Book picks similar to
In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God by Gene Robinson
religion
biography
nonfiction
memoir
No Future Without Forgiveness
Desmond Tutu - 1999
Never had any country sought to move forward from despotism to democracy both by exposing the atrocities committed in the past and achieving reconciliation with its former oppressors. At the center of this unprecedented attempt at healing a nation has been Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom President Nelson Mandela named as Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. With the final report of the Commission just published, Archbishop Tutu offers his reflections on the profound wisdom he has gained by helping usher South Africa through this painful experience.In No Future Without Forgiveness, Tutu argues that true reconciliation cannot be achieved by denying the past. But nor is it easy to reconcile when a nation "looks the beast in the eye." Rather than repeat platitudes about forgiveness, he presents a bold spirituality that recognizes the horrors people can inflict upon one another, and yet retains a sense of idealism about reconciliation. With a clarity of pitch born out of decades of experience, Tutu shows readers how to move forward with honesty and compassion to build a newer and more humane world.
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After
Trish Ryan - 2008
'He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not' is Trish Ryan's story of how her search for the right guy turned into the search for the right God, and how she ended up with the happily-ever-after ending.
Snake Oil: The Art of Healing and Truth-Telling
Becca Stevens - 2013
Where others see poverty, you see riches; where others see weeds, you see flowers; where others see sickness, you see openness." Becca Stevens calls herself a "snake oil seller": She takes natural oils, mixes them with a good story, sells them in an open market and believes they help to heal the world. Becca is the founder of Thistle Farms, one of the most successful examples in the US of a social enterprise whose mission is the work force. She is also the founder of its residential program, Magdalene. The women of Magdalene/Thistle Farms have survived prostitution, trafficking and addiction, and the natural body care products they manufacture-balms, soaps, and lotions-aid in their own healing as well as that of the people who buy them. The book weaves together the beginnings of the enterprise with individual stories from Becca's own journey as well as 20 women in the community. In Snake Oil, Becca tells how the women she began helping fifteen years ago have been the biggest source of her own healing from sexual abuse and her father's death as a child. Wise and reflective, Snake Oil offers an empowering narrative as well as a selection of recipes for healing remedies that readers can make themselves.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version
Anonymous - 2001
The English Standard Version (ESV) Bible is an essentially literal Bible translation that combines word-for-word precision and accuracy with literary excellence, beauty, and depth of meaning.
Heretic!: An LGBTQ-Affirming, Divine Violence-Denying, Christian Universalist's Responses to Some of Evangelical Christianity's Most Pressing Concerns
Matthew J. DiStefano - 2018
And while nothing in Heretic! is completely unique—that is, much of the theology contained herein goes as far back as Christianity itself—Distefano creatively puts his unique perspective and humor onto the pages with care. Refreshing and liberating, this is a must read for any who dare question their inherited doctrines.
The Broken Way: A Daring Path into the Abundant Life
Ann Voskamp - 2016
It can find you in the everyday. Learn to walk in a way that glorifies Jesus and receive freedom, not beyond your fear and pain, but within it.We are fragile and we know it. Sometimes, living with Christ in a messed-up world feels less like victory and more like walking uphill. Ann Voskamp, the New York Times bestselling author of One Thousand Gifts, sits at the edge of her life and her own unspoken brokenness and asks: What if you really want to live abundantly before it's too late? What do you do if you really want to know abundant wholeness?This one's for the lovers and the sufferers. This one's for the busted ones who are ready to bust free, the ones ready to break molds, break chains, break measuring sticks, and break all this bad brokenness with an unlikely good brokenness. You could be one of the Beloved who is broken—and still lets yourself be loved.Ann desperately wants you to know:God is attracted to the broken, the sin-sick, and those in needThe very things people are most ashamed of are the exact broken things that draw God to his peopleYou can live in the face of your unspoken painYou can discover and trust this broken way—the way to not be afraid of broken thingsThe Broken Way is simple in presentation, written in Ann’s unique style—a new way for desperate Christians in need of a fresh revelation of the grace of God.
Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear
Max Lucado - 2001
You've seen them -- everything they own crammed into their luggage. Staggering through terminals and hotel lobbies with overstuffed suitcases, trunks, duffels, and backpacks.Backs ache. Feet burn. Eyelids droop.We've all seen people like that.At times, we are people like that -- if not with our physical luggage, then at least with our spiritual load.We all lug loads we were never intended to carry. Fear. Worry. Discontent. No wonder we get so weary. We're worn out from carrying that excess baggage. Wouldn't it be nice to lose some of those bags?That's the invitation of Max Lucado. With the Twenty-third Psalm as our guide, let's release some of the burdens we were never intended to bear.Using these verses as a guide, Max Lucado walks us through a helpful inventory of our burdens. May God use this Psalm to remind you to release the burdens you were never meant to bear.
I Dared to Call Him Father: The Miraculous Story of a Muslim Woman's Encounter with God
Bilquis Sheikh - 1977
Her entire life turned upside down as a series of strange dreams launched her on a quest that would forever consume her heart, mind and soul.This 25th anniversary edition contains a new afterword by a Western friend of Bilquis and a new appendix on how the East enriches the West.
Here If You Need Me
Kate Braestrup - 2007
Stunned and grieving, she decided to pursue her husband's dream of becoming a Unitarian minister, and eventually began working with the Maine Game Warden Service, which conducts the state's search and rescue operations when people go missing in the wilderness. Whether she is with parents whose 6-year-old daughter has wandered into the woods, or wardens as they search for a snowmobile rider gone under ice, or a man whose sister left an infant seat and a suicide note in her car by the side of the road, Braestrup provides solace, comfort, and spiritual guidance when it's needed most. And she comes to discover that giving comfort is both a high calling and a precious gift.In her account of her own life and the events of her unusual job, sometimes joyful, sometimes heartbreaking, Braestrup is warm, unsentimental ("No one is immune to the Plucky Widow story!" she acknowledges), and generous. Here If You Need Me is a funny, frank, and deeply moving story of faith and hope.
Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism
Scott Hahn - 1993
Now these two outstanding Catholic apologists tell in their own words about the incredible spiritual journey that led them to embrace Catholicism. Scott Hahn was a Presbyterian minister, the top student in his seminary class, a brilliant Scripture scholar, and militantly anti-Catholic ... until he reluctantly began to discover that his enemy had all the right answers. Kimberly, also a top-notch theology student in the seminary, is the daughter of a well-known Protestant minister, and went through a tremendous dark night of the soul after Scott converted to Catholicism. Their conversion story and love for the Church has captured the hearts and minds of thousands of lukewarm Catholics and brought them back into an active participation in the Church. They have also influenced countless conversions to Catholicism among their friends and others who have heard their powerful testimony. Written with simplicity, charity, grace and wit, the Hahns' deep love and knowledge of Christ and of Scripture is evident and contagious throughout their story. Their love of truth and of neighbor is equally evident, and their theological focus on the great importance of the family, both biological and spiritual, will be a source of inspiration for all readers.
If Nuns Ruled the World: Ten Sisters on a Mission
Jo Piazza - 2014
During a time when American nuns are under attack from the very institution to which they pledge, these sisters offer inspiring, provocative counterstories that are sure to spark debate.Overthrowing our popular perception of nuns as killjoy schoolmarms content to live in the annals of nostalgia, Piazza defines them instead as the most vigorous catalysts of change in an otherwise constricting patriarchy.
Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
Geneen Roth - 2009
Now, two decades later, here is her masterwork: WOMEN FOOD AND GOD. The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. No matter how sophisticated or wise or enlightened you believe you are, how you eat tells all. The world is on your plate. When you begin to understand what prompts you to use food as a way to numb or distract yourself, the process takes you deeper into realms of spirit and to the bright center of your own life. Rather than getting rid of or instantly changing your conflicted relationship with food, Women Food and God is about welcoming what is already here, and contacting the part of yourself that is already whole—divinity itself.
The Most Beautiful Thing I've Seen: Opening Your Eyes to Wonder
Lisa Gungor - 2018
Their Christian faith was their lens and foundation for everything—their marriage, their music, their dreams for the future. But as their dreams began to come true, she began to wonder if her religion was really representative of the ‘good news’ she had been taught.She never expected the questions to lead as far as they did when her husband told her he no longer believed in God. The death of a friend, the unraveling of relationships and career, the loss of a worldview, and the birth of a baby girl with two heart defects all led Lisa to a tumultuous place; one of depression and despair. And it was there that her perspective on everything changed. The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Seen tells the story of what can happen when you dare to let go of what you think to be true; to shift the kaleidoscope and see new colors and dimension by way of broken pieces.Lisa’s eloquent, soul-stirring memoir brings you to a music stage before thousands of fans and a front porch where two people whisper words that scare them to the core. It is the story of how doubt can spark the beginning of deeper faith; how a baby born with a broken heart can bring love and healing to the hearts of many, and ultimately, how the hardest experience in life often ends up saving us.
Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith
Joe Eszterhas - 2008
He worked as a police reporter, racing the cops to robberies and shootings. He interviewed and wrote about mass murders and serial killers. He wrote dark, sexually graphic, and violent films like "Basic Instinct," "Jagged Edge," and "Jade."Eszterhas knew a lot about darkness. Then, on a hellishly hot day in 2001, desperately battling to survive throat cancer and his addictions to alcohol and cigarettes, Joe Eszterhas found God. Or God found him.And he came from darkness into light."Crossbearer" is the powerful, poignant, and sometimes wryly humorous account of a streetwise and cynical man's newfound faith, and of how he discovers God in the most intimate and routine moments of life: a family game of baseball, a child's photograph of a cloud, a dying mother's dying roses.It is also the inspiring story of a man who must overcome his addictions to stay alive--and can't by himself. He realizes that he needs the love of his wife, his children, and especially his new friend, God, to do it.Eszterhas is a master memoirist--his "Hollywood Animal "was called "powerful and affecting" ("The New York Times"), "absolutely first-rate" ("Los Angeles Times Book""Review") and "heartbreaking, funny and outrageous" ("Houston Chronicle")--and with "Crossbearer" he reveals a fresh and completely unexpected new chapter of his life. With surprising tenderness and a willingness to bare even weaknesses and mistakes, Joe Eszterhas has written a startling personal story about faith, values, family and love.
Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World That Loves to Be Noticed
Sara Hagerty - 2017
Yet most of our lives is unwitnessed. We spend our days working, driving, parenting. We sometimes spend whole seasons feeling unnoticed and unappreciated.In Unseen, Sara Hagerty suggests that this is exactly what God intended. He is the only One who truly knows us. He is the only One who understands the value of the unseen in our lives. When this truth seeps into our souls, we realize that only when we hide ourselves in God can we give ourselves to others in true freedom--and know the joy of a deeper relationship with the God who sees us.Our culture applauds what we can produce, what we can show, what we can upload to social media. Only when we give all of ourselves to God--unedited, abandoned, apparently wasteful in its lack of productivity--can we live out who God created us to be. As Hagerty writes, "Maybe my seemingly unproductive, looking-up-at-Him life produces awe among the angels."Through an eloquent exploration of both personal and biblical story, Hagerty calls us to offer every unseen minute of our lives to God. God is in the secret places of our lives that no one else witnesses. But we've not been relegated to these places. We've been invited.We may be "wasting" ourselves in a hidden corner today: The cubicle on the fourth floor. The hospital bedside of an elderly parent. The laundry room. But these are the places God uses to meet us with a radical love. These are the places that produce the kind of unhinged love in us that gives everything at His feet, whether or not anyone else ever proclaims our name, whether or not anyone else ever sees.God's invitation is not just for a season or a day. It is the question of our lives: "When no one else applauds you, when it makes no sense, when you see no results--will you waste your love on Me?"