Audiolibri di Religione e spiritualità

From a trusted advisor and devoted friend of Mother Teresa comes an extraordinary firsthand account of the miraculous woman behind the saint. Mother Teresa was one of the most admired women of the 20th century, and her memory continues to inspire charitable work around the world. She believed the greatest need of a human being is to love and be loved. In 1948, she founded the Missionaries of Charity to work directly with the very poorest of Calcutta. From the efforts of one woman entering the slums of Entally, the Missionaries of Charity grew into an organization operating soup kitchens, health clinics, hospices, and shelters in 139 countries, at no cost to any government or to those served. In 2016, she became Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Author Jim Towey had been a high-flying Congressional staffer and lawyer in the 1980s until a brief meeting with Mother Teresa illuminated the emptiness of his life. He began volunteering at one of her soup kitchens and using his legal skills and political connections to help the Missionaries of Charity. When Mother Teresa suggested he take shifts at her AIDS hospice, Towey realized he was all in. Soon, he gave up his job and possessions and became a full-time volunteer for Mother Teresa. He traveled with her frequently, arranged her meetings with politicians, and handled many of her legal affairs. To Love and Be Loved is a firsthand account of Mother Teresa’s last years, and the first book ever to detail her dealings with worldly matters. We see her gracefully navigate the opportunities and challenges of leadership, the perils of celebrity, and the humiliations and triumphs of aging. We also catch her indulging in chocolate ice cream, making jokes about mini-skirts, and telling the President of the United States he’s wrong. Above all, we see her extraordinary devotion to God and to the very poorest of His children. Mother Teresa taught Towey to be more prayerful, less selfish, more humble, less worldly, more in love with God, and less in love with himself. Her lessons are here for all to share.

An authentic exploration of the real Rumi As one of the world's most loved poets, Rumi's poems are celebrated for their message of love and their beauty, but too often they are stripped of their mystical and spiritual meanings. The Gift of Rumi offers a new reading of Rumi, contextualizing his work against the broader backdrop of Islamic mysticism and adding a richness and authenticity that is lacking in many Westernized conceptions of his work. Author Emily Jane O'Dell has studied Sufism both academically, in her work and research at Harvard, Columbia, and the American University of Beirut, and in practice, learning from a Mevlevi master and his whirling dervishes in Istanbul. She weaves this expertise throughout The Gift of Rumi, sharing a new vision of Rumi’s classic work. At the heart of Rumi’s mystical poetry is the “religion of love” which transcends all religions. Through his majestic verses of ecstasy and longing, Rumi invites us into the religion of the heart and guides us to our own loving inner essence. The Gifts of Rumi gives us a key to experiencing this profound and powerful invitation, allowing readers to meet the master in a new way.

God always keeps His promises, but not always in the way we expect…. “Have faith” is a phrase we hear all the time. But what does it actually look like to live it out? In The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak, Shannon Bream examines the lives of biblical women to see how God’s plans can turn our worlds upside down. She tells the story of Jochebed, a mother who took enormous risks to protect her son, Moses, from Pharaoh. Could Jochebed have imagined that God’s actual design for her son involved flight into exile and danger? And yet this was all part of the master plan to deliver Israel from slavery. Another biblical mother, Rebekah, made terrible choices in an attempt to ensure her son’s place in history. And a daughter, Michal, struggled to keep her faithless father, Saul, from sin, while battling pride in herself. Through these stories, Shannon explains the intimate connection between faith and family—and how God’s unexpected agenda can redefine the way we think about family. Not all of these mothers and daughters in the Bible were paragons of virtue. Like us, they were human beings who faltered and struggled to do their best. While some heard God’s voice, others chose their own paths. Through the lens of their imperfections, we can see how God used their stories to bring about His divine plans. He’s still doing the same work in our lives today. The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak shows that faith is more often a twisting road than a straight line. Yet, as the stories of biblical families attest, at the end of these journeys lies greater peace and joy than we could ever imagine. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

In this timely, much-needed book, theologian, social psychologist, and activist Christena Cleveland recounts her personal journey to dismantle the cultural “whitemalegod” and uncover the Sacred Black Feminine, introducing a Black Female God who imbues us with hope, healing, and liberating presence. For years, Christena Cleveland spoke about racial reconciliation to congregations, justice organizations, and colleges. But she increasingly felt she could no longer trust in the God she’d been implicitly taught to worship—a white male God who preferentially empowered white men despite his claim to love all people. A God who clearly did not relate to, advocate for, or affirm a Black woman like Christena.  Her crisis of faith sent her on an intellectual and spiritual journey through history and across France, on a 400-mile walking pilgrimage to the ancient shrines of Black Madonnas to find healing in the Sacred Black Feminine. God Is a Black Woman is the chronicle of her liberating transformation and a critique of a society shaped  by white patriarchal Christianity and culture. Christena reveals how America’s collective idea of God as a white man has perpetuated hurt, hopelessness, and racial and gender oppression. Integrating her powerful personal story, womanist ideology, as well as theological, historical, and social science research, she invites us to take seriously the truth that God is not white nor male and gives us a new and hopeful path for connecting with the divine and honoring the sacredness of all Black people.

Never has this book been more timely. Religious intolerance, the resurgence of fundamentalism, hate crimes, repressive laws, and mass shootings are pervasive in today’s world. Selina O’Grady asks how and why our societies came to be as tolerant or intolerant as they are; whether tolerance can be expected to heal today’s festering wound between Islam and the post-Christian West; or whether something deeper than tolerance is needed. From Umar, the seventh century Islamic caliph who led what became the greatest empire the world has ever known, to King John (of Magna Carta fame) who almost converted to Islam; from Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who created the religious-military alliance with the House of Saud that still survives today, to the bloody Thirty Years’ War that cured Europe of murderous intra-Christian violence (but probably killed God in the process), Selina O’Grady takes the reader through the intertwined histories of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths. In the Name of God is an original and thought-provoking history of monotheistic religions and their ever-shifting relationship with each other. 

Over the centuries, people have longed for a messiah, whether a religious figure such as Jesus, a political leader, or even in popular culture. The messianic quest emerges most acutely during difficult times when people experience a sense of powerlessness and desperation. But the concept of a messiah—a savior—has its root in the writings of ancient Judaism and early Christianity, evolving from an anointed leader to universal savior. Wilson turns to a little understood pre-Christian text, “The Psalms of Solomon,” which set the stage for messianic expectation just prior to the birth of Jesus. Known today only to a handful of scholars—in marked contrast to the “Song of Solomon”—these important pslams were composed not by a King, but by a devout 1st century BCE Jew who witnessed terrible atrocities under brutal Roman rule. This crucial work encourages us to ask: what is a messiah? Who is a messiah? How would we recognized one should he or she appear? And what is a messiah supposed to do? In his own lifetime, Jesus directed his followers to search for “the messiah within” in his parables. Later, Paul changed the concept of “the messiah,” to “the Christ,” when presenting his message to Gentiles instead of Jews. Jesus was no longer a Jewish messiah but a Hellenistic divine avatar. In Searching for the Messiah, Wilson reveals how this collective search for messiahs throughout modern human history has been fundamentally flawed. Jesus himself rejected the idea of an external fixer, instead formulating his teachings to focus on the role of the individual, their choices, and their actions. Searching for the Messiah is revelatory and illuminating work of scholarship that will challenge and inspire.

Discover the new collection of original writings by Rachel Held Evans, whose reflections on faith and life continue to encourage, challenge, and influence, lovingly performed by Daniel Jonce Evans, Jeff Chu, Jamie Wright, Sarah Bessey, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Kristen Howerton, Kaitlin Curtice, Amanda Held Opelt, Rev. Neichelle R. Guidry, Ph.D., Candice Marie Benbow, Kathy Khang, the Rev. Wil Gafney, Ph.D., and Amena Brown.   Rachel Held Evans is widely recognized for her theologically astute, profoundly honest, and beautifully personal books, which have guided, instructed, edified, and shaped Christians as they seek to live out a just and loving faith. At the time of her tragic death in 2019, Rachel was working on a new book about wholeheartedness. With the help of her close friend and author Jeff Chu, that work-in-progress has been woven together with some of her other unpublished writings into a rich collection of essays that ask candid questions about the stories we’ve been told—and the stories we tell—about our faith, our selves, and our world. This book is for the doubter and the dreamer, the seeker and the sojourner, those who long for a sense of spiritual wholeness as well as those who have been hurt by the Church but can’t seem to let go of the story of Jesus. Through theological reflection and personal recollection, Rachel wrestles with God’s grace and love, looks unsparingly at what the Church is and does, and explores universal human questions about becoming and belonging. An unforgettable, moving, and intimate book.

Fasting for Ramadan is structured as a chronicle of daily meditations, during two cycles of the 30-day rite of daytime abstinence required by Ramadan for purgation and prayer. Estranged in certain ways from his family’s cultural traditions when he was younger, Ali has in recent years re-embraced the Ramadan ritual, and brings to this rediscovery an extraordinary delicacy of reflection, a powerfully inquiring mind, and the linguistic precision and ardor of a superb poet.

Deciding that her life was insufficiently grounded in real-world experience, the author, a Quaker reared as a Catholic, embarked on a year of tending sheep. In this often hilarious book, she describes her time in the barn as well as an extended visit to a Buddhist monastery in France.

“I need help.” Those three words saved Grammy Award–winning singer Michelle Williams’s life. After decades of sweeping her anxiety and depression under the rug—even during her years in the spotlight with Destiny’s Child—Michelle found herself planning her own funeral. Realizing that she needed immediate help and could no longer battle her anxiety and depression alone, she checked herself into a treatment facility. When she came home, she was energized and determined to check in on a regular basis with herself, God, and others. Practical, engaging, and full of wisdom, Checking In helps us understand that building walls around our vulnerability can hinder our healing;  we need to reject the lies of anxiety and depression and replace them with the truth of God’s Word; joy can be found when we release toxic thought patterns; childhood wounds need to be healed; freedom can be found when we forgive ourselves and others; and a beautiful life comes from living honestly.  An uplifting, behind-the-scenes look at one woman's path to healing, Checking In reminds you that you are not alone, and that God is not yet finished writing your story.

“We can do extraordinary things when we lead with love,” Barbara Becker reminds us in her debut memoir Heartwood. When her earliest childhood friend is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Becker sets off on a quest to immerse herself in what it means to be mortal. Can we live our lives more fully knowing some day we will die? With a keen eye towards that which makes life worth living, interfaith minister, mom and perpetual seeker Barbara Becker recounts stories where life and death intersect in unexpected ways. She volunteers on a hospice floor, becomes an eager student of the many ways people find meaning at the end of life, and accompanies her parents in their final days. Becker inspires listeners to live with the end in mind and proves that turning toward loss rather than away from it is the only true way to live life to its fullest. Just as with the heartwood of a tree—the central core that is no longer alive yet supports the newer growth rings—the dead become an enduring source of strength to the living. With life-affirming prose, Becker helps us see that that grief is not a problem to be solved, but rather a sacred invitation—an opportunity to let go into something even greater…a love that will inform all the days of our lives. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books "Becker’s eloquence is a salve for confronting a difficult topic...This will be a comfort for anyone contemplating their own mortality, or those in search of advice for others. " —Publishers Weekly, starred review

This book is a practical and magical companion, an enchanted guide to the Faery Realm. It will walk you through the Wheel of the Faery Year with simple activities, creative projects, meditations and gentle rituals.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!  The women of the Bible lived timeless stories—by examining them, we can understand what it means to be a woman of faith. People unfamiliar with Scripture often assume that women play a small, secondary role in the Bible. But in fact, they were central figures in numerous Biblical tales. It was Queen Esther’s bravery at a vital point in history which saved her entire people. The Bible contains warriors like Jael, judges like Deborah, and prophets like Miriam. The first person to witness Jesus’ resurrection was Mary Magdalene, who promptly became the first Christian evangelist, eager to share the news which would change the world forever. In The Women of the Bible Speak, Fox News Channel's Shannon Bream opens up the lives of sixteen of these Biblical women, arranging them into pairs and contrasting their journeys. In pairing their stories, Shannon helps us reflect not only on the meaning of each individual’s life, but on how they relate to each other and to us. From the shepherdesses of ancient Israel who helped raise the future leaders of the people of God, to the courageous early Christians, the narrative of the Bible offers us many vivid and fascinating female characters. In their lives we can see common struggles to resist bitterness, despair, and pride, and to instead find their true selves in faith, hope, and love. In studying these heroes of the faith, we can find wisdom and warnings for how to better navigate our own faith journeys. The Women of the Bible Speak outlines the lessons we can take from the valor of Esther, the hope of Hannah, the audacity of Rahab, and the faith of Mary. In broadening each woman’s individual story, Shannon offers us a deeper understanding of each, and wisdom and insights that can transform our own lives today. 

A New York Times bestseller! With life lessons she’s learned and new insights from the story of Eve, Sarah Jakes Roberts shows you how past disappointments, struggles, and even mistakes can be used today to help you become the woman God intended. Who would imagine being friends with Eve—the woman who’s been held responsible for the fall of humanity (and cramps) for thousands of years? Certainly not Sarah Jakes Roberts. That is, not until Sarah discovered she is more like Eve than she cares to admit. Everyone faces trials, and everyone will mess up. But failure should not be the focus. Your focus should not be on who you were but rather the pursuit of who you can become. In Woman Evolve, Sarah helps you understand that your purpose in life does not change; it evolves. Making her mistake in the Garden of Eden, Eve became the first woman to deal with rebuilding her life in the aftermath of her past. Eve knew better, but she didn’t do better. With scriptural lessons, Eve as the framework, and Sarah as your guide you will discover and work through: Past issues and insecurities that haunt you Seeing yourself as God sees you and trusting Him with who you really are How to come out of darkness and pursue a real relationship with God Why it’s important to truly care for yourself Setting in motion the beautiful seed that God planted in you Your fears and insecurities may have changed how you viewed God, others, and yourself, but in Woman Evolve, you can break through and use past mistakes to revolutionize your life. Like Eve, you don’t have to live your future defined by your past.

In this uplifting and practical book, written in collaboration with his biographer, Austen Ivereigh, the preeminent spiritual leader explains why we must—and how we can—make the world safer, fairer, and healthier for all people now. In the COVID crisis, the beloved shepherd of over one billion Catholics saw the cruelty and inequity of our society exposed more vividly than ever before. He also saw, in the resilience, generosity, and creativity of so many people, the means to rescue our society, our economy, and our planet. In direct, powerful prose, Pope Francis urges us not to let the pain be in vain. He begins Let Us Dream by exploring what this crisis can teach us about how to handle upheaval of any kind in our own lives and the world at large. With unprecedented candor, he reveals how three crises in his own life changed him dramatically for the better. By its very nature, he shows, crisis presents us with a choice: we make a grievous error if we try to return to some pre-crisis state. But if we have the courage to change, we can emerge from the crisis better than before. Francis then offers a brilliant, scathing critique of the systems and ideologies that conspired to produce the current crisis, from a global economy obsessed with profit and heedless of the people and environment it harms, to politicians who foment their people’s fear and use it to increase their own power at their people’s expense. He reminds us that Christians’ first duty is to serve others, especially the poor and the marginalized, just as Jesus did. Finally, the Pope offers an inspiring and actionable blueprint for building a better world for all humanity by putting the poor and the planet at the heart of new thinking. For this plan, he draws not only on sacred sources, but on the latest findings from renowned scientists, economists, activists, and other thinkers. Yet rather than simply offer prescriptions, he shows how ordinary people acting together despite their differences can discover unforeseen possibilities. Along the way, he offers dozens of wise and surprising observations on the value of unconventional thinking, on why we must dramatically increase women’s leadership in the Church and throughout society, on what he learned while scouring the streets of Buenos Aires with garbage-pickers, and much more. Let Us Dream is an epiphany, a call to arms, and a pleasure to read. It is Pope Francis at his most personal, profound and passionate. With this book and with open hearts, we can change the world.

Tina Turner—living legend, icon to millions, and author of the “brave and wry” (Vulture) memoir My Love Story—returns with a deeply personal book of wisdom that explores her longstanding faith in Buddhism and provides a guide to these timeless principles so you can find happiness in your own life. I dedicate this book to you… in honor of your unseen efforts to triumph over each problem life sends your way. Tina is a global icon of inspiration. And now, with Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, Tina shows how anyone can overcome life’s obstacles—even transform the “impossible” to possible—and fulfill our dreams. She shows how we, too, can improve our lives, empowering us with spiritual tools and sage advice to enrich our unique paths. Buddhism has been a central part of Tina Turner’s life for decades and, in music, film, and live performances, she has shined as an example of generating hope from nothing, breaking through all limitations, and succeeding in life. Drawing from the lessons of her own life, from adversity to stratospheric heights, Tina effortlessly shows how the spiritual lessons of Buddhism help her transform from sorrow, adversity, and poverty into joy, stability, and prosperity. Now, Tina offers the wisdom of an extraordinary lifetime in Happiness Becomes You making this the perfect gift of inspiration for you or a loved one. INCLUDES CHANTING BY TINA TURNER!

A New York Times bestseller! It’s never too late to unearth your hidden passions, rewrite your story, and live with a renewed purpose. Former Today show host Kathie Lee Gifford shares stories from her remarkable life in a beautiful reminder that God is still dreaming big for our years ahead. When Kathie Lee Gifford stepped down as cohost of the fourth hour of the Today show with Hoda Kotb, you might have thought her best days were behind her...but it turns out that she was just getting started. As Kathie Lee says, “I’m not retiring; I’m refiring!” Taking us from her Chesapeake Bay childhood when she first heard God’s calling, to her skyrocketing fame with Regis, to her decision to leave television for Nashville, Kathie Lee inspires us to pursue what really matters. Because it’s never too late to forgive, to dance the cha-cha, or to make a difference in the world. God placed His dreams in your heart for a reason. And like Kathie Lee, you might just discover that the best is yet to come. Whether you’re an empty nester, newly single, navigating a career change, or just eager for any change, Kathie Lee helps you hear God’s loving calling. It’s Never Too Late includes: Touchstone moments in Kathie Lee’s life that have led her to where she is now Inspiration and motivation to live out what’s next and rewrite your story Encouragement to pursue what really matters in life Is it time for you to rewrite your story, unearth your hidden passions, and live with a renewed purpose? It’s never too late.

*#1 New York Times Bestseller* You deserve to stop suffering because of what other people have done to you. Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of unresolved pain, playing offenses over and over in your mind? You know you can't go on like this, but you don't know what to do next. Lysa TerKeurst has wrestled through this journey. But in surprising ways, she’s discovered how to let go of bound-up resentment and overcome the resistance to forgiving people who aren’t willing to make things right. With deep empathy, therapeutic insight, and rich Bible teaching coming out of more than 1,000 hours of theological study, Lysa will help you: Learn how to move on when the other person refuses to change and never says they're sorry. Walk through a step-by-step process to free yourself from the hurt of your past and feel less offended today. Discover what the Bible really says about forgiveness and the peace that comes from living it out right now. Identify what's stealing trust and vulnerability from your relationships so you can believe there is still good ahead. Disempower the triggers hijacking your emotions by embracing the two necessary parts of forgiveness.

From New York Times bestselling author Bob Goff, the creator of the popular Dream Big conferences, a wildly inspiring yet utterly practical blueprint for helping listeners find and reach their biggest dreams. Bob Goff is on a mission to shake people into the version of their lives they dreamt about before someone told them it was impossible or incorrect. He wants people to reconnect with the seat of their passion and their person. He wants them to dream big. In this revelatory new audiobook, Goff takes listeners on a life-proven journey to rediscover their dreams and turn them into reality. Based on his popular Dream Big workshop, Bob draws on a lifetime of living and dreaming large to help guide readers to reaching their larger-than-life dreams. In Dream Big he shows us how to: learn to define clearly your dreams for yourself, identify the obstacles holding you back, come up with a specific plan for reaching goals, and develop the tools that will help you act on the plan. Dream Big is the only audiobook you need to uncover the wild and exciting dream for your life you’ve hidden from yourself—and help you take the steps necessary to achieve it.

New York Times bestselling author Jen Hatmaker, with cheeky candor and fearlessness, guides readers to a deep dive into how they are wired and provides them with the tools to walk in that identity with freedom and guts. Stuck in people-pleasing or fear, many women hide and pretend, then end up sidelined in their own lives. But what they want is to be brave, to claim every gift, dream, quirk, and emotion inside, to stop performing and start living. Beloved New York Times bestselling author Jen Hatmaker understands the struggle to find firm footing in a culture that operates from stereotypes and often unreachable expectations. In this new audiobook, she offers women encouragement, challenge, and humor as she helps them identify everything that makes them tick and gain the confidence to live it all out. She leads them through five self-reflective categories—who I am, what I need, what I want, what I believe, and how I connect—and helps them: identify the exact ways they pretend, and learn instead how to be genuine at all times, in all ways, in all contexts; be empowered to say yes and no without guilt; learn to voice both their spiritual questions and convictions; and opt out of drama and into healthy adult relationships. With wry humor, earnest passion, and been-there insight, Jen calls women to the life-giving freedom of leaning into the identity, convictions, and community they've been given.

In her most personal audiobook yet, popular speaker and best-selling author Sarah Bessey invites us into her long — and sometimes miraculous — road to recovery after a terrible accident and shares how it changed everything she believed about God. Sarah Bessey was in her sweet spot: a popular author, sought-after speaker and preacher, and an active and engaged mother of four, married to the love of her life. Raised within the Word of Faith and prosperity movements, which declared that obedience to God led to untold blessings, her life seemed to prove the preachers of her childhood were right. Then she was in a car accident with life-shattering consequences, and everything she thought she knew about God and faith was upended. Weaving together theology and memoir in her trademark narrative style, Sarah tells us the whole story of the car accident that changed her body and ultimately changed her life. The road of healing leads to Rome, where she met the pope (it’s complicated) and encountered the Holy Spirit in the last place she expected. She writes about her miraculous healing, learning to live with chronic pain, and the ways God unexpectedly makes us whole in the midst of suffering. She invites us to a path of knowing God that is filled with ordinary miracles, hope in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, surprising holiness, and other completely reasonable things. Insightful, profound, and unexpected, Miracles and Other Reasonable Things is a wild, spirit-filled story of what it means to live with both grief and faith in our hands as we wrestle with God.

Beloved and best-selling author Bob Goff provides you with a year's worth of inspiring, unexpected, thought-provoking teaching that will prepare you for the day ahead. Bob Goff’s first two books, Love Does and Everybody, Always, spent dozens of weeks each as New York Times best sellers with their unique combination of entertaining, witty storytelling and challenging, surprising perspectives. Now, Bob is back with a yearlong devotional made up of his distinctive, entertaining, deceptively profound reflections on what it means to live every day in light of the grace of God. Built on Bob's trademark storytelling and unique way of helping us to see things in a new way, Live in Grace, Walk in Love takes us through an entire calendar year of meditations on how we can step out in love and confidence in every aspect of our lives. More than a tweet, less than a blog post, these devotionals — accompanied by Scripture — will inspire and galvanize you to live a more liberated, love- and life-giving existence than you ever thought

Evangelicals are losing the culture war. What if it's their fault? In 2016, writer and filmmaker Ben Howe found himself disillusioned with the religious movement he'd always called home. In the pursuit of electoral victory, many American evangelicals embraced moral relativism and toxic partisanship. Whatever happened to the Moral Majority, who headed to Washington in the '80s to plant the flag of Christian values? Where were the Christian leaders that emerged from that movement and led the charge against Bill Clinton for his deception and unfaithfulness? Was all that a sham? Or have they just lost sight of why they wanted to win in the first place? From the 1980s scandals till today, evangelicals have often been caricatured as a congregation of judgmental and prudish rubes taken in by thundering pastors consumed with greed and lust for power. Did the critics have a point? In The Immoral Majority, Howe—still a believer and still deeply conservative—analyzes and debunks the intellectual dishonesty and manipulative rhetoric which evangelical leaders use to convince Christians to toe the Republican Party line. He walks us through the history of the Christian Right, as well as the events of the last three decades which led to the current state of the conservative movement at large. As long as evangelicals prioritize power over persuasion, Howe argues, their pews will be empty and their national influence will dwindle. If evangelicals hope to avoid cultural irrelevance going forward, it will mean valuing the eternal over the ephemeral, humility over ego, and resisting the seduction of political power, no matter the cost. The Immoral Majority demonstrates how the Religious Right is choosing the profits of this world at the cost of its soul—and why it's not too late to change course.

More than 2.3 million people watched as Jeremy and Audrey shared their vows and committed their lives to one another on TLC's hit show Little People, Big World. As beautiful as their wedding was, the Roloffs made a point to prepare more for their marriage than their wedding day. Their wedding day was the culmination of a bumpy and complicated dating relationship. From health problems, to emotional walls, to being separated by 1,000 miles, the couple faced daunting obstacles. Now for the first time, Jeremy and Audrey share their story in all its beauty and imperfections as they show how their unique approach to dating empowered them to write an uncommon love story and prepared them for married life. In A Love Letter Life, Audrey and Jeremy share vulnerable insights from their own journey, encourage listeners to stop settling for convenient relationships, offer perspective on male and female differences in dating, tackle tough topics like purity, give their nine rules for fighting well, suggest fun ideas for connection in a world of technology, and provide fresh advice on how to intentionally pursue a love story that never ends. As Jeremy and Audrey write, if you can fall into love, you can fall out. True love is something you choose to live out each day through your actions, decisions, and sacrifices. To find and still seek, that is love. From the moment you meet your potential spouse, you can be intentional about shaping a beautiful love story, uniquely written for who God created you both to be. A Love Letter Life will equip you to pursue an intentional, creative, and faithful love story from your first date to "I do" and beyond.

The renowned and beloved New York Times best-selling author of An Altar in the World and Learning to Walk in the Dark recounts her moving discoveries of finding the sacred in unexpected places while teaching the world’s religions to undergraduates in rural Georgia, revealing how God delights in confounding our expectations. Barbara Brown Taylor continues her spiritual journey begun in Leaving Church of finding out what the world looks like after taking off her clergy collar. In Holy Envy, she contemplates the myriad ways other people and traditions encounter the transcendent, both by digging deeper into those traditions herself and by seeing them through her students’ eyes as she sets off with them on field trips to monasteries, temples, and mosques. Troubled and inspired by what she learns, Taylor returns to her own tradition for guidance, finding new meaning in old teachings that have too often been used to exclude religious strangers instead of embracing the divine challenges they present. Reimagining some central stories from the religion she knows best, she takes heart in how often God chooses outsiders to teach insiders how out-of-bounds God really is. Throughout Holy Envy, Taylor weaves together stories from the classroom with reflections on how her own spiritual journey has been complicated and renewed by connecting with people of other traditions — even those whose truths are quite different from hers. The one constant in her odyssey is the sense that God is the one calling her to disown her version of God — a change that ultimately enriches her faith in other human beings and in God.

New York Times bestselling author Lysa TerKeurst unveils her heart amid shattering circumstances and tells listeners how to live assured when life doesn't turn out like they expected. What do you do when God’s timing seems questionable, his lack of intervention hurtful, and his promises doubtful? Life often looks so very different than we hoped or expected. Some events may simply catch us off guard for a moment, but others shatter us completely. We feel disappointed and disillusioned, and we quietly start to wonder about the reality of God’s goodness. Lysa TerKeurst understands this deeply. But she's also discovered that our disappointments can be the divine appointments our souls need to radically encounter God. In It's Not Supposed to Be This Way, Lysa invites us into her own journey of faith and, with grit, vulnerability, and honest humor, helps us to: Stop being pulled into the anxiety of disappointment by discovering how to better process unmet expectations and other painful situations Train ourselves to recognize the three strategies of the enemy, so we can stand strong and persevere through unsettling relationships and uncertain outcomes Discover the secret of being steadfast and not panicking when God actually does give us more than we can handle Shift our suspicion that God is cruel or unfair to the biblical assurance that God is protecting and preparing us Know how to encourage a friend and help her navigate hard realities with real help from God's truth

Bestselling author and serial entrepreneur Dale Partridge tackles the damaging effects of cultural success and directs listeners toward a mature and holistic approach that results in lasting fulfillment. What if success is actually the opposite of everything you've been taught? While still in his twenties, Dale Partridge launched several successful companies, landed on the cover of national magazines, was sought out by prominent leaders, and became a millionaire. Partridge was the picture of success, but he was miserable. Climbing the ladder had taken its toll, driving him into depression and other health problems. With his life, marriage, and family crumbling, Dale made a drastic change. He moved to another state and took a journey to discover the true definition of success. What he realized was that our culture's understanding of success is almost always the opposite of the truth. In Saved from Success, Partridge offers listeners a life preserver to rescue their future from culture's backward definition of family, work, and the good life. With straight talk and without mincing words, he offers listeners a bold vision for charting their lives. But, he says, these ideas are not his. They are part of God's blueprint for living. Each chapter provides a sharp contrasting picture of "what culture says" with "what God wants for us." Peppered with Scripture verses, sprinkled with gripping personal stories, and packed with practical advice, Saved from Success is the book millions of burned-out and bedraggled Americans have been waiting for.