Amid the daily realities of sickness and isolation, disappointment and pain, it can be profoundly difficult to grasp the real goodness of God. But this is where God breaks into our darkness with beauty. In the wonder of creation, in art or film, story or song, in the kindness of his people and the good they create, God breaks into our pain in a tangible way, teaching us to trust his kindness and hope for his healing. Beauty is a voice singing into our suffering, beckoning us toward restoration.In This Beautiful Truth, Sarah Clarkson shares her own encounters with beauty in the midst of her decade-long struggle with mental illness, depression, and doubt. In a voice both vulnerable and reflective, she paints a compelling picture of the God who reaches out to us in a real and powerful way through the "taste and see" goodness of what he has made and what he continues to create amid our darkness. "To recognize and trust God's gift in pain," she writes, "empowers us to create and love as powerful witnesses to God's healing love in a hopeless world."If you want to renew your capacity to recognize and encounter God's beauty in your life, this hope-filled book will show you the way.

    Specifically designed to nurture the spiritual life of the youth leader, The Godbearing Life is a lively spiritual primer and practical guide for those who pastor young people.

    The strangeness calls for an explanation, and this book provides it by examining the characters and the story in light of the biblical and historical context. Bestselling author Scott Hahn who has written extensively on Scripture and the early Church, brings evidence to light, dispelling some of the mystery of the story. Yet Christmas is made familiar all over again by showing it to be a family story. Christmas, as it appears in the New Testament, is the story of a father, a mother, and a child -- their relationships, their interactions, their principles, their individual lives, and their common life. To see the life of this "earthly trinity" is to gaze into heaven.

    During her lifelong service to the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa be

    The message is fearless and often radical as he expounds on the disparity between the New Testament church and the church today. Why Revival Tarries contains the heart of his message. A.W. Tozer called Ravenhill "a man sent from God" who "appeared at [a] critical moment in history," just as the Old Testament prophets did. Included are questions for group and individual study. Ravi Zacharias refers to this as "the book that shaped me...more dramatically than any other..."

    Oak Hills Church, from the pastoral staff to the congregation, had to confront addiction to personal ambition, resist consumerism and reorient their lives around the teachings of Jesus. Their renewed focus on spiritual formation over numerical growth triggered major changes in the content of their sermons, the tenor of their worship services, and the reason for their outreach. They lost members.But the health and spiritual depth of their church today is a testimony of God's transforming work and enduring faithfulness to the people he loves.Honest and humble, this is Kent and Mike's story of a church they love, written to inspire and challenge other churches to let God rewrite their stories as well. Read it for the church you love.

    A. Torrey shares spiritual guidelines of answered prayer in this powerful and dynamic book, including:Praying according to God’s willPraying in the SpiritHindrances to prayerWhen to prayAbiding in ChristTorrey’s teachings are illustrated with many true-life experiences. They are lovingly explained and will help you understand the components of a successful prayer life. Then you will see the powerful results of praying God’s way

    It is especially difficultâ��not to mention unsatisfyingâ��when people experience it as formal, dry, and repetitious. But what might happen if you discovered a simple prayer that changed all that? What if you discovered a prayer that changed you? In A Simple, Life-Changing Prayer, Jim Manney introduces Christians to a 500-year-old form of prayer that dramatically altered his perception of prayer and the way he prayed. The prayer is the examen, which St. Ignatius Loyola developed for the purpose of nurturing a reflective habit of mind that is constantly attuned to God’s presence. What makes the prayer so powerful is its capacity to dispel any notion that God is somewhere “up there,” detached from our day-to-day tasks and concerns. Instead, the examen leads us into a relationship with a God who desires to be personally caught up in the lives of those whom he created. By following five simple yet powerful steps for praying the examen, we can encounter the God who, as Scripture tells us, “is not far from each one of us”â��the God whose presence in our lives can make all the difference in the world.

    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.

    Dubay's many years of study and experience in spiritual direction and in it he synthesizes the teachings on prayer of the two great doctors of the Church on prayer--St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila--and the teaching of Sacred Scripture.But the teaching that Fr. Dubay synthesized is not collected from Teresa and John for contemplatives alone. It is meant for every Christian and is based on the Gospel imperative of personal prayer and the call to holiness. All the major elements of these great teachers are ordered, commented on and put in the context of their scriptural foundations. Here is an outstanding book on prayer and the spiritual life written by one of the best spiritual directors and retreat masters of our time, and based on the writings of the Church's two greatest mystical doctors.

    Theophan the Recluse, possessing a rare degree of patristic scholarship, combined with a thorough understanding of the soul of his native Russia and of contemporary people in general, was enabled to carve out a genuine understanding of spirituality for modern man. He made this understanding accessible to the average person, for he knew that each "average person" is the possessor of an immortal soul, and each soul is to be attuned here upon earth to live eternally with God in Paradise. THE SPIRITUAL LIFE AND HOW TO BE ATTUNED TO IT was the result of a correspondence between a young lady of the upper middle class and St. Theophan the Recluse. In the compilation of his letters of spiritual direction to her, it can be seen that St. Theophan strove to make sure that this young soul would not only be familiar with the principles of spiritual life, but first of all be able to keenly hear the right "tone" of spiritual life. This tuning of the soul is necessary so that the soul will be in harmony with the voice of God's Providence echoing in the instrument of the heart. In that light, THE SPIRITUAL LIFE AND HOW TO BE ATTUNED TO IT could rightly be called a primer to be used before embarking into the realm of spiritual life.

    Even in the questions. Even in the hurt."I want to believe, I want to have hope, but . . ." Pastor and bestselling author Craig Groeschel hears these words often and has asked them himself. We want to know God, feel his presence, and trust that he hears our prayers, but in the midst of great pain, we may wonder if he really cares about us. Even when we have both hope and hurt, sometimes it's the hurt that shouts the loudest.In Hope in the Dark, Groeschel explores the story of the father who brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus, saying, "I believe! Help my unbelief!" In the man's sincere plea, Jesus heard the tension in the man's battle-scarred heart. He healed not only the boy but the father too, driving out the hopelessness that had overtaken him. He can do the same for us today.As Groeschel shares his pain surrounding the health challenges of his daughter, he acknowledges the questions we may ask in our own deepest pain:"Where was God when I was being abused?""Why was my child born with a disability?""Why did the cancer come back?""Why are all my friends married and I'm alone?"He invites us to wrestle with such questions as we ask God to honor our faith and heal our unbelief. Because in the middle of your profound pain, you long for authentic words of understanding and hope. You long to know that even in overwhelming reality, you can still believe that God is good.Hope in the Dark is also available in Spanish, Esperanza en la Oscuridad.

    Using biblical passages, poetry, and excerpts from her journal, Wiederkehr provides meditative ideas and prayers as "postures" for realizing and approaching the holy in our daily lives.These reflections and prayers, then, have grown out of a daily listening to God in the changing seasons of my spiritual life, "writes the author. "These reflections have grown out of my conviction that our God is not some Almighty Being beyond us, but a Mystery within."

    It is full of profound lessons and words of wisdom on sanctifying the present moment, the effect of conduct on belief, how to pray and meditate, and making up for the past.Paperback

    Perhaps that’s because it is so hard to experience lasting happiness.In The Saints’ Guide to Happiness, Robert Ellsberg suggests that some of the best people to show us are holy men and women throughout history—from St. Augustine to Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Merton to St. Theresa of Avila and Mother Theresa.These people weren’t saints because of the way they died or their visions or wondrous deeds. They were saints because of their extraordinary capacity for goodness and love, which—in the end—makes us happy.