But in a world where we sometimes know more about the Kardashians than we do the people sleeping right down the hall, it's easy to forget that walking through life with our family offers all sorts of joy wrapped up in the seemingly mundane. There's even a little bit of sacred sitting smack-dab in the middle of the ordinary. And since time's-a-wastin', we need to be careful that we don't take our people--and their stories--for granted. Whether it's a marathon bacon-frying session, a road trip gone hysterically wrong, or a mother-in-law who makes every trip to the grocery store an adventure, author Sophie Hudson reminds us how important it is to slow down and treasure the day-to-day encounters with the people we love the most.Written in the same witty style as Sophie's BooMama blog, "A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet" is a cheerful, funny, and tender account of Sophie's very Southern family. It's a look into the real lives of real people--and a real, loving God right in the middle of it all.

    He was born in Nigeria and was taught to observe the strict teachings of Islam. At age five he woke at 4:45 every morning to attend the mosque and perform dawn prayer with the other men in his village. His training to memorize the Qur'an began at age five. It was at this same age that he began copying the entire Qur'an word for word. He was being raised to emerge as a leader among clerics, capable of leading a jihad, or holy struggle, to convert nonbelievers to Islam. However, Tito's path took an expected turn when he was introduced to Christianity. His decision to believe in Jesus Christ cost him his family and his freedom. Tito thought he would spend his remaining days enduring a life sentence in an uncivilized Egyptian prison. For fifteen years he suffered and waited and prayed. Tito said, "I never gave up hope. I never stopped believing." Although he was falsely imprisoned, beaten, and ridiculed, Tito's remarkable true story is one of faith, forgiveness, and testimony that God does hear and answer prayers.

    Rasband shares timely counsel and personal stories about recognizing the hand of the Lord in our everyday pursuits. Through his own experience, Elder Rasband helps us learn first how to seek the Spirit and then how to recognize and respond to divine guidance in our families, with friends and colleagues, in our Church service, and during times of trial.

    Wherever you are on your perfectly imperfect journey, Brook Romney lovingly designed this book to make a difference in your daily life. Relatable real-life stories on every page will remind you of your worth, your power, and the overflowing grace you can access right now. Simple exercises at the end of each chapter give practical ideas for increasing your personal peace. If you have ever felt overwhelmed, underprepared, or out of your league in life, I can't recommend this book enough." -Emily Orton, Author of Seven at Sea

    Butwe can choose to live it differently. It doesn’t alwaysfeel like it, but we do have thefreedom to creatively change the everyday little things in our lives so thatour path better aligns with our values and passions. The popular blogger and founder of the internationallyrecognized Simple Mom onlinecommunity tells the story of her family’s ongoing quest to live more simply,fully, and intentionally.Part memoir, part travelogue, part practical guide, Notes from a Blue Bike takes you from ahillside in Kosovo to a Turkish high-rise to the congested city of Austin to asmall town in Oregon. It chronicles schooling quandaries and dinnertimedilemmas, as well as entrepreneurial adventures and family excursions viaplane, train, automobile, and blue cruiser bike.Entertaining and compelling—but never shrill or dogmatic—Notes from a Blue Bike invites you toclimb on your own bike, pay attention to who you are and what your familyneeds, and make some important choices.It’s a risky ride, but it’s worth it—living your lifeaccording to who you really aresimply takes a little intention. It’s never too late.

    The heart of her work on her national public radio program and podcast, On Being, has been to shine a light on people whose insights kindle in us a sense of wonder and courage. Scientists in a variety of fields; theologians from an array of faiths; poets, activists, and many others have all opened themselves up to Tippett's compassionate yet searching conversation.   In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind. The book is a master class in living, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of teaching faculty.   The open questions and challenges of our time are intimate and civilizational all at once, Tippett says – definitions of when life begins and when death happens, of the meaning of community and family and identity, of our relationships to technology and through technology. The wisdom we seek emerges through the raw materials of the everyday. And the enduring question of what it means to be human has now become inextricable from the question of who we are to each other.   This book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century – of personal growth but also renewed public life and human spiritual evolution. It insists on the possibility of a common life for this century marked by resilience and redemption, with beauty as a core moral value and civility and love as muscular practice. Krista Tippett's great gift, in her work and in Becoming Wise, is to avoid reductive simplifications but still find the golden threads that weave people and ideas together into a shimmering braid.   One powerful common denominator of the lessons imparted to Tippett is the gift of presence, of the exhilaration of engagement with life for its own sake, not as a means to an end. But presence does not mean passivity or acceptance of the status quo. Indeed Tippett and her teachers are people whose work meets, and often drives, powerful forces of change alive in the world today. In the end, perhaps the greatest blessing conveyed by the lessons of spiritual genius Tippett harvests in Becoming Wise is the strength to meet the world where it really is, and then to make it better.

    It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as what she found when the time came to read them.  “They were exactly where she said they would be: three shelves of beautiful cloth-bound books . . . I opened the first journal. It was empty. I opened the second journal. It was empty. I opened the third. It too was empty . . . Shelf after shelf after shelf, all of my mother’s journals were blank.” What did Williams’s mother mean by that? In fifty-four chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams creates a lyrical and caring meditation of the mystery of her mother's journals. When Women Were Birds is a kaleidoscope that keeps turning around the question “What does it mean to have a voice?”

    This former Baptist preacher tells his fascinating story of following the Spirit’s voice and ultimately becoming a convert in the LDS church. This remarkable true story will inspire you to follow your own promptings and share truth wherever you find it.

    Promised through the Holy Ghost that he would not die before the long-awaited Messiah, Simeon apparently spent much of his life watching for fulfillment of that promise. Surely there must have been times of doubt, moments when it seemed foolish to cling to such a hope, but his faith was at last rewarded when he was shown the infant Jesus in the temple and recognized him as the Savior of the world.In The Simeon Solution, Anne Osborn Poelman describes how she, like Simeon, learned to trust in the Lord and have patient faith in the ultimate fulfillment of his promises. When she was a medical student at Stanford University she discovered The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, finding in it the spiritual fullness for which she had been searching since childhood. She joined the Church and went on to become an internationally known expert in her medical specialty. At age thirty-eight she married Elder Ronald E. Poelman, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. In this book she shares many personal experiences that have demonstrated the workings of the Simeon solution in her own life.

    Text Me When You Get Home is a personal and sociological perspective - and ultimately a celebration - of the evolution of the modern female friendship.Kayleen Schaefer has experienced (and occasionally, narrowly survived) most every iteration of the modern female friendship. First there was the mean girl cliques of the '90s; then the teenage friendships that revolved around constant discussion of romantic interests and which slowly morphed into Sex and the City spin-offs; the disheartening loneliness of "I'm not like other girls" friendships with only men; the discovery of a platonic soul mate; and finally, the overwhelming love of a supportive female squad (#squad).And over the course of these friendships, Schaefer made a startling discovery: girls make the best friends. And she isn't the only one to realize this. Through interviews with friends, mothers, authors, celebrities, businesswomen, doctors, screenwriters, and historians (a list that includes Judy Blume, Megan Abbott, The Fug Girls, and Kay Cannon), Schaefer shows a remarkable portrait of what female friendships can help modern women accomplish in their social, personal, and work lives.A validation of female friendship unlike any that's ever existed before, this book is a mix of historical research, the author's own personal experience, and conversations about friendships across the country. Everything Schaefer uncovers leads to - and makes the case for - the eventual conclusion that these ties among women are making us (both as individuals and as society as a whole) stronger than ever before.

    

    Here she interweaves a personal story with the work that she loves, illuminating how, for better and worse, religious traditions have shaped how we understand ourselves; how we relate to one another; and, most importantly, how to get through the most difficult challenges we face.Drawing upon the perspectives of neurologists, anthropologists, and historians, as well as her own research, Pagels opens unexpected ways of understanding persistent religious aspects of our culture.A provocative and deeply moving account from one of the most compelling religious thinkers at work today, Why Religion? explores the spiritual dimension of human experience.

    

    Looking at current administrative and cultural practices, the author explains why some women struggle with the gendered divisions of labor. She then examines ample real-life examples that are currently happening in local settings around the country that expand and reimagine gendered practices. Readers will understand how to evaluate possible pain points in current practices and propose solutions that continue to uphold all mandated church policies. Readers will be equipped with the tools they need to have respectful, empathetic and productive conversations about gendered practices in Church administration and culture.

    This shocking case of mistaken identity stunned the country and made national news. Would it destroy a family? Shatter their faith? Push two families into bitterness, resentment, and guilt? Read this unprecedented story of two traumatized families who describe their ordeal and explore the bond sustaining and uniting them as they deal with their bizarre reversal of life lost and life found. And join Whitney Cerak, the sole surviving student, as she comes to terms with her new identity, forever altered, yet on the brink of new beginnings. Mistaken Identity weaves a complex tale of honesty, vulnerability, loss, hope, faith, and love in the face of one of the strangest twists of circumstance imaginable.