She Reads Truth: Holding Tight to Permanent in a World That's Passing Away


Raechel Myers - 2016
    She wants help and healing. She wants to hear and be heard, to see and be seen. She wants things set right.   She wants to know what is true—not partly true, or sometimes true, or almost true. She wants to see Truth itself, face-to-face. But here, now, these things are all cloudy. Hope is tinged with hurt. Faith is shaded by doubt. Lesser, broken things masquerade as love.   How does she find something permanent when the world around her is always changing, when not even she can stay the same? And if she finds it, how does she hold on?    She Reads Truth tells the stories of two women who discovered, through very different lives and circumstances, that only God and His Word remain unchanged as the world around them shifted and slipped away. Infused with biblical application and Scripture, this book is not just about two characters in two stories, but about one Hero and one Story. Every image points to the bigger picture—that God and His Word are true. Not because of anything we do, but because of who He is. Not once, not occasionally, but right now and all the time.   Sometimes it takes everything moving to notice the thing that doesn’t move. Sometimes it takes telling two very different stories to notice how the Truth was exactly the same in both of them. For anyone searching for a solid foundation to cling to, She Reads Truth is a rich and honest Bible-filled journey to finally find permanent in a world that’s passing away.

Wait No More: One Family's Amazing Adoption Journey


Kelly Rosati - 2011
    The pro-life/pro-choice debate continues to consume politics and everyday conversations. Readers want to know what they can do to make a difference on these issues. "Wait No More" tells Kelly and John Rosati's story of experiencing God more fully through the great blessings and challenges encountered during their journey to adopt four children from the U.S. foster care system. It is a story of God's faithfulness to grow a beautiful family, through adoption, from the ashes of child abuse, neglect, and abandonment. The Rosatis strongly believe that God's solution for orphaned children in the foster care system involves ordinary Christians desiring to live out an authentic pro-life commitment requiring action, not just words. Their story reveals how their beliefs challenged, enriched, and completely changed their family's life.

Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting


Pamela Druckerman - 2012
    They ate braised leeks. They played by themselves while their parents sipped coffee. And yet French kids were still boisterous, curious, and creative. Why? How?            With a notebook stashed in her diaper bag, Druckerman set out to investigate—and wound up sparking a national debate on parenting. Researched over three years and written in her warm, funny voice, Bringing Up Bébé is deeply wise, charmingly told, and destined to become a classic resource for American parents.

The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture


Haley Stewart - 2018
    Do you ever feel caught in an endless cycle of working harder and longer to get more while enjoying life less? The Stewart family did—and they decided to make a radical change. Popular Catholic blogger and podcaster Haley Stewart explains how a year-long internship on a sustainable farm changed her family’s life for the better, allowing them to live gospel values more intentionally.When Haley Stewart married her bee-keeping sweetheart, Daniel, they dreamed of a life centered on home and family. But as the children arrived and Daniel was forced to work longer hours at a job he liked less and less, they dared to break free from the unending cycle of getting more yet feeling unfufilled. They sold their Florida home and retreated to Texas to live on a farm with a compost toilet and 650 square feet of space for a family of five. Surprisingly, they found that they had never been happier.In The Grace of Enough, Stewart shares essential elements of intentional Christian living that her family discovered during that extraordinary year on the farm and that they continue to practice today. You, too, will be inspired to:live simplyoffer hospitalityrevive food culture and the family tablereconnect with the landnurture communityprioritize beautydevelop a sense of wonderbe intentional about technologyseek authentic intimacycenter life around home, family, and relationshipsDrawing from Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, Stewart identifies elements of Catholic social teaching that will enhance your life and create a ripple effect of grace to help you overcome the effects of today’s “throwaway” culture and experience a deeper satisfaction and stronger faith.

I've Seen the End of You: A Neurosurgeon's Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know


W. Lee Warren - 2020
    . ."--Daniel G. Amen, MDDr. W. Lee Warren, a practicing brain surgeon, assumed he knew most outcomes for people with glioblastoma, head injuries, and other health-care problems. Yet even as he tried to give patients hope, his own heart would sink as he realized, I've seen the end of you.But it became far more personal when the acclaimed doctor experienced an unimaginable family tragedy. That's when he reached the end of himself.Page-turning medical stories serve as the backdrop for a raw, honest look at how we can remain on solid ground when everything goes wrong and how we can find light in the darkest hours of life.I've Seen the End of You is the rare book that offers tender empathy and tangible hope for those who are suffering. No matter what you're facing, this doesn't have to be the end. Even when nothing seems to makes sense, God can transform your circumstances and your life. And he can offer a new beginning.

Becoming


Michelle Obama - 2018
    As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare. In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.

All the Pretty Things: The Story of a Southern Girl Who Went Through Fire to Find Her Way Home


Edie Wadsworth - 2015
    . . . "For a long time, Edie thought she had escaped. It started in an Appalachian trailer park, where a young girl dreamed of becoming a doctor. But every day, Edie woke up to her reality: a poverty-stricken world where getting out seemed impossible. Where, at twelve years old, she taught herself to drive a truck so she could get her drunk daddy home from the bar. Where the grownups ate while the children went hungry. Where, when the family trailer burned down, she couldn't be caught squawlin' over losing her things--she just had to be grateful anyone had remembered to save her at all.And at the center of it all, there was her daddy. She never knew when he would show up; she learned the hard way that she couldn't count on him to protect her. But it didn't matter: All she wanted was to make him proud. Against all odds, Edie "made doctor," achieving everything that had once seemed beyond her reach. But her past caught up with her--and it would take her whole life burning down once again for Edie to be finally able to face the truth about herself, her family, and her relationship with God. Readers of The Glass Castle will treasure this refreshing and raw redemption story, a memoir for anyone who has ever hungered for home, forgiveness, and the safe embrace of a father's love.

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying


Nina Riggs - 2017
    They are promises. They are the only way to walk from one night to the other."Nina Riggs was just thirty-seven years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer--one small spot. Within a year, the mother of two sons, ages seven and nine, and married sixteen years to her best friend, received the devastating news that her cancer was terminal.How does one live each day, "unattached to outcome"? How does one approach the moments, big and small, with both love and honesty?Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship, and memory, even as she wrestles with the legacy of her great-great-great grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nina Riggs's breathtaking memoir continues the urgent conversation that Paul Kalanithi began in his gorgeous When Breath Becomes Air. She asks, what makes a meaningful life when one has limited time?Brilliantly written, disarmingly funny, and deeply moving, The Bright Hour is about how to love all the days, even the bad ones, and it's about the way literature, especially Emerson, and Nina's other muse, Montaigne, can be a balm and a form of prayer. It's a book about looking death squarely in the face and saying "this is what will be."Especially poignant in these uncertain times, The Bright Hour urges us to live well and not lose sight of what makes us human: love, art, music, words.

Learning from Henri Nouwen and Vincent Van Gogh: A Portrait of the Compassionate Life


Carol A. Berry - 2019
    At the request of Henri Nouwen's literary estate, she has written this book, which includes unpublished material recorded from Nouwen's lectures. As an art educator, Berry is uniquely situated to develop Nouwen's work on Vincent van Gogh and to add her own research. She fills in background on the much misunderstood spiritual context of van Gogh's work, and reinterprets van Gogh's art (presented here in full color) in light of Nouwen's lectures. Berry also brings in her own experience in ministry, sharing how Nouwen and van Gogh, each in his own way, led her to the richness and beauty of the compassionate life.

Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret


F. Howard Taylor - 1932
    But at his heart, he loved the Chinese people and learned through his misfortunes to trust God completely. 'HUDSON TAYLOR'S SPIRITUAL SECRET' is a stirring biography that challenges you to live a life of faith.RUNNING TIME ⇒ 7hrs. and 16mins.Public Domain (P)2011 christianaudio.com

Educated


Tara Westover - 2018
    Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.

What Did You Expect?: Redeeming the Realities of Marriage


Paul David Tripp - 2010
    Marriage, according to Scripture, will always involve two flawed people living with each other in a fallen world. Yet, in counselor Paul Tripp's professional experience, the majority of couples enter marriage with unrealistic expectations, leaving them unprepared for the day-to-day realities of married life. This unique book introduces a biblical and practical approach to those realities that is rooted in God's faithfulness and Scripture's teaching on sin and grace. Spouses need to be reconciled to each other and to God on a daily basis, Tripp declares. Since we're always sinners married to sinners, reconciliation isn't just the right response in moments of failure. It must be the lifestyle of any healthy marriage. What Did You Expect? presents six practical commitments that give shape and momentum to such a lifestyle. These commitments, which include honestly facing sin, weakness, and failure; willingness to change; and embodying Christ's love, will equip couples to develop a thriving, grace-based marriage in all circumstances and seasons of their relationship.

Etched in Sand: A True Story of Five Siblings Who Survived an Unspeakable Childhood on Long Island


Regina Calcaterra - 2013
    Her painful early life, however, was quite different. Regina and her four siblings survived an abusive and painful childhood only to find themselves faced with the challenges of the foster-care system and intermittent homelessness in the shadows of Manhattan and the Hamptons.

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World


Dalai Lama XIV - 2016
    And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great spiritual masters and moral leaders of our time, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet.From the beginning the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been tested by great personal and national adversity, and here they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal. Now that they are both in their eighties, they especially want to spread the core message that to have joy yourself, you must bring joy to others.Most of all, during that landmark week in Dharamsala, they demonstrated by their own exuberance, compassion, and humor how joy can be transformed from a fleeting emotion into an enduring way of life.

Bruchko: The Astonishing True Story of a 19-Year-Old American, His Capture by the Motilone Indians and His Adventures in Christianizing the Stone Age Tribe


Bruce Olson - 1973
    But what he discovered by trial and error has revolutionized then world of missions.Bruchko, which has sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide, has been called “more fantastic and harrowing than anything Hollywood could concoct.” Living with the Motilone Indians since 1961, Olson has won the friendship of four presidents of Colombia and has made appearances before the United Nations because of his efforts. Bruchko includes the story of his 1988 kidnapping by communist guerrillas and the nine months of captivity that followed. This revised version of Olson’s story will amaze you and remind you that simple faith in Christ can make anything possible.