Download or read book Love and Faith and Beauty written by Margaret Talley and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2013-06-20 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I began writing poetry in the early eighties. The Lord inspired the majority of my poetry. I would be awakened around one a.m. with a poem in my heart and mind. I could not go back to sleep until I wrote it down. I keep and paper and pen close by . Sometimes I write on scrap paper on table napkins. Whatever is available whenthe poem comes to me. I began to feel I should publish my poetry as it began to come in the darkest hours of my life. I was having financial problems. My father had passed on leaving me to care for my sister who was disabled for life and I became disabled to work. Then went five years without an income. It was hard. Then on my fifty-nineth birthday I had surgery for breast cancer. During the time i was taking chemo, my sister passed this life. I have had cancer twice since; but the Lord whom I serve and write about has brought me through. I never thought once about turning away from Him and I grew stronger in my faith. I always claim the Scripture I can do all tings through Christ who strengthen me. I pray those who read my poetry will be blessed and encouraged.
Download or read book Beauty in the Broken Places written by Allison Pataki and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An inspiring, intimate memoir about faith, resilience and the tenacity of love.”—People “In this emotional tale, a young couple see their lives changed in the blink of an eye—and learn to find love again.”—US Weekly Five months pregnant, on a flight to their “babymoon,” Allison Pataki turned to her husband when he asked if his eye looked strange and watched him suddenly lose consciousness. After an emergency landing, she discovered that Dave—a healthy thirty-year-old athlete and surgical resident—had suffered a rare and life-threatening stroke. Next thing Allison knew, she was sitting alone in the ER in Fargo, North Dakota, waiting to hear if her husband would survive the night. When Dave woke up, he could not carry memories from hour to hour, much less from one day to the next. Allison had lost the Dave she knew and loved when he lost consciousness on the plane. Within a few months, she found herself caring for both a newborn and a sick husband, struggling with the fear of what was to come. As a way to make sense of the pain and chaos of their new reality, Allison started to write daily letters to Dave. Not only would she work to make sense of the unfathomable experiences unfolding around her, but her letters would provide Dave with the memories he could not make on his own. She was writing to preserve their past, protect their present, and fight for their future. Those letters became the foundation of this beautiful, intimate memoir. And in the process, she fell in love with her husband all over again. This is a manifesto for living, an ultimately uplifting story about the transformative power of faith and resilience. It’s a tale of a man’s turbulent road to recovery, the shifting nature of marriage, and the struggle of loving through pain and finding joy in the broken places. Praise for Beauty in the Broken Places “Bold and commendable . . . A strength of this memoir is [Allison Pataki’s] scrupulous honesty.”—USA Today “A memoir about . . . determination and gratitude, and the value of putting one foot in front of another during a crisis.”—The Washington Post “Heart-wrenching.”—Women’s Health “Powerful and immersive . . . Pataki delivers an insightful look at how two people faced a life-altering test as a team ‘fighting to make the dreams of our future possible.’”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Download or read book Silence and Beauty written by Makoto Fujimura and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Internationally renowned artist Makoto Fujimura reflects on Shusaku Endo's novel Silence and grapples with the nature of art, pain and culture. Showing that light is yet present in darkness, he uncovers deep layers of meaning in Japanese history and finds connections to how faith is lived in contexts of trauma.
Download or read book The Beauty of Broken written by Elisa Morgan and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Find beauty and hope by facing and dealing with the messiness of family life. The family is an imperfect institution. Broken people become broken parents who make broken families. But actually, broken is normal and exactly where God wants us. In The Beauty of Broken, Elisa Morgan, one of today’s most respected female Christian leaders, for the first time shares her very personal story of brokenness—from her first family of origin to the second, represented by her husband and two grown children. Over the years, Elisa’s family struggled privately with issues many parents must face, including: alcoholism and drug addiction infertility and adoption teen pregnancy and abortion divorce, homosexuality, and death Each story layers onto the next to reveal the brokenness that comes into our lives without invitation. “We’ve bought into the myth of the perfect family,” says Elisa. “Formulaic promises about the family may have originated in well-meaning intentions, but such thinking isn’t realistic. It’s not helpful. It’s not even kind.” Instead she offers hope in the form of “broken family values” that allow parents to grow and thrive with God. Values such as commitment, humility, relinquishment, and respect carry us to new places of understanding. Owning our brokenness shapes us into God’s best idea for us and enables us to discover the beauty in ourselves and each member of our family.
Download or read book If God Is Love Don t Be a Jerk written by John Pavlovitz and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thou Shalt Not Be Horrible. Imagine for a moment what the world might look like if we as people of faith, morality, and conscience actually aspired to this mantra. What if we were fully burdened to create a world that was more loving and equitable than when we arrived? What if we invited one another to share in wide-open, fearless, spiritual communities truly marked by compassion and interdependence? What if we daily challenged ourselves to live a faith that simply made us better humans? John Pavlovitz explores how we can embody this kinder kind of spirituality where we humbly examine our belief system to understand how it might compel us to act in less-than-loving ways toward others. This simple phrase, "Thou Shalt Not Be Horrible," could help us practice what we preach by creating a world where: spiritual community provides a sense of belonging where all people are received as we are; the most important question we ask of a religious belief is not Is it true? but rather, is it helpful? it is morally impossible to pledge complete allegiance to both Jesus and America simultaneously; the way we treat others is the most tangible and meaningful expression of our belief system. In If God Is Love, Don't Be a Jerk, John Pavlovitz examines the bedrock ideas of our religion: the existence of hell, the utility of prayer, the way we treat LGBTQ people, the value of anger, and other doctrines to help all of us take a good, honest look at how the beliefs we hold can shape our relationships with God and our fellow humans—and to make sure that love has the last, loudest word.
Download or read book Culture Care written by Makoto Fujimura and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2017-01-14 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all have a responsibility to care for culture. Artist Makoto Fujimura issues a call to cultural stewardship, in which we feed our culture's soul with beauty, creativity, and generosity. This is a book for artists and all "creative catalysts" who understand how much the culture we all share affects human thriving today and shapes the generations to come.
Download or read book Party of One written by Joy Beth Smith and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This book is bold and strong and unapologetic. Unflinching, even. Joy Beth doesn’t back down from those hard conversations that need to be happening, not just in our churches but in our small groups, our social circles, our relationships.” —Mandy Hale, creator of The Single Woman and New York Times bestselling author Did you enter adulthood thinking marriage would naturally find you, only to end up at a second-cousin’s wedding, dodging yet another bouquet the night before you turned thirty? Maybe you’ve started wondering, is this the best the single life has to offer? Joy Beth Smith says it’s not. The single life doesn’t have to be the runner-up version of God’s best. It doesn’t have to leave you constantly waiting for “real life” to begin. Party of One offers a trade: let go of the tired lies weighing you down and turn toward truth. Understand that: You don’t have to be married to be wise. You don’t have to be a mother to have supernatural love. You don’t have to own a home to be hospitable. Singleness is not meant to be pitied, shamed, fixed, or even ignored. It is to be celebrated. God doesn’t promise you a husband, but he does promise comfort, intimacy, and satisfaction. With humor, self-awareness, and been-there perspective, Party of One delves into the insecurities and struggles of singleness and encourages you to find the good, the true, and the beautiful, to dive headfirst into community, and to stop pressing pause on a life you never expected.
Download or read book The Other Side of Beauty written by Leah Darrow and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Leah Darrow uses her experience in the beauty industry to help the women of our culture see what true beauty looks like.” —Jennifer Fulwiler, host of The Jennifer Fulwiler Show and author of Something Other than God Do you feel like you’re never good enough? Like you should be living a more Instagram-worthy life? Are you exhausted by the impossible quest for physical beauty but still yearn for the validation of being chosen, valued, and deemed beautiful? Drawing on her experience on America’s Next Top Model and her work as a fashion model, Leah Darrow exposes the lies we are told about our worth being tied to our appearance and instead invites us to look again at the real meaning of beauty. She shows how we can reclaim true and lasting beauty—the kind that doesn’t depend on self-doubt, exploitation, or comparison—when we reflect God’s glory and embrace our value as he made us to be: strong, brave, and free. Only when we learn to see ourselves as God does can we leave behind our culture’s definitions and demands and find joy in The Other Side of Beauty.
Download or read book The Shortest History of Germany written by James Hawes and published by The Experiment. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2,000 years of all of Germany’s history in one riveting afternoon, followed by The Shortest History of China A country both admired and feared, Germany has been the epicenter of world events time and again: the Reformation, both World Wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall. It did not emerge as a modern nation until 1871—yet today, Germany is the world’s fourth-largest economy and a standard-bearer of liberal democracy. “There’s no point studying the past unless it sheds some light on the present,” writes James Hawes in this brilliantly concise history that has already captivated hundreds of thousands of readers. “It is time, now more than ever, for us all to understand the real history of Germany.”
Download or read book Towards Rest written by Alabaster Creative Inc. and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book True Beauty written by Carolyn Mahaney and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2014-03-31 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is true beauty? Whether it’s age-defying makeup or the latest diet fad, our culture continually tells women that beauty consists of flawless skin and a supermodel figure. In True Beauty, Carolyn Mahaney and her daughter Nicole Whitacre direct us to the truth of God’s Word, where we encounter an entirely different—and refreshingly liberating—standard of beauty. Offering a path to freedom from the false idols that society, the Devil, and our sinful hearts so often create, this encouraging book will help you exchange the temporary glamour of pop culture for the unfading beauty of godliness. Includes a discussion guide.
Download or read book The Complete American Pilgrim written by Howard a. Kramer and published by Complete Pilgrim, LLC. This book was released on 2018-08-28 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Complete American Pilgrim is a traveler's guide to 250 of the most sacred and historic religious sites in the United States. It is based on the travels and research of the author, who over the last few decades has visited countless religious sites around the world. The Complete American Pilgrim invites casual travelers and die-hard pilgrims alike to explore some of the most sacred destinations to be found in the United States. These places, chosen for their religious, historic and architectural importance encompass centuries of the American religious experience. From the historic colonial churches of New England to the magnificent missions of California, discover what hidden treasures of faith may be found in your own neighborhood.
Download or read book Submission Faith and Beauty written by Joseph E. B. Lumbard and published by Fons Vitae. This book was released on 2008 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Summarizing the core beliefs of the Muslim faith, this eye-opening guide counters widely held Western views of Islam as a fierce and fanatical religion by using classical texts to illustrate the truth about three key Islamic principles. Explaining that submission, faith, and beautification complement and complete each other, the study reveals that embodying all three attributes simultaneously is what Muslims strive to achieve in order to meet the Qur'an's definition of fitrah, or true nature. This drastic contrast to many issues and concerns about Muslims--especially the stereotypical attitudes that have arisen since 9/11--is fully explored in the account's quest to foster mutual understanding between cultures. Using a famous encounter between the prophet Muhammad and the angel Gabriel as its outline, this analysis presents a fully holistic view of a world religion that has thrived for more than 1,000 years.
Download or read book Beauty in the Browns written by Paul Asay and published by Focus on the Family. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you or someone you love struggle with depression? If so, know that you and your loved ones can go on. Beauty in the Browns author Paul Asay knows this from personal experience—his and his son’s. As he shares their stories in an honest, practical, sometimes painful, and occasionally humorous way (with input from mental health professionals), you’ll find someone who understands what it means to live as a Christian with depression. He offers hope and help to those suffering from mental illness as well as those trying to help them. Even in the bleak browns of depression, even when the world looks hopeless, God still has a plan for people dealing with this issue. In this book, you’ll find encouragement to fight the good fight and keep the faith.
Download or read book Unleash the Beauty and Power of Love written by H. C. Villanueva and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2012-04 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • Chapter 1: To cross the great unknown to harvest love is a challenge we all face. • Chapter 8: You cannot close your heart, ignore the hurting world around you, and be content with life. • Chapter 32: Love is real. The question is whether we are real enough to embrace love. • Chapter 21: We hide inside shells of denials and go under shades of lies to avoid the piercing rays of truth. • Chapter 6: To share love in the arena of life, you open the vault of your heart and disburse gems polished by God. • Chapter 11: Regret robs your life. It is a thief you allow to rummage your soul and steals the precious life you have been given. • Chapter 27: In the face of adversity, you are forced to define yourself. You are given a chance to show your essence. The depth of your heart exposed and the size of your faith revealed. • Chapter 2: Love binds feelings on the solid rock of faith and ties passion within the sacrificial cord of promise. • Chapter 34: Life grows cold when you do not put ideas in the furnace of adversity. When you tarry, dreams become wavering titillations of the soul, and aspirations turn into useless trinkets of the mind. • Chapter 16: When we fail to follow God, we drift in a sea of confusion, struggle in the field of opportunity, and wither in the garden of life.
Download or read book Your Beautiful Heart written by Lauren Scruggs and published by NavPress. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Beauty is on the inside.” We know it’s true . . . yet sometimes it seems tough to fully believe it. What would your world be like if you truly felt beautiful and lived every day full of that confidence and joy? Fashion journalist Lauren Scruggs knows how it feels to search for beauty. She grew up knowing of God’s love, but never fully understood what that love meant, or how it extended to the deepest parts of her soul—until a horrible accident that resulted in the loss of both her left eye and hand. In her darkest hours, everything Lauren believed was tested. Yet it was there that God showed her where real beauty comes from: the unfailing love of the Creator. God’s love is what truly makes us lovely. Using stories from Lauren’s accident, recovery, and experiences in the fashion world, Your Beautiful Heart explores issues that teen girls face every day: body image, self-worth, peer pressure, and much more. Whether you read the book on your own or with a group of friends, Lauren’s personal message of love, faith, and value will show you what it means to be a girl who radiates with true beauty.
Download or read book Dusk Night Dawn written by Anne Lamott and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Anne Lamott is my Oprah.” -Chicago Tribune From the bestselling author of Help, Thanks, Wow comes an inspiring guide to restoring hope and joy in our lives. In Dusk, Night, Dawn, Anne Lamott explores the tough questions that many of us grapple with. How can we recapture the confidence we once had as we stumble through the dark times that seem increasingly bleak? As bad newspiles up—from climate crises to daily assaults on civility—how can we cope? Where, she asks, “do we start to get our world and joy and hope and our faith in life itself back . . . with our sore feet, hearing loss, stiff fingers, poor digestion, stunned minds, broken hearts?” We begin, Lamott says, by accepting our flaws and embracing our humanity. Drawing from her own experiences, Lamott shows us the intimate and human ways we can adopt to move through life’s dark places and toward the light of hope that still burns ahead for all of us. As she does in Help, Thanks, Wow and her other bestselling books, Lamott explores the thorny issues of life and faith by breaking them down into manageable, human-sized questions for readers to ponder, in the process showing us how we can amplify life's small moments of joy by staying open to love and connection. As Lamott notes in Dusk, Night, Dawn, “I got Medicare three days before I got hitched, which sounds like something an old person might do, which does not describe adorably ageless me.” Marrying for the first time with a grown son and a grandson, Lamott explains that finding happiness with a partner isn't a function of age or beauty but of outlook and perspective. Full of the honesty, humor, and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Dusk, Night, Dawn is classic Anne Lamott—thoughtful and comic, warm and wise—and further proof that Lamott truly speaks to the better angels in all of us.
