Coping with grief and experiencing loss overwhelms us in ways that seem both hopeless and endless. In painful moments like these, we must make a choice: Will we allow the difficulties we face to become forces of destruction in our lives, or will we find a way to begin learning from loss, transforming our suffering into a source of strength?A theologian with the heart of a poet, Rabbi David Wolpe explores the meaning of loss, and the way we can use its inevitable appearance in our lives as a source of strength rather than a source of despair. In this national bestseller, Wolpe creates a remarkably fluid account of how we might find a way out of overwhelming feelings of helplessness and instead begin understanding grief in all its forms and learn to create meaning in difficult times.

    In this collection, Brian Bird, executive producer and co-creator of When Calls the Heart, and Michelle Cox illuminate the “God-moments” from the fictional, 1910 mining town of Hope Valley. The stories of faith, hope, and love from each episode will inspire and encourage you with wonderful virtues and relatable life lessons. Each chapter contains a quote from one of your favorite citizens, a Scripture verse, a devotional reflection, a prayer, and questions to help you think a little deeper about what’s on your own heart. As Elizabeth Thatcher learned when she headed West to fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher, when God calls the heart, you can expect an adventure!

    Her husband, Trent, was Tammy's best friend and business manager. While vacationing in Jamaica in 2001, a routine free diving excursion in the Blue Lagoon turned drastically tragic when Trent never resurfaced. Unfortunately, the following day's events of 9/11 would create an incredible obstacle to Tammy's and her family's efforts to connect and handle these horrendous events.Tearful prayers pleading with God to make Himself real have been answered, and God is slowly restoring Tammy's joy and hope, as she begins to sing and dance again for Him.

    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.

    Nancy Ortberg encourages readers to see God in this very personal, very engaging series of essays that will bring God into focus and allow you to grow deeper in your relationship with him than you had ever imagined.

    Here, in one of his most popular of his more than thirty books, Thomas Merton provides further meditations on the spiritual life in sixteen thoughtful essays, beginning with his classic treatise "Love Can Be Kept Only by Being Given Away." This sequel to Seeds of Contemplation provides fresh insight into Merton's favorite topics of silence and solitude, while also underscoring the importance of community and the deep connectedness to others that is the inevitable basis of the spiritual life—whether one lives in solitude or in the midst of a crowd.

    God used a stone in the hand of a boy. That God used a stone means He can use us too. If we have to be honest we are losing to life. Sure, we pretend that things are fine, but we know there is more. The lack of life in so many churches confirms this unspoken truth. To make matters worse, we are in bound by the giants that surround us. While we sing songs of victory on Sunday, Monday brings bondage.The story of David is the story of each of us. For too long church as we know it has created a structure that undermines our identity in God. We have abdicated who we are as priests of the living God and have often forfeited a victorious life. As we learn what made David different, we too will be made different. We'll become a stone in the hand of a victorious God.

    In Nothing Wasted, counselor and teacher Kasey Van Norman's vulnerability invites you to discover God's personal and purposeful design for your future--not in spite of your story, but through it.What if the pain and mistakes of your past are exactly what God wants to use to redeem your future?A difficult childhood, public infidelity, and a fight with cancer--Kasey Van Norman has walked a rocky road of regret and loss. Shockingly, God would take her back to move her forward, uprooting her undealt-with wounds, secret shame, and intimacy-sabotaging patterns of behavior. No longer running from her past, but instead, allowing herself to be defined by it, Kasey discovered a God more intentional and loving than she'd ever believed him to be.In this book, she shares the truth that no part of our life story is wasted--but purposefully designed and used by God to shape who we are meant to be. With vulnerability, sound doctrine, and humor, Kasey unfolds the brokenness in her own life to:Remind you that a holy, sovereign God lovingly works through your past mistakesHelp you look at your own past to embrace it as the necessary setup for your futurePoint to the God who can weave together a beautiful story of redemption in your lifeNo experience or relationship has been a mistake. You are no mere byproduct of random events, and you do not need a do-over! Because with God, nothing is wasted.Also available: video study and study guide.

    Reveals the four humor personalities...and which category you fit in. Helps readers realize that God gave us a funny bone...we just need to find out how to use it.

    The murder of Matthew McKay’s son, Jordan, sent him on a journey in search of ways to communicate with his son despite fears and uncertainty. Here he recounts his efforts — including past-life and between-lives hypnotic regressions, a technique called induced after-death communication, channeled writing, and more.McKay, a psychologist and researcher, ultimately learned how to reach his son. In this book he provides extraordinary revelations — direct from Jordan — about the soul’s life after death, how karma works, why we incarnate, why there is so much pain in the world, the single force that connects us, and our future as souls. Unlike many books about after-death communication, near-death experiences, and past-life memories, this is a book for those who do not believe yet yearn to know what happens after death. In addition to being riveting reading, Seeking Jordan is a unique heart-, soul-, and mind-stirring reflection on the issues each of us will ultimately face.

    A prize-winning, successful novelist in her 30s, McCracken was happy to be an itinerant writer and self-proclaimed spinster. But suddenly she fell in love, got married, and two years ago was living in a remote part of France, working on her novel, and waiting for the birth of her first child.This book is about what happened next. In her ninth month of pregnancy, she learned that her baby boy had died. How do you deal with and recover from this kind of loss? Of course you don't--but you go on. And if you have ever experienced loss or love someone who has, the company of this remarkable book will help you go on.

    When author Allison Gilbert lost both parents at age 32, she could not find any books that spoke to her with the same level of compassion and reassurance that she found in the support group she belonged to, so she decided to write one of her own. The result is a sensitive and candid portrayal of loss that brings together experiences from famous and ordinary grief-stricken sons and daughters that explores the regrets, heartache and sometimes, relief, that accompanies pain and healing.Always Too Soon provides a range of intimate conversations with those — famous and not — who have lost both parents, providing readers with a source of comfort and inspiration as they learn to negotiate their new place in the world. Contributors include Hope Edelman, Geraldine Ferraro, Dennis Franz, Barbara Ehrenreich, Yogi Berra, Rosanne Cash, and Ice-T, as well as those who lost parents to the Oklahoma City bombing, the World Trade Center bombings, drunk driving, and more.

    Winner--a leading writer at the crossroads of culture and spirituality and author of Still and Girl Meets God--joins the ranks of luminaries such as Anne Lamott and Barbara Brown Taylor with this exploration of little known--and, so, little used--biblical metaphors for God, metaphors which can open new doorways for our lives and spiritualities.There are hundreds of metaphors for God, but the church only uses a few familiar images: creator, judge, savior, father. In Wearing God, Lauren Winner gathers a number of lesser-known tropes, reflecting on how they work biblically and culturally, and reveals how they can deepen our spiritual lives.Exploring the notion of God as clothing, Winner reflects on how we are "clothed with Christ" or how "God fits us like a garment." She then analyzes how clothing functions culturally to shape our ideals and identify our community, and ruminates on how this new metaphor can function to create new possibilities for our lives. For each biblical metaphor--God as the vine/vintner who animates life; the lactation consultant; and the comedian, showing us our follies, for example--Winner surveys the historical, literary, and cultural landscapes in order to revive and heal our souls.

    At the end of her life, the reasons for many of her own trials have become clear and joy comes easily. But Roseveare prods herself and her reader to learn to be obedient in the midst of a trial by rejoicing in faith, even if we never understand why God has allowed us to suffer. I am glad that Roseveare left this brief final testament to God's goodness when providence appears to frown. To borrow from the writer of Hebrews: by her faith, she still speaks, even though she is dead.Betsy Childs Howard, Editor at the Gospel Coalition (from book notes)

    Instead, she discovered she’d been granted an invaluable chance to witness firsthand what she calls the “spiritual work of dying”—the work of finding or making meaning of one’s life, the experiences it’s contained and the people who have touched it, the betrayals, wounds, unfinished business, and unrealized dreams. Instead of talking, she mainly listened: to stories of hope and regret, shame and pride, mystery and revelation and secrets held too long. Most of all, though, she listened as her patients talked about love—love for their children and partners and friends; love they didn’t know how to offer; love they gave unconditionally; love they, sometimes belatedly, learned to grant themselves. This isn’t a book about dying—it’s a book about living. And Egan isn’t just passively bearing witness to these stories. An emergency procedure during the birth of her first child left her physically whole but emotionally and spiritually adrift. Her work as a hospice chaplain healed her, from a brokenness she came to see we all share. Each of her patients taught her something—how to find courage in the face of fear or the strength to make amends; how to be profoundly compassionate and fiercely empathetic; how to see the world in grays instead of black and white. In this poignant, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along all their precious and necessary gifts.