For many they’re as close as children; for some they may be our only children. And while most of us can expect that our children will outlive us, sadly, our pets almost never do.Losing a pet can be as difficult as losing any other family member; we grieve, we miss them, and, mostly, we want closure, to know that our furry, feathered, or scaled friends are okay, wherever they are.For years, animal communicator Sonya Fitzpatrick has helped pet owners cope with the loss of their beloved companions. Many of them ask the same questions: Is my pet happy? Why did this happen? Is it okay to get another pet? Using her personal experiences as well as the stories of the families she’s worked with, Sonya sheds some light on the questions that every grieving pet owner has, and assures the reader that there are, in fact, no sad dogs (or cats or birds or turtles or horses or cows) in heaven.

      Peter, Matthew, Thomas, John: Who were these men? What was their relationship to Jesus? Tom Bissell provides rich and surprising answers to these ancient, elusive questions. He examines not just who these men were (and weren’t), but also how their identities have taken shape over the course of two millennia.   Ultimately, Bissell finds that the story of the apostles is the story of early Christianity: its competing versions of Jesus’s ministry, its countless schisms, and its ultimate evolution from an obscure Jewish sect to the global faith we know today in all its forms and permutations. In his quest to understand the underpinnings of the world’s largest religion, Bissell embarks on a years-long pilgrimage to the supposed tombs of the Twelve Apostles. He travels from Jerusalem and Rome to Turkey, Greece, Spain, France, India, and Kyrgyzstan, vividly capturing the rich diversity of Christianity’s worldwide reach. Along the way, he engages with a host of characters—priests, paupers, a Vatican archaeologist, a Palestinian taxi driver, a Russian monk—posing sharp questions that range from the religious to the philosophical to the political.   Written with warmth, empathy, and rare acumen, Apostle is a brilliant synthesis of travel writing, biblical history, and a deep, lifelong relationship with Christianity. The result is an unusual, erudite, and at times hilarious book—a religious, intellectual, and personal adventure fit for believers, scholars, and wanderers alike.From the Hardcover edition.

    Journalist Wayne Weible tells how his life was forever changed by what he experienced there.  With refreshing candor and self-deprecating humor, Wayne Weible (1937-2018) takes readers with him on the adventure to Medjugorje that radically and permanently changed his life.  You will discover the apparitions of the Blessed Mother along with him, as he chronicles the ways that the Virgin Mary continues to speak to the world today from Medjugorje. This book continues as the bestseller on Medjugorje in the English language, with over 385,000 copies sold.“Since 1981, the message of conversion and reconciliation with God has been uniquely reaffirmed by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the unlikely little village of Medjugorje. She has been appearing there daily to six young people who live in the valley that lies in the shadow of the cross on Mount Krizevac. According to the youths chosen for this special mission of renewal, the mother of Jesus is bringing an urgent plea from her Son to all mankind to turn away from a world terminally ill with the disease of sin and reconcile with Him.” —Wayne Weible

    What keeps us from truly following Jesus is that our hearts are pursuing something or someone else.  While these pursuits may not be the “graven images” of old, they are in fact modern day idols.  Behind the sin you’re struggling with, the discouragement you’re dealing with, the lack of purpose you’re living with is a false god that is winning the war for your heart. According to Idleman, idolatry isn’t an issue—it is the issue. By asking insightful questions, Idleman reveals which false gods each of us are allowing on the throne of our lives.  What do you sacrifice for?  What makes you mad?  What do you worry about? Whose applause do you long for?  We’re all wired for worship, but we often end up valuing and honoring the idols of money, sex, food, romance, success and many others that keep us from the intimate relationship with God that we desire. Using true, powerful and honest testimonies of those who have struggled in each area, gods at war illustrates a clear path away from the heartache of our 21st century idolatry back to the heart of God – enabling us to truly be completely committed followers of Jesus.

    This work we are going to do through our study of the book of Philippians might be the most important thing we've ever done. But we don't do it merely as another self-improvement project.The Bible knows nothing of a connected regenerate person, filled with the Spirit, whose goal is to just survive.Our faith journey here on Earth is not meant to be summed up to a behavior modification. Our journey should be a radical departure from the world and how it thinks. Our journey should represent a supernatural intervention remaking us into whom God built us to be.We want to be women who set our minds on Christ, better yet realizing we have already been given the mind of Christ and therefore, we are deeply and intrinsically motivated and moved by an entirely different source. Not only do we make Jesus happy, but we find our complete happiness in Him. These are truths that if we could only believe, would change everything. It is possible to waste our lives because we never learn to take our thoughts captive.This six-session Bible study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately) dives head first into Paul's letter to the Philippians, imploring and encouraging them to become entirely new kinds of humans whose minds are set solely on Christ. Bestselling author and Bible teacher, Jennie Allen steps through the book of Philippians with purpose and intention, unpacking the simple, but difficult truth of allowing ourselves and our minds to be transformed in the name of Christ. Jennie confronts our current cultural struggles while relating valid and trusted answers in Scripture that inspire real change from the inside out.Each session will include video teaching, group discussion, and personal study time of digging deeper, reflection, consideration, response, imagination, and Scripture memory.Designed for use with the Get Out of Your Head Video Study (sold separately).

    Therese of Lisieux. She was an emotionally disturbed child who suffered and and caused anguish to her family. Her mother, the heroic Zelie Martin, suffered most of all. Marie Baudouin-Croix, well-known French poet, has examined Zelie's correspondence with her daughters, her sister, her brother, and her sister-in-law. We see the awkward child, the despair of many, who was the first to follow Therese's Little Way. It was only after three valiant but unsuccessful attempts that Leonie was finally accepted by the Visitation Order in Caen. She succeeded in conquering a 'tough' temperament, so that by the time of her death in 1941, at the age of seventy eight, she was regarded as a saint and her convent at Caen was inundated with letters testifying to her posthumous aid.

    In September 1970, two boys met in the playground on their first day at secondary school in North London. They formed what would be described at the Old Bailey thirty years later as ‘a unique and wicked bond’. Between 1982 and 1986, striking near lonely railway stations in London and the Home Counties, their partnership took them from rape to murder. Three police forces pooled their resources to catch them in the biggest criminal manhunt since the Yorkshire Ripper Enquiry.A Dangerous Place is the first full-length account of the crimes of John Duffy and David Mulcahy. Told by the son of one of the police officers who led the enquiry, exhaustively researched and with unprecedented access, this is the story of two of the most notorious serial killers of the twentieth century and the times they operated in. It is the story of the women who died at their hands. It is the story of the women who survived them, and who had the courage to ensure justice was done. And it is the story of a father, told by a son.

    Harvard-trained theologian Meggan Watterson leads us verse by verse through Mary's gospel to illuminate the powerful teachings it contains.A gospel, as ancient and authentic as any of the gospels that the Christian bible contains, was buried deep in the Egyptian desert after an edict was sent out in the 4th century to have all copies of it destroyed. Fortunately, some rebel monks were wise enough to refuse-and thanks to their disobedience and spiritual bravery, we have several manuscripts of the only gospel that was written in the name of a woman: The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.Mary's gospel reveals a radical love that sits at the heart of the Christian story. Her gospel says that we are not sinful; we are not to feel ashamed or unworthy for being human. In fact, our purpose is to be fully human, to be a "true human being"- that is, a person who has remembered that, yes, we are a messy, limited ego, and we are also a limitless soul.And all we need to do is to turn inward (again and again); to meditate, like Mary Magdalene, in the way her gospel directs us, so that we can see past the ego of our own little lives to what's more real, and lasting, and infinite, and already here, within.With searing clarity, Watterson explains how and why Mary Magdalene came to be portrayed as the penitent prostitute and relates a more historically and theologically accurate depiction of who Mary was within the early Christ movement. And she shares how this discovery of Mary's gospel has allowed her to practice, and to experience, a love that never ends, a love that transforms everything.

    A survivor of three near-death experiences, Brinkley presents us with profound “Lessons from Heaven”—the Seven Truths revealed to him in the afterlife—to help readers find their personal paths to happiness, enlightenment, health, and prosperity. Secrets of the Light belongs in every personal library beside Betty J. Eadie’s Embraced by the Light and Don Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven.

    Limbaugh, a practicing attorney and former professor of law, approaches the canonical gospels with the same level of scrutiny he would apply to any legal document and asks all the necessary questions about the story of Jesus told through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His analysis of the texts becomes profoundly personal as he reflects on his own spiritual and intellectual odyssey from determined skeptic to devout Christian. Ultimately, Limbaugh concludes that the words Christians have treasured for centuries stand up to his exhaustive enquiry—including his examination of historical and religious evidence beyond the gospels—and thereby affirms Christian faith, spirituality, and tradition.

    The timeless wisdom of India is expressed in the Vedas, ancient Sanskrit texts that touches upon all fields of human knowledge. Originally preserved through oral tradition, the Vedas were first put into writing by Srila Vyasadeva, the "literary incarnation of God." After compiling the Vedas, Srila Vyasadeva was inspired by his spiritual master to present their profound essence in the form of Srimad-Bhagavatam. Known as "the ripened fruit of the tree of Vedic literature," Srimad-Bhagavatam is the most complete and authoritative exposition of Vedic knowledge.After writing the Bhagavatam, Vyasa taught it to his son, Shukadeva Goswami, who later spoke the Bhagavatam to Maharaja Parikshit in an assembly of sages on the bank of the sacred Ganges River. Although Maharaja Parikshit was a great rajarshi (saintly king) and the emperor of the world, when he received notice of his death seven days in advance, he renounced his entire kingdom and retired to the bank of the Ganges to seek spiritual enlightenment. The questions of King Parikshit and Shukadeva Goswami's illuminating answers, concerning everything from the nature of the self to the origin of the universe, are the basis of Srimad-Bhagavatam.This edition of Bhagavatam is the only complete English translation with an elaborate and scholarly commentary, and it is the first edition widely available to the English-reading public. This work is the product of the scholarly and devotional effort of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the world's most distinguished teacher of Indian religious and philosophical thought. His Sanskrit scholarship and intimate familiarity with Vedic culture combine to reveal to the West a magnificent exposition of this important classic.

    Chip's candid discussion, personal stories, and solid guidance will allow readers to move from "knowing about God" to profoundly experiencing his presence and power in their lives. Whether they're struggling with rocky relationships, unexpected crises, depression, or injustice, Finding God When You Need Him Most will remind readers that the Lord is faithful to hear their heart's cry and will be there for them, time and again.

    This exceptional work, by one of the world's leading Biblical scholars, provides a full account of how the different parts of the Bible came to be written; how some writings which were regarded as holy became canonical and were included in the Bible, and others were not; what the relationship is of the different parts of the Bible to each other; and how, once it became a stable text, the Bible has been disseminated and interpreted around the world. It gives full weight to discussion of the importance of the Tanakh (Old Testament) in Judaism as in Christianity. It also demonstrates the degree to which, contrary to widespread belief, both Judaism and Christianity are not faiths drawn from the Bible texts but from other sources and traditions. It shows that if we are to regard the Bible as 'authoritative' it cannot be as believers have so often done in the past.

    By embracing four fundamental premises and putting into practice the author's many helpful and practical suggestions, you'll acquire the skills and insights necessary for turning around even the most troublesome relationship. What you need to keep in mind is that: (1) nothing in your life happens randomly and your difficulties have a deeper purpose; (2) frustration and even emotional pain are as necessary for your personal and spiritual growth as love and joy; (3) transforming enmity and completing unfinished business may be the most important skills you can learn in life; and (4) when you make an effort to work on your inner self, your outer relationships will be transformed.        This groundbreaking book draws upon state-of-the-art psychological principles and timeless spiritual practices from all traditions. Filled with enlightening exercises and entertaining stories, Thank You for Being Such a Pain will forever change the way you see the difficult people in your life . . . as well as the way you see yourself.

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