For many people, their daily lives are a dark place with an even darker future, and John Edward shares how his belief in the power of prayer alone can help to illuminate a path for each individual to follow… using God’s gift of free will to chart our own course. Although he is quick to suggest this is not the fix to ‘find happiness’ in a material sense, the promise of living a more abundant life in general can be achieved. This book is divided into three sections. Section I deals with John’s overview of the process of prayer, his thoughts about writing on this subject matter, and the history of the rosary as authorized by the Catholic Church.   Section II is how he has utilized the power of prayer through the use of the rosary, and Section III is an audio CD that goes over the process of using the techniques of practical praying.  Includes a FREE BONUS Meditation CD!

    Why?They understand the power of His promises to comfort them, strengthen them, correct them, inspire them, and transform them into the person God wants them to be. Are you ready to be a Jesus Freak? Then you got to know God's Word. And here is one small place to start. Discover God's wisdom and promises for your life when you need strength to overcome temptation, the power to face persecution, the words to testify for Jesus, the faith to continue your walk with Jesus when others have fallen away. Jesus Freaks know that they can stake their lives on God's promises.

    Most importantly, sports bring out the best in the human spirit. There is an intensity and a richness inherent in every sporting experience that amplifies our emotions and our connection with the moment and, indeed, with ourselves. This latest collection of Chicken Soup honors all that is good in the world of sports. From major leaguers to little leaguers, from hockey stars to figure skaters, and from horseracing to mushing, the stories in this book highlight the positive and transformative nature of sports. Readers will come to see sports as one of our most important and powerful teachers. They can teach us to focus and stay the course, or to develop a new strategy and rededicate ourselves to a goal. They can teach us to be humble in victory and gracious in defeat. They can teach us the importance of teamwork and remind us that we must strive to give our individual all. At their best, sports will build us up and they will wear us down; they will build character and teach us to overcome adversity. This book is for anyone who has ever enjoyed watching or participating in any sport, from the professional athlete to the weekend warrior, from the soccer mom to the diehard sports fan, from the marathon runner to the neighborhood jogger.

    Just when it seems that Little League may be no place for a kid, this all-star line-up of conniving commissioners and mitt-impaired fielders sends the sport off and over the wall.Praise for Little League Confidential"Bill Geist is the funniest writer since Marcel Proust--I mean Mark Twain--no, make that Yogi Berra."--Russell Baker"A lighthearted romp . . . essential reading for seasons to come."--The New York Times Book Review"Very, very, very funny."--Larry King, USA Today

    S.L. Price, award-winning writer for Sports Illustrated and author of Pitching Around Fidel, gives a tragic but ultimately uplifting account of the death of minor league baseball coach Mike Coolbaugh, and in doing so, illustrates the many reasons and myriad ways in which baseball still has a hold on America. A Friday Night Lights for baseball fans, Heart of the Game reveals the classic heart of small-town America.

    No hits, no walks, no men reaching base. In nearly four hundred thousand contests in more than 130 years of Major League Baseball, it has only happened twenty times. On June 2, 2010, Armando Galarraga threw baseball’s twenty-first perfect game. Except that’s not how it entered the record books.That’s because Jim Joyce, a veteran umpire with more than twenty years of big league experience, the man voted the best umpire in the game in 2010 by baseball’s players, missed the call on the final out at first base. “No, I did not get the call correct,” Joyce said after seeing a replay. But rather than throw a tantrum, Galarraga simply turned and smiled, went back to the mound and took care of business. “Nobody’s perfect,” he said later in the locker room.In Nobody’s Perfect, Galarraga and Joyce come together to tell the personal story of a remarkable game that will live forever in baseball lore, and to trace their fascinating lives in sports up until this pivotal moment. It is an absorbing insider’s look at two lives in baseball, a tremendous achievement, and an enduring moment of sportsmanship.

    This is the first book about Billy Graham, the father, written from the perspective of a son who knew him best. As a beloved evangelist and a respected man of God, Billy Graham’s stated purpose in life never wavered: to help people find a personal relationship with God through a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. This was a calling that only increased over time, and Billy embraced it fully throughout his active ministry and beyond. Yet Billy pursued his life’s work, as many men do, amid a similarly significant calling to be a loving husband and father.While most people knew Billy Graham as America’s pastor, Franklin Graham knew him in a different way, as a dad. And while present and future generations will come to their own conclusions about Billy Graham and the legacy that his commitment to Christ has left behind, no one can speak more insightfully or authoritatively on that subject than a son who grew up in the shadow of his father’s life and the examples of his father’s love.  This vulnerable book is a look at both Billy Graham the evangelist and Billy Graham the father, and the impact he had on a son who walked in his father’s steps while also becoming his own man, leading ministries around the world, all of it based on the foundational lessons his father taught him.“My father left behind a testimony to God,” says Franklin, “a legacy not buried in a grave but still pointing people to a heaven-bound destiny. The Lord will say to my father, and to all who served Him obediently, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’ [Matthew 25:21].”

    A perfect way for Royals fans, and baseball fans everywhere, to share that magic night with their children and commemorate it themselves with beautiful illustrations and clever rhymes.

    And this joy and peace is not just for Christmas, it lasts all year round and into eternity.-----------------------------------Contents 1. Something Better 2. God Gets Involved 3. God Gives Joy 4. God is Worth It 5. The Beginning, Not the End

    In Where's Harry?, Steve Stone pays tribute to one of baseball's biggest legends never to take the field, remembering the unique baseball commentator who was also the game's biggest fan.

    A. Dickey became one of the game’s best pitchers. He had humble beginnings, and as a child kept a terrible secret. But at a local prep school, coaches saw talent in him and fostered his skills as a player. Dickey went on to pitch in the Olympics while at the University of Tennessee, but his Major League hopes took a downturn when an X-ray revealed a major problem with his throwing arm. It would seem his future in baseball was over before it even began.But R.A. knew better. Through faith, hope, and determination, he achieved his dreams and made it into the major leagues. Now, he’s one of the most respected pitchers in the game, a Cy Young Award winner, and he's changed the way people view the knuckleball – and himself. An inspiring true story about beating the odds, R.A. is proof that with hard work and devotion, anyone can overcome whatever life throws at them.

    Dr. Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church, one of America's largest congregations and author of the best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Church.

     Greed and excess defined the 1980s, and the sports world was no exception. Shifting from the love of the game to the love of money, athletes made the transition from representing honor and humility to becoming brash and branded. Capturing the stories of headliners who capitalized on this trend, "Bigger Than the Game" charts the rise (and sometimes spectacular fall) of four athletes over the span of one of the most dramatic eras in sports. Meticulously researched, with stirring, you-are-there reporting, "Bigger Than the Game" assembles a cast that includes Jim McMahon, who took the Chicago Bears to Super Bowl glory despite his penchant for partying and his aversion to following the game plan; Brian Boswoth, the university of Oklahoma linebacker who mugged for the cameras while calling the NCAA a communist organization; Bo Jackson, who pursued promising careers in both pro football and baseball; and Len Bias, poised to ensure the Boston Celtics' dominance but died of a cocaine overdose just one day after the draft. Also packed with portraits of folk heroes such as "Refrigerator" Perry and Michael Jordan, "Bigger Than the Game" offers a riveting ride for every sports fan.

    It is my honor to invite you to enter into his world."--John Thorn, Official Historian, Major League BaseballThe fascinating, true, origin story of baseball -- how America's first great sport developed and how it conquered a nation. Baseball's true founders don't have plaques in Cooperstown. The founders were the hundreds of uncredited amateurs -- ordinary people -- who played without gloves, facemasks or performance incentives in the middle decades of the 19th century. Unlike today's pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They worked, built businesses and fought in the Civil War.The wrongness of baseball history can be staggering. You may have heard that Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Neither did. You may have been told that a club called the Knickerbockers played the first baseball game in 1846. They didn't. You have read that baseball's color line was uncrossed and unchallenged until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Nope. You have been told that the clean, corporate 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were baseball's first professional club. Not true. They weren't the first professionals; they weren't all that clean, either. You may have heard Cooperstown, Hoboken, or New York City called the birthplace of baseball, but not Brooklyn. Yet Brooklyn was the home of baseball's first fans, the first ballpark, the first statistics--and modern pitching. Baseball was originally supposed to be played, not watched. This changed when crowds began to show up at games in Brooklyn in the late 1850s. We fans weren't invited to the party; we crashed it. Professionalism wasn't part of the plan either, but when an 1858 Brooklyn versus New York City series accidentally proved that people would pay to see a game, the writing was on the outfield wall. When the first professional league was formed in 1871, baseball was already a fully formed modern sport with championships, media coverage, and famous stars. Professional baseball invented an organization, but not the sport itself. Baseball's amazing amateurs had already done that.Thomas W. Gilbert's history is for baseball fans and anyone fascinating by origin stories and American culture.

    An excellent book for use with the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.