Spiritual Women

On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, Gorman captivated the nation and brought hope to viewers around the globe. Her poem “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” can now be cherished in this special audiobook. Including an enduring foreword by Oprah Winfrey, this keepsake celebrates the promise of America and affirms the power of poetry.

When the oldest of Kate Braestrup's four children was 10 years old, her husband, a Maine state trooper, was killed in a car accident. Stunned and grieving, she decided to pursue her husband's dream of becoming a Unitarian minister. She eventually began working with the Maine Game Warden Service, which conducts the state's search-and-rescue operations when people go missing in the wilderness.

In Brave Enough, popular author Nicole Unice challenges you to get real about the places where you feel too scared to change, too tired to endure, or too worried to move on. Through personal stories and biblical application, Nicole will lead you on a journey beyond worry and into the life God has planned for you - one that's beautiful, full, and free.

How would your life change if you were certain of your identity? If you could know that Someone loves you, sees you, and wants to be close to you - just as you are? In this weekly devotional for women, you're invited to soak in God's word to embrace your identity as a beloved woman made in God's image.

What does the Christian life look like when life is unpredictable, hard, or just plain ordinary? We live in an instant-gratification world, where results are quickly measured and words like discipline and perseverance evoke thoughts of legalism or asceticism. But Everyday Faithfulness explores what daily perseverance in Christ looks like during various seasons when spiritual growth seems especially difficult.

Traditionally, the Book of Ruth is viewed as a beautiful love story between Ruth and Boaz. You'll find startling revelations if you dig deeper, revelations like: God makes much of broken lives he calls men and women to serve him together, and hes counting on his daughters to build his kingdom.

For all the fullness of God available to his daughters, we often feel limited by two defining insecurities: "I am too much" and "I am not enough". Jess and Hayley felt the same until one essential question turned the tables: If God is wild and free and he created women, what does this mean for us today? Wild and Free is an invitation to find freedom from the cultural captivity that holds us back, and freedom to step into God's wild and holy call in our lives. Jess and Hayley answer difficult questions that so many women have asked them over the years.

This inspiring book gives you a splendid example of how to live as a Christian in a secular environment that can be indifferent or hostile to your faith. For Elisabeth Leseur had two great loves: God, and her husband Felix. Felix loved Elisabeth as well; yet to their mutual sorrow, he couldn’t share the life of the spirit that Elisabeth cherished.

While Flaunt! dives deep into how and why listeners got where they are, it quite literally dances through these realizations and uses laughter, play, and storytelling to break free. Listeners learn to cultivate the kind or rock-solid self-worth that cannot be undone by criticism or failure. Cheadle calls herself a life choreographer because she has helped herself, and now helps others dance through their lives, sometimes with well-plotted steps and other times with improvisation but always, always with self-love, sass, and joy.

God Is for Real addresses the questions: What is God like? Why are things the way they are in spite of who God is? If Todd's first book, Heaven Is for Real, was about the then and there of heaven, God Is for Real is about the here and now on earth: Why are there are so many hypocritical church people? Why do Christians make such a big deal about the cross? Why doesn't God seem to answer our biggest prayers?

Sheila Walsh, best-selling author, popular Women of Faith speaker, and gifted recording artist, has a God-given passion for reaching out to women who are privately carrying around broken hearts. She knows what they are going through because she used to be one of them. You're invited to join her on a prayer-filled, God-seeking journey to understand how to live in this world, with all its potential for hurt, pain, and fear, and still experience a deep healing that you are able to hold on to, no matter what life throws at you.

As a woman of color, I know what it's like to feel lost and alone on this journey we call life. But through my own struggles and triumphs, I discovered the secret world of guardian angels, spirit guides, and the power of connecting with the universe. My own experiences with this connection have led to personal growth, empowerment, and a newfound inner wisdom that I want to share with you.

Hannah Brencher, TED Talk speaker and founder of The World Needs More Love Letters, thought Atlanta was her destination. Yet even after she arrived, she found herself in the same old chase for the next best thing…somewhere else. And it left her in a state of anxiety and deep depression. Our hyper-connected era has led us to believe life should be a highlight reel - where what matters most is perfect beauty, instant success, and ready applause. Yet, as Hannah learned, nothing about faith, relationships, or character is instant. So she took up a new mantra: be where your feet are.

As co-pastor of one of the nation's largest megachurches, Hope Carpenter had perfected the roles of supportive wife, good mother, devoted worship leader, and dutiful homemaker. But inside, she was secretly ashamed, sad, and afraid. She didn't know who she was, and she didn't know how to ask for help without bringing down the whole façade.

Legendary woman aren't just those in the history books or leading in business or politics. They are everyday women - the single mom, the prayer leader, the stay-at-home wife - who choose to say yes to God. That one simple act can create a legendary legacy that lives on from generation to generation and forever changes the course of humankind as we know it. In Legendary Woman, Bible teacher Michelle McClain-Walters gives flight to the legendary nature in each woman who dares to dream and risk everything to live out her divine purpose.

Part cookbook and part spiritual memoir, Bread & Wine illuminates how sharing food together mirrors the way we share our hearts with each other and with God. And it explores what it means to follow a God who reveals his presence in breaking bread and passing a cup.

In She Speaks Fire, spoken word poet Mariela Rosario vulnerably shares her testimony of being abandoned as a child, which led to intense people pleasing and subsequent drug use. Then, alone in her house in 2015, she experienced a miraculous encounter with God that prompted her to turn away from those damaging patterns and begin attending church. As her relationship with Jesus deepened, she launched a full-time ministry, She Speaks Fire, which helps other women face their past failures and overcome feelings of shame so that they, too, can live fully and unapologetically for God.

Tens of thousands of women and families every year lose a baby to miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death. The statistics are sobering - between 10 percent and 20 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, 1 percent in stillbirth, and nearly 23,000 babies die before their first birthday - but statistics alone miss the depth of the hurt. Each loss is personal and devastating.

Many women are wired to control. You’re the ones who make sure the house is clean, the meals are prepared, the beds are made, the children are dressed, and everyone gets to work, school, and other activities on time. But trying to control everything can be exhausting, and it can also cause friction with your friends and family.

None of us signed up for a conventional experience with the unconventional God, yet too often the spiritual life can become routine, dare we say, even boring. In Adore, Sara Hagerty gives us all permission to admit "I barely know You, God," and with this honest admission, to scoot a little nearer to this familiar stranger. Adoration is the simple practice Sara discovered for starting where you are, and letting the grit of your day greet the beauty of God's presence.