid of your "buttons" so your kids can't push them. - Create a close connection with your kids that will last a lifetime. - Learn the seven gifts every child needs.Based on years of research in the area of attachment and bonding, How We Love Our Kids shows parents how to overcome the predictable challenges that arise out of the five love styles and helps parents cultivate a secure, deep connection with a child of any age. Retool your reactions and refocus on how you love. Start today. Watch your kids flourish and thrive as they receive what was missing in your love.With four self-assessments and powerful application tools to use with children of all ages.

    God. Two words that jar against each other and yet describe Jesus perfectly. Jesus was fully human and fully divine, which is extraordinary. But He was also ordinary in the most counterintuitive way: His life shows us what normal humanity is supposed to look like. Jesus came to earth to redeem humanity itself, and through Him, that redeemed humanity is available to us all.In Sneezing Jesus, Brian Hardin journeys through vivid Gospel stories, pointing to a revolutionary truth: If Jesus was a normal human living a normal human life, then His death and resurrection didn’t just save our souls—it saves our humanity here and now.

    Perfect for gift-giving, this compact booklet will encourage and inspire every mother with the knowledge that she is truly captivating.

    She traveled extensively with her husband, Billy Graham, on his many Crusades around the world. While their five children were growing up, she took on the responsibilities of managing the household to give Billy the freedom to travel and preach wherever God called him.These poems, first published as a collection in 1977, are from all phases and periods of her life. "I wrote because, at times, I had to. It was write, or develop an ulcer-or forget," she said. "I chose to write. At times I even wrote for the sheer fun."Numerous family photos taken over the years-including some never before published-add a rich context to this edition, creating a treasured memory book of the life of this remarkable woman.

    He is admired and ridiculed, embraced and rejected. If you want to provoke controversy and emotional discussion, just mention His name.Jesus was inclusive when He welcomed all the weary and burdened to come to Him and experience the love of His Father. But He was not open-minded when it came to the truth. He stated that He was the truth. And this flies in the face of current politically correct thought.In Politically Incorrect Jesus, Joe Battaglia exposes the intellectual dishonesty of political correctness and presents Jesus as the model for embracing a counter-cultural faith, which empowers us to be salt and light. Be bold and stand firm in your faith when the culture demands you stand down.

    S. Lewis in 1956 astounded the world. Based on research and extensive interviews of family and friends.

    However, this connectedness often takes years to develop. Now that journey can be a joyful one! Offering practical advice and biblical wisdom, this book helps mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law nurture their relationships. Readers will learn how to dance together on topics that include—dealing with traditions and activitiesmanaging differences in handling moneyhandling intrusive comments and actionsaccepting and rejecting child-rearing advicecoping with differences in faithThrough thoughtful ideas, real-life insights, and humor, The Mother-in-Law Dance helps mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law experience a dynamic, loving relationship.

    She found him when she was a young adult mired in spiritual busyness and when she was a new bride with doubts about whether her fledgling marriage would survive. She found him alone in the night as she cradled her longing for babies who did not come. She found him as she kissed the faces of children on another continent who had lived years without a mommy’s touch.In Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet, Hagerty masterfully draws from the narrative of her life to craft a mosaic of a God who leans into broken stories. Here readers see a God who is present in every changing circumstance. Most significantly, they see a God who is present in every unchanging circumstance as well.Whatever lost expectations readers are facing—in family, career, singleness, or marriage—Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet will bring them closer to a God who longs for them to know him more. What does it look like to know God’s nearness when life breaks? What does it mean to receive his life when earthly life remains barren? How can God turn the bitterness of unmet desire into new flavors of joy?With exquisite storytelling and reflection, Hagerty brings readers back to hope, back to healing, back to a place that God is holding for them alone—a place where the unseen is more real than what the eye can perceive. A place where every bitter thing is sweet.

    This abundance of stress is impacting families and in many cases, manifesting itself in children with difficult and severe behaviors. Homes often turn into intense fighting grounds of power struggles and control battles parents find themselves in us against them scenarios with their children. Tension continually builds and before long, parents are feeling completely overwhelmed, powerless, and resentful of their children. As parents implement traditional parenting techniques, parenting in a way that most parenting books recommend, they find their situations becoming worse, not better as promised these resources. It doesn't have to be this way! Heather T. Forbes, LCSW, offers families a new view to parenting children with difficult and severe behaviors. As a parent herself who experienced dark days (and years) following the adoption of her two children, she offers a ground-breaking approach to parenting that shows parents a proven way to develop strong and loving relationships with their children. In her new book, Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love Based Approach to Helping Children with Severe Behaviors, Volume 2, Heather offers practical and effective solutions based in scientific research, coupled with professional and personal experience. She is a master at bridging the gap between academic research and real life when the rubber hits the road parenting. This book is written in an easy to understand and easy to grasp format for anyone working with or parenting children with difficult or severe behaviors. The first six chapters discuss the principles of her love-based parenting paradigm. A newunderstanding of why traditional parenting techniques are ineffective with children with difficult behaviors is given, along with clear and concise explanations of the science behind trauma and negative early life experiences. The next seven chapters address specific behaviors, including poor social skills, homework battles, demanding behaviors, self-injury, defensive attitudes, no conscience, and chores. Each chapter gives specific examples of how to implement her parenting principles, empowering parents to make amazing and permanent changes in their homes. All the examples given throughout these chapters are true stories provided by parents who read and implemented her first book, Volume 1. The book ends with a parenting bonus section where more real-life stories from real-life parents with real-life children are given. These examples range in the spectrum of the ages of the children and a variety of behavioral issues. This book offers hope and healing. It goes beyond just changing a child s behaviors but goes to the level of healing for all family members. This book has the power to literally change families for life and to help families find the peace in their homes that they dreamed of from the beginning--and the peace they deserve!

    Why am I not a more joyful parent? Why aren't my kids turning out as I expected? Why do I always feel as if I'm not doing enough for my children? Is Parenting Supposed to Be This Difficult? As a mother of six, Leslie Leyland Fields knows firsthand the insecurities and questions that come with rearing children. In Parenting Is Your Highest Calling, she tackles nine myths about parenting, including:- Children make you happy and bring great fulfillment. - You will always feel love for your child. - Your success as a parent can be measured by your child's behavior. - There is one "right" biblical model for family life. - Good parenting will result in happy children.Through a close look at God's own life as a parent as well as stories from real-life families, Fields highlights the transforming biblical truths that release parents from the grip of mistaken assumptions. Fresh, provocative insights will lead you to a deeper understanding of God and yourself- an understanding that lifts the weight of guilt and fear and frees you to love your children as God intended.Includes "going deeper" questions for individuals, couples, or groups.

    6:6).Today we see a culture that is increasingly hostile to Christians, and Christians are increasingly aware that they need to form strong communities to do for them what the culture no longer can. This is a good thing, but it will only work if like Nehemiah and his men we are committed to resisting the dictates of our culture. If we are at all afraid of looking like the crazy fundamentalists that our culture loves to hate, then our communities will be as easily led by the culture as anybody else.In this short book, Pastor Douglas Wilson describes some of the most important ways to create and maintain counter-cultural Christian communities. Whether he is talking about the need for kids to get calluses or for love and loyalty within churches, Douglas Wilson brings decades of on-the-ground wisdom and experience to the topic.A city without walls is not really a city; neither is a city without a church at the center. Get busy. Build the walls, fight sin, love your family and church, and live out the Gospel.

    Despite knowing that the system's goal is reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question, evaluate, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their family--even if it means most likely having to give them back. After years of starts and stops, and endless navigation of the complexities and injustices of the foster care system, a phone call finally comes: a three-day old baby girl, named Coco, in immediate need of a foster family. Sarah and Eric bring this newborn stranger home. "You were never ours," Sarah tells Coco, "yet we belong to each other." A love letter to Coco, and to the countless children like her, Stranger Care chronicles Sarah's discovery of what it means to mother--in this case, not just a vulnerable infant, but the birth mother who loves her, too. Ultimately, Coco's story reminds us that we depend on family, and that family can take different forms. With "fearless, stirring, rhythmic" (Nick Flynn) prose, Sentilles lays bare an intimate, powerful story, with universal concerns: How can we care for and protect each other? How do we ensure a more hopeful future for life on this planet? And if we're all related--tree, bird, star, person--how might we better live?