Aren't You Forgetting Someone?: Essays from My Mid-Life Revenge


Kari Lizer - 2020
    She finds the wry, bittersweet humor in (almost) all situations--whether it's becoming radioactive during a thyroid cancer treatment, getting fired from her volunteer work, or struggling to find her identity outside of motherhood. Aren't You Forgetting Someone? speaks to those of us who lament the invisibility of the middle-aged woman, but also revel in the unexpected delights of newfound freedom to do whatever the hell we want while no one is looking.

It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered


Lysa TerKeurst - 2018
    Some events may simply catch us off guard for a moment, but others shatter us completely. We feel disappointed and disillusioned, and we quietly start to wonder about the reality of God’s goodness.Lysa TerKeurst understands this deeply. But she's also discovered that our disappointments can be the divine appointments our souls need to radically encounter God. In It's Not Supposed to Be This Way, Lysa invites us into her own journey of faith and, with grit, vulnerability, and honest humor, helps us to:* Stop being pulled into the anxiety of disappointment by discovering how to better process unmet expectations and other painful situations.* Train ourselves to recognize the three strategies of the enemy so we can stand strong and persevere through unsettling relationships and uncertain outcomes.* Discover the secret of being steadfast and not panicking when God actually does give us more than we can handle.* Shift our suspicion that God is cruel or unfair to the biblical assurance that God is protecting and preparing us.* Know how to encourage a friend and help her navigate hard realities with real help from God's truth.

Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back


Todd Burpo - 2010
    What they weren't expecting, though, was the story that emerged in the months that followed--a story as beautiful as it was extraordinary, detailing their little boy's trip to heaven and back.Colton, not yet four years old, told his parents he left his body during the surgery--and authenticated that claim by describing exactly what his parents were doing in another part of the hospital while he was being operated on. He talked of visiting heaven and relayed stories told to him by people he met there whom he had never met in life, sharing events that happened even before he was born. He also astonished his parents with descriptions and obscure details about heaven that matched the Bible exactly, though he had not yet learned to read.With disarming innocence and the plainspoken boldness of a child, Colton tells of meeting long-departed family members. He describes Jesus, the angels, how "really, really big" God is, and how much God loves us. Retold by his father, but using Colton's uniquely simple words, "Heaven is for Real" offers a glimpse of the world that awaits us, where as Colton says, "Nobody is old and nobody wears glasses.""Heaven is for Real" will forever change the way you think of eternity, offering you the chance to see, and believe, like a child.

The Vow


Kim Carpenter - 2000
    When she finally emerged from the coma, she recognized everyone in her life except her husband, Kim. Starting all over, they built a new love and dedicated their lives to each other all over again.

Brave Surrender: Let God’s Love Rewrite Your Story


Kim Walker-Smith - 2019
    But she wasn't always so confident of God's unrelenting, powerful love.  Coming from a painful childhood, Kim struggled to believe that God could heal her heart or bring any sense from her past. Yet when she chose to hand her struggles over to God and receive His love, freedom, and healing in return, everything began to change. On the other side of surrender, Kim began a journey of looking at one painful memory at a time with God and exchanging her perspective for His truth--a journey in which God rewrote her story of pain into a story of redemption and hope.If you are longing to experience God more than the shame or hurts of your past, the pressures of your present, or the fear of your future, Brave Surrender offers a soul-healing path forward. As Kim learned in her own life, the first step--and the bravest step--is letting go. Once we let go of anything that gets between us and God, we are freed to take hold of the life that truly matters. As Kim writes, "When we encounter God's love, it changes the way we see. And when we learn to see what He sees, we will never be the same again."

Sacred Pace: Four Steps to Hearing God and Aligning Yourself With His Will


Terry Looper - 2019
    At just thirty-six years old, Terry Looper was a successful Christian businessman who thought he had it all—until managing all he had led to a devastating burnout. Wealthy beyond his wildest dreams but miserable beyond belief, Terry experienced a radical transformation when he discovered how to align himself with God’s will in the years following his crash and burn.Sacred Pace is a four-step process that helps Christians in all walks of life learn how toslow down their decision-making under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,sift through their surface desires and sinful patterns in order to receive clear, peace-filled answers from the Lord,gain the confident assurance that God’s answers are His way of fulfilling the true desires he has placed in their hearts, andgrow closer to the One who loves them most and knows them best.This book is not another example of name-it-and-claim-it materialism in disguise. Instead, it walks readers through the sometimes-painful process of “dying to self” in their decisions, both big and small, so that they desire God’s will more than their own.

Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy


Anne Lamott - 2017
    It's the permission you give others--and yourself--to forgive a debt, to absolve the unabsolvable, to let go of the judgment and pain that make life so difficult.In Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy Lamott ventures to explore where to find meaning in life. We should begin, she suggests, by-facing a great big mess, especially the great big mess of ourselves. It's up to each of us to recognize the presence and importance of mercy everywhere-within us and outside us, all around us-and to use it to forge a deeper understanding of ourselves and more honest connections with each other. While that can be difficult to do, Lamott argues that it's crucial, as kindness towards others, beginning with myself, buys us a shot at a warm and generous heart, the greatest prize of all.Full of Lamott's trademark honesty, humor, and forthrightness, Hallelujah Anyway is profound and caring, funny and wise--a hopeful book of hands-on spirituality.

Daring to Hope: Finding God's Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful


Katie Davis Majors - 2017
    But joy often gave way to sorrow as she invested her heart fully in walking alongside people in the grip of poverty, addiction, desperation, and disease.After unexpected tragedy shook her family, for the first time Katie began to wonder, Is God really good? Does He really love us? When she turned to Him with her questions, God spoke truth to her heart and drew her even deeper into relationship with Him.Daring to Hope is an invitation to cling to the God of the impossible--the God who whispers His love to us in the quiet, in the mundane, when our prayers are not answered the way we want or the miracle doesn't come. It's about a mother discovering the extraordinary strength it takes to be ordinary. It's about choosing faith no matter the circumstance and about encountering God's goodness in the least expected places.Though your heartaches and dreams may take a different shape, you will find your own questions echoed in these pages. You'll be reminded of the gifts of joy in the midst of sorrow. And you'll hear God's whisper: Hold on to hope. I will meet you here.

Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl, Her Journey to Heaven, and Her Amazing Story of Healing


Christy Wilson Beam - 2015
    One sunny day when she was able to go outside and play with her sisters, she fell three stories headfirst inside an old, hollowed-out tree, a fall that may well have caused death or paralysis. Implausibly, she survived without a scratch. While unconscious inside the tree, with rescue workers struggling to get to her, she visited heaven. After being released from the hospital, she defied science and was inexplicably cured of her chronic ailment. MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN will change how we look at the world around us and reinforce our belief in God and the afterlife.

Of Men and Mary: How Six Men Won the Greatest Battle of Their Lives


Christine Watkins - 2018
    Donald Calloway, MIC, calls this book, “Anointed!”, Exorcist Fr. Gary Thomas, subject of the movie, “The Rite,” says, “OF MEN AND MARY is superb. The six life testimonies contained within it are miraculous, heroic, and truly inspiring.” Certain books as this come along that have the power “to transform lives, to free people from darkness,” claims Br. Daniel Maria Klimek, T.O.R. “I plan to share this tremendous work with many through the years.” Powerful in the spirit, OF MEN AND MARY also delivers tasty doses of pure entertainment. You will find yourself inspired by a murderer, a sweet lamb who lost it all, and a man who literally died—and then came back to life. You will suddenly root for a football player tackled by the Blessed Mother, a man caught up in illicit sexual liaisons, and a man whose marriage was as good as dead. While OF MEN AND MARY may be about six males, it is for everyone, because it is also a book about a woman. In the heat of the fiercest of spiritual battles, when all seemed lost and these men were left with nothing to stand on but stormy seas, they were given a lifeboat. That lifeboat—that woman—is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the boat of safety for all of us, the surest and safest passage to the heart of her Son. She is our victory and sweet reassurance that God's plan is infinitely better than our own; and she is our challenge to follow her Son, no matter the cost, no matter how fierce the battle. Read the stories of these brave men, and you will inevitably come away with a desire to climb in the boat with them and sail safely home. To watch the trailer for OF MEN AND MARY and see the faces of the six men whose stories grace its pages, go to www.QueenofPeaceMedia.com/men.

Awful Beautiful Life: When God Shows Up in the Midst of Tragedy


Becky Powell - 2019
    Becky Powell faced the unthinkable on May 16, 2013. Her husband Mark called and said, "I've done something terrible." Within hours, she learned that he had taken his own life and, over a period of several years, millions of dollars from friends and colleagues. Everything she believed to be true, the very fiber of her marriage, was called into question. Within a week, rather than planning carpool runs and volunteer fundraisers, she owed almost one hundred creditors millions of dollars and had her own team of ten lawyers. She was also the subject of open FBI, SEC and DOJ investigations--and faced potential criminal charges. And, although she instantly denounced every cent of Mark's $15M in life insurance and promised to repay every penny taken, her lawyers knew that in reality she faced years of court battles and lawsuits, and possible jail time. Yet from that first horrific moment, God was there. He showed up in His Word, in Becky's friends, in her lawyers and in the generosity of those around her. He worked miracles. CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and others covered the first moment, but what about the last? What about the story in which God gives your next breath because you can't find it on your own? What about the story of a mom and three kids trying to make sense of their pasts, present and future while living under a microscope?Awful Beautiful Life is Becky's journey through the two years surrounding Mark's death and how she overcame. It came down to a loving God who surrounded her, a present and dedicated family, and friends, who made her life, offered her sanctuary and showed up for her and her kids in tangible ways. This is a story of remarkable grit, strength, and what the Body of Christ in action looks like.

Growing Up Duggar: It's All About Relationships


Jana Duggar - 2013
    They share how their family walks through unexpected and difficult circumstances and how they manage to maintain their faith and love their family.This updated edition has new stories and insights that reflect the experiences of Jill and Jessa—the now-married Duggar daughters—on their exciting journey through courtship, engagement, and marriage. With a backdrop of the key relationships in their lives, the four Duggar girls also open up about their own personal faith and convictions, boys, peer pressure, manners, living in a large family, politics, and much more. You’ll learn how the girls navigate the difficult years between twelve and sixteen, what they look for in a man, life in a big family, and much more—all in a frank and fun book that will inspire teens and adults alike.

Different: The Story of an Outside-The-Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him


Sally Clarkson - 2017
    He saw the world through his own unique lens--one that often caused him to be labeled as "bad," "troubled," or someone in need of "fixing."Bravely choosing to listen to her motherly intuition rather than the loud voices of the world, Sally dared to believe that Nathan's differences could be part of an intentional design from a loving Creator with a plan for his life. She trusted that the things that made him different were the very things that could make him great.Join Sally and Nathan as they share their stories from a personal perspective as mother and son. If you are in need of help and hope in your own journey with an outside-the-box child, or if you're an adult trying to make sense of your differences, you'll find deep insight, resonance, and encouragement in the pages of this book. Dare to love and nurture the "different" one in your life.

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art


Madeleine L'Engle - 1980
    In this classic book, Madeleine L'Engle addresses the questions, What makes art Christian? What does it mean to be a Christian artist? What is the relationship between faith and art? Through L'Engle's beautiful and insightful essay, readers will find themselves called to what the author views as the prime tasks of an artist: to listen, to remain aware, and to respond to creation through one's own art.

Life Without Limits


Nick Vujicic - 2007
    Born without arms or legs, Nick Vujicic overcame his disability to live not just independently but a rich, fulfilling life, becoming a model for anyone seeking true happiness. Now an internationally successful motivational speaker, his central message is that the most important goal for anyone is to find their life’s purpose despite whatever difficulties or seemingly impossible odds stand in their way. Nick tells the story of his physical disabilities and the emotional battle he endured trying to deal with them as a child, a teen, and a young adult. “For the longest, loneliest time, I wondered if there was anyone on earth like me, and whether there was any purpose to my life other than pain and humiliation.” He shares how his faith in God has been his central source of strength and explains that once he found his own sense of purpose—inspiring others to make their lives and the world better—he found the confidence to build a rewarding and productive life without limits. Nick offers practical advice for realizing a life of fulfillment and happiness by building trust in others, developing supportive relationships, and gaining strength for the journey. He encourages the reader by showing how he learned to accept what he could not control and focus instead on what he could. “I do believe my life has no limits! I want you to feel the same way about your life, no matter what your challenges may be. As we begin our journey together, please take a moment to think about any limitations you’ve placed on your life or that you’ve allowed others to place on it. Now think about what it would be like to be free of those limitations. What would your life be if anything were possible?”—Nick Vujicic, from Life Without Limits