Spiritual Biography

Blindness became Captain Scotty Smiley’s journey of supreme testing. As he lay helpless in the hospital, he resented the theft of his dreams, but with his wife’s love and the support of family and friends, Scotty’s response became God’s transforming moment. Since the moment he forced his way through nurses and cords to take a simple shower, he has climbed Mount Rainier, won an ESPY Award, surfed, skydived, become a father, earned an MBA from Duke, and much more.

When Cindy moves to Thailand with her husband and teenage son, she finds herself strangely adrift in a foreign culture, unprepared for the challenges she encounters there. On an impulse, she signs up for a conference where she unexpectedly meets a Thai Buddhist nun, Venerable Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, who leads her on a spiritual journey from which there is no turning back. Along the way, she discovers the beauty of the Thai people and culture.

Thelma Nicholls was born into a poor family in Jamaica. Molested by her father, she left home as soon as she could. Journey with Thelma as she rises above her humble beginnings to become a major as an army nurse, and finds peace, joy, and forgiveness along the way.

Home is Never the Same centers largely around the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. It is about my heritage, hard work, and simple living with our struggling poor family and my connections with nature and God. It is a true account of my parents, brothers, sisters, relatives, and friends growing up on Big Plum Creek Road, surrounded by the rural farming areas of Kentucky. As a young boy, I searched for the spirit of God while wandering in the woods and walking along the edges of the creeks. I was at peace with nature. But one day, I had to leave Big Plum Creek Road and follow a different path.

This biography evokes the pervasive importance of religion to Queen Victoria's life, but also that life's centrality to the religion of Victorians around the globe. The first comprehensive exploration of Victoria's religiosity, it shows how moments in her life - from her accession to her marriage and her successive bereavements - enlarged how she defined and lived her faith.

In desperate need to rid herself of a life lived in bondage to a negative ego, Ameille Zay Marcotte found yoga, or, rather, yoga discovered Marcotte. Through her practice, in conjunction with sobriety, she found the ability to let go and opened her mind to a world of infinity. Marcotte’s deeply personal account demonstrates how the application of spiritual principles unfolded in her life and illustrates the unimaginable healing that occurred through faith and forgiveness.

The fascinating story of a man whose exploration in spiritual existence has not been limited to his life as a rabbi, this autobiography shares Jerry Steinberg’s experience down a path less traveled. Revealing an understanding of God that goes beyond the conventional, the memoir contributes to a different perception of the world today - an open-eyed and open-minded view that will resonate with readers of any religious or spiritual background.

More than a narrative about a young man destined to accomplish the impossible, more than a chronicle of successful Hollywood writer, producer, and director Lee Stanley's unparalleled success that changed not only his life but also the lives of millions of others.... Faith in the Land of Make Believe is the gritty memoir of someone who was never taught how to be a man, a husband, or a father, and was scared to death somebody would find out.

7 1/2 Decades & 75 Reasons to Trust JESUS combines narratives of each decade of Richard Coe's life with reasons to trust JESUS. It is more than a glimpse into the deeper aspects of Richard Coe's life. The book depicts an inspiring journey. It is not only a story of stages in Richard's life. It depicts Christ at work. Richard wanted to know Christ better and Christ revealed more of Himself.

God's Arm is Not Too Short is a collection of true stories revealing the very real and active presence God had in Cindy's life. Blossoming from a believer to a knower that God is real, her world was transformed. She weathered through her terrible marital storm and not only found the chance to continue her education and obtain her degree in psychology, but met the man who would become the love of her life.

When a 200-pound glass partition fell on Donna Fado Ivery's head resulting in brain injury, disability, and chronic pain, she could no longer count on walking, speaking, or thinking. How would she care for her infant, her preschooler, her husband, and herself? How would she continue to serve as pastor? With humor and humility, this inspirational memoir speaks to Donna’s struggle through medical, social, and church prejudice with the abiding support of family and the Holy Spirit.

Abraham Lincoln is the most beloved of all US presidents. He freed the slaves, gave the world some of its most beautiful phrases, and redefined the meaning of America. He did all of this with wisdom, compassion, and wit. Yet, throughout his life, Lincoln fought with God. In his early years in Illinois, he rejected even the existence of God and became the village atheist. In time, this changed but still he wrestled with the truth of the Bible, preachers, doctrines, the will of God, the providence of God, and then, finally, God’s purposes in the Civil War.

Your faith is a long-distance run, Pastor John Van Pay tells us: an everyday endeavor to follow Jesus that will sometimes feel impossible, even painful. To give us strength, Van Pay retells the inspirational stories of 20 believers in the Bible who persisted, endured, and thrived in their faith by applying the fundamental principles of endurance running to the single most important journey - the journey to loving and following God.

To many who have discovered his books, C. S. Lewis is more than simply a writer; he has been a spiritual mentor. Here, over 50 Christians share how meeting the mind and imagination of Lewis in his books sparked the beginning or changed the course of their spiritual journey. These inspiring reflections have been shared by ordinary laypeople as well as many well-known leaders and writers.

Ron Frazier’s rescue dog, Gracie, changed his life and his spirit. As an adored member of his pack, she taught him valuable life lessons, patience, and how to love unconditionally. But as she neared the end of her earthly life, Ron had no idea of the signals, signs, and spiritual events that were about to take place and the impact they would have on his life from that point forward.

"I don't want to live anymore!" my sister admitted to my parents when she was 14 years old. This cry for help increased with time, and I would not fully grasp her inner demons until years after she died. Was it suicide, was it an accident, was it pre-planned or in the moment? At 24 years of age, my sister's life suddenly ended, and all I have left are my broken memories.

When we are in painful circumstances, we tend to want to escape at any cost. Yet in doing so, we can miss the greatest opportunities of our lives. Writing about her own valleys - including loving a struggling son and reeling from the untimely death of her husband - Yolanda Cohen Stith shares hard-won insights. In the midst of her most painful experiences, Stith discovered that God shows up in the valleys in ways he doesn’t on the mountaintops. She came to believe that we need valleys to recognize our desperate need for God.

The deeper I grow in my own faith as a Christian, the greater my desire to explore. My faith whets my appetite for discovering what God is doing in and through the world each and every day. This book is a chronicle of some of the most important lessons I have learned thus far. I write to encourage my fellow nomads who, like me, so often feel alone in their wanderings yet are a part of a much larger caravan of fellow wanderers seeking to discover for ourselves the meaning and mysteries of life.

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. Yet from that first horrific moment, God was there. Awful Beautiful Life is Becky's journey through the two years surrounding Mark's death and how she overcame.

En corazón pródigo descubrirás cómo Christine logró superar la muerte de su padre, el mudarse a otro país, los sentimientos de coraje, la falta de perdón, pérdida y rechazo, el haber sido acosada sexualmente, y hasta fue liberada de vivir una doble vida siendo líder en la iglesia. Ella retó a Dios y Él le respondió con su amor sanador. Christine comparte su historia y el gozo de rendirse completamente a Dios. Hoy día vive pródigamente, es decir, vive sin restricción por la gloria de Dios, para el servicio de su pueblo y no para sí.