That's what adoptive mom Heather Avis learned, and that's the invitation of this book.As the mother of three adopted children - two with Down syndrome - Heather Avis has learned that it's truly the lucky few who get to live a life like hers, who actually recognize that God's plans are best, even when they seem so radically different from the plans we have for ourselves.When Heather started her journey into parenthood she never thought it would look like this, never planned to have three adopted children, and certainly never imagined that two of them would have Down syndrome. But like most things God does, once she stepped into the craziness and confusion that comes with the unknown and the unplanned, she realized that they were indeed among the lucky few.Discover in this book what 70,000+ followers of Heather's hit Instagram account @macymakesmyday already know: the power of faith and family can help us stay strong in the toughest times. This book will also be especially touching to those with adopted family members or children with Down syndrome in their lives.

    In 1969, her father, Robert Nichols, moved to Sellerstown, North Carolina, to serve as a pastor. There he found a small community eager to welcome him--with one exception. Glaring at him from pew number seven was a man obsessed with controlling the church. Determined to get rid of anyone who stood in his way, he unleashed a plan of terror that was more devastating and violent than the Nichols family could have ever imagined. Refusing to be driven away by acts of intimidation, Rebecca's father stood his ground until one night when an armed man walked into the family's kitchen . . . And Rebecca's life was shattered. If anyone had a reason to harbor hatred and seek personal revenge, it would be Rebecca. Yet The Devil in Pew Number Seven tells a different story. It is the amazing true saga of relentless persecution, one family's faith and courage in the face of it, and a daughter whose parents taught her the power of forgiveness.

    While these are elements of popular culture, they aren’t all it has to offer. Pop culture may not cure diseases, topple political regimes, or make scientific breakthroughs, but it does play a vital role in the story of humanity.In fact, it’s pretty hard to define the human experience without it. And it’s impossible to create pop culture without the human experience. Popular podcaster Knox McCoy understands this, and so do the tens of thousands of listeners who tune in to hear him talk about pop culture every week on his wildly popular podcast, The Popcast with Knox and Jamie.In The Wondering Years, Knox explores this idea of connecting popular culture to his own experiences. Through hilarious yet poignant stories, he reflects on how pop culture has helped shape his life and carve out the foundation of his faith. While the three cultural tentpoles—the South, the Church, and Sports—defined many aspects of his East Tennessee upbringing, it was pop culture that most definitively influenced Knox and his sense of the world at large. Through books, television, music, and movies, Knox found many of the answers he was searching for about God and the universe and why we are all here. The Wondering Years is a hilarious look back at the key influences that shaped Knox’s formative years and his faith, a reminder of our own encounters with pop culture that have shaped each of our formative years and continue to influence us today.

    Each story is accompanied by scripture, prayer, and discussion exercises designed to remind readers of Mary of Medjugorje's intercession on their behalf and God's personal love for them. Watkins gives nationwide talks and workshops and works as a spiritual director in the Bay Area, in addition to maintaining an active website and e-mail newsletter.

    In the years that followed, he realized that the world’s two largest religions are far more different than they initially appeared.No God but One: Allah or Jesus? addresses the most important questions at the interface of Islam and Christianity: How do the two religions differ? Are the differences significant? Can we be confident that either Christianity or Islam is true? And most important, is it worth sacrificing everything for the truth?Nabeel shares stories from his life and ministry, casts new light on current events, and explores pivotal incidents in the histories of both religions, providing a resource that is gripping and thought-provoking, respectful and challenging.Both Islam and Christianity teach that there is No God but One, but who deserves to be worshiped, Allah or Jesus?

    Sook stood alone among thousands of kneeling people. Her bold defiance of the tyrannical demand to bow to pagan Japanese shrines condemned her to a living death in the filth and degradation of a Japanese prison. This brave woman remained faithful to Christ in the face of brutality, oppression, and ruthlessness of her captors. The story of how she won many of her fellow prisoners to Christ in the most deplorable conditions is an inspiration to all.

    By his own choice, Mike's life went from upper-middle class plush to scum-of-the-earth repulsive overnight. With only a backpack, a sleeping bag and a guitar, Mike and his traveling companion, Sam, set out to experience life on the streets in six different cities—from Washington D.C. to San Diego— and they put themselves to the test.    For more than five months the pair experienced firsthand the extreme pains of hunger, the constant uncertainty and danger of living on the streets, exhaustion, depression, and social rejection—and all of this by their own choice. They wanted to find out if their faith was real, if they could actually be the Christians they said they were apart from the comforts they’d always known…to discover first hand what it means to be homeless in America.   Mike and Sam's story is gritty, challenging, and utterly captivating. What you encounter in these pages will radically alter how you see your world—and may even change your life.

    Fabrycky, an American guide of the Bonhoeffer-Haus in Berlin, takes readers on a tour of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's home, city, and world. She shares the keys she has discovered there--the many sources of Bonhoeffer's identity, his practices of Scripture meditation and prayer, his willingness to cross boundaries and befriend people all around the world--that have unlocked her understanding of her own life and responsibilities in light of Bonhoeffer's wisdom. Keys to Bonhoeffer's Haus tells his story in new ways and invites us to think beyond him into our own lives and civic responsibilities. Fabrycky shows readers how to consider what befriending Bonhoeffer might mean for us and the ways we live our lives today. Ultimately, through her transformative tour of Bonhoeffer's Berlin, she inspires readers to discover and embrace responsible forms of civic agency and loving, sacrificial action on behalf of our neighbors.

    The screaming match she had with her grandmother was the reason she went to church. What she found there was the Reason she is alive today.With raw vulnerability, this hard rock princess tells her own story of physical abuse, drug use, suicide attempts, and more--and her ultimate salvation. She asks the hard questions so many young people are asking--Why am I here? Why am I empty? Why should I go on living?--showing readers that beyond the temporary highs and the soul-crushing lows there is a reason they exist and a purpose for their lives. She not only gives readers a peek down the rocky path that led her to become a vocalist in a popular hardcore band, but she shows them that the same God is guiding their steps today.

    Megan Boudreaux had visited Haiti on a few humanitarian trips but each trip multiplied the sense that someone needed to address the devastation--especially with the children, many of whom were kept as household slaves on the poverty-stricken and earthquake-devastated Caribbean island.God guided her every step as she moved blindly to a foreign land without knowing the language, the people, or the future. From becoming the adoptive mother of former child slaves, to receiving the divine gift of the Haitian Creole language, to starting, building, and running a school for more than 500 children, "the amazingness of what God did after I made the choice to be obedient is incredible," said Megan.Three years later, six acres on Bellevue Mountain in Gressier is the home of the nonprofit Respire Haiti at the former site of voodoo worship, and in the area that many still come to make animal sacrifices, Megan and her staff of nearly 200 are transforming this community as they educate, feed, and address the needs.

      It’s exhausting, this guarding of our stories and struggles. Fear of being found out had caused me to hide—but I wasn’t just covering my flaws, I was unintentionally blocking the beauty of God’s grace. My journey to real freedom began when I quit running from my mess and started trusting Jesus to make something beautiful of it.    This book is that story. It’s stepping out of shame and insecurity into gospel freedom. It’s letting God turn our failures and frailties into testimonies of His faithfulness. I’ve discovered that when we quit hiding, God gets the glory and we are able to fully embrace not only our relationship with Him, but also with one another.  Transparency brings freedom, and in every moment, we'll find that God can absolutely be trusted.

    By universal acclaim, this biography by G. K. Chesterton is considered the best appreciation of Francis's life--the one that gets to the heart of the matter.For Chesterton, Francis is a great paradoxical figure, a man who loved women but vowed himself to chastity; an artist who loved the pleasures of the natural world as few have loved them, but vowed himself to the most austere poverty, stripping himself naked in the public square so all could see that he had renounced his worldly goods; a clown who stood on his head in order to see the world aright. Chesterton gives us Francis in his world-the riotously colorful world of the High Middle Ages, a world with more pageantry and romance than we have seen before or since. Here is the Francis who tried to end the Crusades by talking to the Saracens, and who interceded with the emperor on behalf of the birds. Here is the Francis who inspired a revolution in art that began with Giotto and a revolution in poetry that began with Dante. Here is the Francis who prayed and danced with pagan abandon, who talked to animals, who invented the creche.

    The men's mission combined modern technology with innate ingenuity, sparked by a passionate determination to get the gospel to those without Christ. In a nearby village, their wives waited to hear from them. The news they received - all five missionaries had been murdered - changed lives around the world forever. Written while she was still a missionary in South America and at the request of the men's families, Through Gates of Splendor was Elisabeth Elliot's personal account of the final mission of these five courageous men. Filled with quotations from letters, material from personal journals, a wealth of photographs, and an epilogue update, this reprint of the original hardcover edition tells a lasting story of God's grace, unconditional love, and great courage. This story inspired the 2006 box office hit End of the Spear and is sure to inspire the next generation of servant believers.

    Similar to the first book, Thrift Store Graces contains personal accounts of Knuth’s experiences serving as a once reluctant, now enthusiastic volunteer at a thrift store in Kalamazoo, Michigan. What sets Thrift Store Graces apart from her first book is that Knuth introduces us to some far more challenging personal situations that emerge as a result of her volunteer work. Additionally, she invites us to join her as she hesitantly embarks on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in war-ravaged Bosnia. Through it all, her delightful sense of humor keeps her going, along with her conviction that some of God’s greatest gifts come disguised as difficulties.Witty, inspiring, and thought-provoking all at once, the stories in Thrift Store Graces subtly compel us to redefine what it means to volunteer and to rethink why it is that we volunteer in the first place.

    But this is not just another harrowing story about an excruciating childhood and the ravages on a life it produces. The difference is that Mez not only escaped from his 'trial by parent' but he discovered a hope that has transformed his life. He in turn has helped others find hope in their lives. Mez's story is told with a frankness and wit that hides much of the pain and despair that was his everyday experience. Nevertheless, although his story at times may sicken you, his first brushes with the faith that restored him will make you laugh out loud! Mez's life involved abuse, violence, drugs, thieving and prison - but you don't have to fall as far as him in order to climb out of the traps in your life. Do you like happy endings? Mez still suffers from his experiences but you'll be amazed at how far you can be restored from such a beginning.