Lucy Watani-Simiyu walks you through the raw and ugly moments in parenting that come when tragedy first strikes. She wrote this book after a season when nothing made sense and it felt like she’d been abandoned by God. It was a time filled with anxiety and heartbreak, and with many questions unanswered. As she shares her story,she gives you permission to not be a hero or be an unobtainable version of someone’s faithful Christian highlight reel. You can be right where you are ... moving toward freedom. As you read, In her parental journey and counselling sessions, the experiential learning from thousands of parents raised many questions and gives answers to questions such as: How can parents connect themselves to the very heart of God? What message does God have for you as a parent? Can children question their faith in God in a nerve-wracking way to parents and yet continue to function sanely? How can parents equip themselves with the truth of God’s Word to keep sane and fulfill their ambassadorial calling. What does it mean for a parent to have a well-planned journey for a child? You ask: what do I do when my child makes the wrong choices? How do I deal with contrary or counterculture? What about parenting guilt? Where is God in all this? Filled with verses from Scripture, examples from the Bible, and practical insights from the author’s own life experiences, this book will help you combine grace, truth, and God’s Word to find strength and help children overcome obstacles. This book points you to the source of joy in your journey by pointing you to God’s Word, the truth that sets you free when the journey gets weary. The blueprint still works—not to make you guilty but to liberate you. Maybe you are a parent who is paralyzed by fear of your child’s choices. You may be anxious, hopeless, and helpless about your child’s future. Perhaps you are weighed down by guilt and shame, caught in a slump, overwhelmed with regret trapped in a dead-end parenting, and numb from a child’s choice. You may be drowning in disappointment, anger, shame, and unfilled spiritually so that God and his promises do not make sense.Instead of tying our hope to specific outcomes, let us connect ourselves to the very heart of God. With compelling storytelling and sound scriptural backup, this book gives you the biblical pathway to help you as a parent move beyond the pain of the present to a hope-filled future.

Lucy Watani-Simiyu walks you through the raw and ugly moments in parenting that come when tragedy first strikes. She wrote this book after a season when nothing made sense and it felt like she'd been abandoned by God. It was a time filled with anxiety and heartbreak, and with many questions unanswered. As she shares her story,she gives you permission to not be a hero or be an unobtainable version of someone's faithful Christian highlight reel. You can be right where you are ... moving toward freedom. As you read, In her parental journey and counselling sessions, the experiential learning from thousands of parents raised many questions and gives answers to questions such as: How can parents connect themselves to the very heart of God? What message does God have for you as a parent? Can children question their faith in God in a nerve-wracking way to parents and yet continue to function sanely? How can parents equip themselves with the truth of God's Word to keep sane and fulfill their ambassadorial calling. What does it mean for a parent to have a well-planned journey for a child? You ask: what do I do when my child makes the wrong choices? How do I deal with contrary or counterculture? What about parenting guilt? Where is God in all this? Filled with verses from Scripture, examples from the Bible, and practical insights from the author's own life experiences, this book will help you combine grace, truth, and God's Word to find strength and help children overcome obstacles. This book points you to the source of joy in your journey by pointing you to God's Word, the truth that sets you free when the journey gets weary. The blueprint still works--not to make you guilty but to liberate you. Maybe you are a parent who is paralyzed by fear of your child's choices. You may be anxious, hopeless, and helpless about your child's future. Perhaps you are weighed down by guilt and shame, caught in a slump, overwhelmed with regret trapped in a dead-end parenting, and numb from a child's choice. You may be drowning in disappointment, anger, shame, and unfilled spiritually so that God and his promises do not make sense.Instead of tying our hope to specific outcomes, let us connect ourselves to the very heart of God. With compelling storytelling and sound scriptural backup, this book gives you the biblical pathway to help you as a parent move beyond the pain of the present to a hope-filled future.

Does it ever feel like life is out of control? Could you use the reminder that God is in control? When tragedy strikes, people desperately search for answers. Believers and unbelievers alike find themselves turning to God. Bestselling author and pastor Max Lucado tells us that though it may not be quick or painless, God will use this mess for good. In this booklet, Max Lucado will help you: Find courage to never give up during turbulent times Trust God to help you through all of life’s trials Remember that God will use every painful circumstance for good Scriptures for Your Turbulent Times also included.

Adorable coil bound journal that reminds us all , in everything we can find joy! Great gift for children, students, family members, and friends.

This remarkable and timely ethnography explores how fishing communities living on the fringe of the South China Sea in central Vietnam interact with state and religious authorities as well as their farmer neighbors—even while handling new geopolitical challenges. The focus is mainly on marginal people and their navigation between competing forces over the decades of massive change since their incorporation into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1975. The sea, however, plays a major role in this study as does the location: a once-peripheral area now at the center of a global struggle for sovereignty, influence and control in the South China Sea. The coastal fishing communities at the heart of this study are peripheral not so much because of geographical remoteness as their presumed social “awkwardness”; they only partially fit into the social imaginary of Vietnam’s territory and nation. The state thus tries to incorporate them through various cultural agendas while religious reformers seek to purify their religious practices. Yet, recently, these communities have also come to be seen as guardians of an ancient fishing culture, important in Vietnam’s resistance to Chinese claims over the South China Sea. The fishers have responded to their situation with a blend of conformity, co-option and subtle indiscipline. A complex, triadic relationship is at play here. Within it are various shifting binaries—for example, secular/religious, fishers/farmers, local ritual/Buddhist doctrine, and so forth—and different protagonists (state officials, religious figures, fishermen and women) who construct, enact, and deconstruct these relations in shifting alliances and changing contexts. Fishers, Monks and Cadres is a significant new work. Its vivid portrait of local beliefs and practices makes a powerful argument for looking beyond monolithic religious traditions. Its triadic analysis and subtle use of binaries offer startlingly fresh ways to view Vietnamese society and local political power. The book demonstrates Vietnam is more than urban and agrarian society in the Red River Basin and Mekong Delta. Finally, the author builds on intensive, long-term research to portray a region at the forefront of geopolitical struggle, offering insights that will be fascinating and revealing to a much broader readership.

Reproduction of the original.

Prayer is first and foremost a personal relationship and that the most fruitful prayer is that builds upon and enhances relationship. It shows us how we can develop an intimate relationship with God.

In this bold interdisciplinary work, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that asceticism has played a major role in shaping Western ideas of the body, writing, ethics, and aesthetics. He suggests that we consider the ascetic as "the 'cultural' element in culture," and presents a close analysis of works by Athanasius, Augustine, Matthias, Grünewald, Nietzsche, Foucault, and other thinkers as proof of the extent of asceticism's resources. Harpham demonstrates the usefulness of his findings by deriving from asceticism a "discourse of resistance," a code of interpretation ultimately more generous and humane than those currently available to us.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From one of the world’s most influential spiritual thinkers, a long-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called “Christ,” and how this forgotten truth can restore hope and meaning to our lives. “Anyone who strives to put their faith into action will find encouragement and inspiration in the pages of this book.”—Melinda Gates In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus’s last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understandings have been limited by culture, religious debate, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the center. Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world. “God loves things by becoming them,” he writes, and Jesus’s life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God—except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator’s presence all around us, and in everyone we meet. Thought-provoking, practical, and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.