Spiritual Memoir

In The Minister’s Wife, Karen shines a light on the rhythms and tough realities of the spiritual life for each and every one of us. She explores how community helps us grow; the unexpected beauty of doubt; the messy pain of families and funerals; how church can hurt and heal; and the beauty of showing up when sometimes it is more appealing to go to a coffee shop on a Sunday morning (even when you’re the pastor’s wife).

“Keep me real. Sometimes, I am standing right beside you. I haven’t gone anywhere. Just keep me real.” This message was clearly relayed to the author in a session with a medium shortly after her brother’s death. Over the next two years, Cathryn navigated through her grief, doubt, and fear to do just that. The result is this spiritual memoir. Is it real...or imagined?

Sister Helen Prejean’s work as an activist nun, campaigning to educate Americans about the inhumanity of the death penalty, is known to millions worldwide. Less widely known is the evolution of her spiritual journey from praying for God to solve the world’s problems to engaging full-tilt in working to transform societal injustices. Sister Helen grew up in a well-off Baton Rouge family that still employed black servants.

This honest book will help you discover a different Jesus from the flannelgraph Sunday school figure, the sweetly smiling Victorian Savior, and all the cultural clichés that have tamed Jesus and kept him in comfortable religious boxes. Philip Yancey cuts through existing views and preconceptions of Jesus - citing opinions from church history, modern history, and popular culture; discussing how different people and cultures view Jesus; dissecting popular quotes about Jesus; and much more - and he offers a more accurate perspective by pointing us back to the Bible.

No one has ever been in a position to see the presidents, and the presidency, so intimately, over so many years. They called him in for photo opportunities. They called for comfort. They asked about death and salvation; about sin and forgiveness. At a time when the nation is increasingly split over the place of religion in public life, The Preacher and the Presidents reveals how the world's most powerful men and world's most famous evangelist, Billy Graham, knit faith and politics together.

Following Jesus is a journey none of the people in this book ever expected to take. Why did they? What difference did it make? The book you’re looking at is dangerous. If you listen to it, you’ll see that God is still active in saving even the most unexpected people: An atheist woman who viewed Christians as “idiots.” A married couple high in the leadership ranks of the Mormon church. An African-American man who became a Black Muslim out of hatred for white Christians. And much more!

My story is not about my past, but about your future, says Marie Roberts Monville. In the startling tragedy of the Amish schoolhouse shooting at Nickel Mines, one story has never been told; Marie Roberts Monville, the wife of the man who created such horror, tells her story for the very first time. It is a story of sorrow and destruction, but also one of majestic deliverance, unending compassion, breathtaking forgiveness, and grace-filled redemption. Within a solitary moment, Marie Monville realized that life, as she knew it, was over.

One thing I have learned is that I love writing. Though I had the desire to compose with words from an early age, it wasn't until the last eleven years that I found the time to begin to put thought and words into some kind of form. I had written plays, lyrics to songs, and tons of letters, but more philosophical things sat unwritten in the deeper recesses of my mind. Then one day I was asked to write something of spiritual encouragement for a monthly church bulletin.

He grew up, he says, at "belt-buckle level" and stayed there until Kevan's beloved posse decided to leave his wheelchair at the Atlanta airport, board a plane for France, and have his friends carry him around Europe to accomplish their dream to see the world together! Kevan's beloved posse traveled to Paris, England, and Ireland, where, in the climax of their adventure, they scale 600 feet up to the 1,400-year-old monastic fortress of Skellig Michael.

If you have ever wondered why life is sometimes unfair, if God really hears your prayers, or if you just can’t figure out Scripture, My Fight With God promises to stir you into new conversations with your heavenly Father and deepen your personal walk with Jesus. Written with a strong, cut-to-the-chase approach, the author’s refreshing and natural responses to questions and situations that you face everyday will make you laugh as well as scratch your head more than once as you wonder “Gee, how did he know that’s what I was thinking?”

In Ley Lines of Love, Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle shares wisdom gained from a lifetime of spiritual seeking and devoted practice. A dedicated practitioner of Buddhism, she shares many remarkable stories about her inner journey, including the joys of learning from enlightened teachers. She also recounts how her years of involvement with a devotional tradition from India ended in an archetypal story of disillusionment.

From his difficult childhood on the poor side of town to his rise as a multiple Grammy-winning artist, Kirk Franklin’s Church Boy is a personal story of unwavering faith, remarkable talent, and unyielding perseverance. His narrative is a testament to how God can transform pain and adversity into sources of strength and joy. In this gripping account, Franklin shares the pivotal moments that shaped his faith, including a dramatic ten-foot fall from a darkened stage in November 1996.

Between Heaven & Hollywood is David's inspirational journey from the wheat fields of his Mennonite home outside of Dodge City, Kansas, to the bright lights of Los Angeles. This story of perseverance will assure you that your dreams aren't frivolous. They might be the most important part of your life.

For Ann Voskamp, the notion of being able to give thanks was lost between her gnawing anger and deep resentment toward God for his unfair dealings in her life and the lives of others. Having suffered from agoraphobia and anxiety for much of her life, she despaired of finding a joy of her own. Then, a friend dared her to write a list of a thousand blessings. Over the months that followed, she made some profound discoveries.

Not Less Than Everything: One Man’s Quest for Spiritual Enlightenment is the inspirational true story of how author, August Turak overcame depression and meaningless despair through a daring quest for life’s ultimate meaning and purpose.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was not trying to start a movement. She was simply tired of the social injustice. Yet her simple act of courage started a chain of events that forever shaped the landscape of American race relations. Now, decades after her quiet defiance inspired the modern civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks' own words tell of her courageous life, her passion for freedom and equality, and her strong faith.

In Coming Clean, Seth Haines writes a raw account of his first 90 days of sobriety, illuminating how to face the pain we’d rather avoid, and even more importantly, how an abiding God meets us in that pain. Seth shows us that true wholeness is found in facing our pain and anxieties with the tenacity and tenderness of Jesus, and only through Christ's passion can we truly come clean.

In 2005, Anne Rice startled her readers with her novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, and by revealing that, after years as an atheist, she had returned to her Catholic faith. And now, in her powerful and haunting memoir, Rice tells the story of the spiritual transformation that produced a complete change in her literary goals.

Do you hate making small talk? Do you wish you could walk up to anyone, anywhere, anytime, and just start talking to them? Well, it isn't difficult.… In this book I detail everything I've used to overcome my fear and inability of making small talk so that you can, too. You can pick up this book, listen to it, and have an actionable step-by-step structure to follow so you can master small talk. Everything in this book has been boiled down to its simplest form and then molded into actionable steps.

“You were like this once. What did you do to get better?” A day out from a mental institution, a woman devastated by flashbacks from childhood trauma poses this question to her big brother. Within a few weeks, she took her own life. This book is the answer that her brother wished he could have offered. Spiritual director and professor Frank Rogers had been there. As a young adult, he too was tormented by trauma suffered in the same family.