'If you have lost your identity along life’s journey, know that the steps leading back to destiny’s path are illuminated by the Holy Spirit’s light and love. A Beautiful Kind of Broken addresses the pain caused by abusive churches and misguided ministry communities—an experience many have known but have never dealt with in a healthy-closure way. This book confronts, discusses, and provides healing answers to crucial life issues including: • Identity. • Spiritual abuse. • Rejection. • Forgiveness. Seeking and finding your identity in Christ and welcoming the Holy Spirit as your Divine Counselor is the first step to returning to your God-given destiny of an abundant and joyful life. If you have felt the sting of rejection and spiritual abuse, A Beautiful Kind of Broken provides practical information on healing and total forgiveness. Written for those in leadership, as well as all those who submit to leadership, A Beautiful Kind of Broken brings hope and restoration to people of all walks of life, building a solid foundation for the church and ministry community.'

ECPA BESTSELLER • An invitation to love like Jesus and step beyond distraction and division into the joy we long to experience—from the author of The Deeply Formed Life, winner of the Christianity Today Book Award “A stunning book with power to reshape our world . . . if we let it.”—Glenn Packiam, pastor and author of Blessed Broken Given We long for a good life, a beautiful life, a kind life. But clearly that’s not the world we live in. We carry the stress of our fractured world in our bodies and relationships. Families that once gathered around tables have converted those tables into walls. Hostility, rage, and offense is the language of our culture. How did we lose goodness, kindness, and beauty? And more important, how do we get them back into our lives? These are the two questions crying out in our streets, homes, churches, and from deep within our souls. Pastor and author Rich Villodas is convinced that only Jesus offers a way of being human that is both strong and tender enough to tear down the walls of hostility we experience daily. In Good and Beautiful and Kind, he reveals how… • These three essentials are stolen by sin, powers and principalities, and trauma. • We can get goodness, beauty, and kindness back through contemplative prayer, humility, and the cultivation of calm presence. • The traits of healthy conflict, forgiveness, and justice lead to wholeness, healing, and a new collective future—when rooted in the ancient way of Jesus. Filled with fresh energy, classic truth, and practical solutions, this is your road map for stepping beyond distraction and division to love like Jesus. Doing so will change the atmosphere within you…and around you!

Find beauty and hope by facing and dealing with the messiness of family life. The family is an imperfect institution. Broken people become broken parents who make broken families. But actually, broken is normal and exactly where God wants us. In The Beauty of Broken, Elisa Morgan, one of today’s most respected female Christian leaders, for the first time shares her very personal story of brokenness—from her first family of origin to the second, represented by her husband and two grown children. Over the years, Elisa’s family struggled privately with issues many parents must face, including: alcoholism and drug addiction infertility and adoption teen pregnancy and abortion divorce, homosexuality, and death Each story layers onto the next to reveal the brokenness that comes into our lives without invitation. “We’ve bought into the myth of the perfect family,” says Elisa. “Formulaic promises about the family may have originated in well-meaning intentions, but such thinking isn’t realistic. It’s not helpful. It’s not even kind.” Instead she offers hope in the form of “broken family values” that allow parents to grow and thrive with God. Values such as commitment, humility, relinquishment, and respect carry us to new places of understanding. Owning our brokenness shapes us into God’s best idea for us and enables us to discover the beauty in ourselves and each member of our family.

Remember the places you touched me. Ben touched seven parts of Mira Cillo: her palm, hair, chest, cheek, lips, throat, and heart. It was the last one that broke her. After Mira's death, she sends Ben on a quest to find notes she left him in the seven places where they touched—notes that explain why she and her sister, Francesca, drowned themselves in the quarry lake. How Ben interprets those notes has everything to do with the way he was touched by a bad coach years ago. But the truth behind the girls’ suicides is far more complicated, involving a dangerous infatuation, a deadly miracle, and a crushing lie. BEAUTIFUL BROKEN GIRLS is a stunning release from Kim Savage, the author of the critically acclaimed After the Woods.

"A Broken Beauty examines recent ideas about beauty and the human image in light of the Western Classical and Christian traditions of the human figure. The book's five essays trace the historical fusion of Classical and Christian ideas about beauty, as well as their rejection by much modern art, provocatively suggesting that the difficulties encountered by the beautiful in modernity may be related to a loss of faith." "This volume culminates in a look at fifteen postmodern North American artists whose haunting pieces unite brokenness and beauty in a way that is uncommon within contemporary art. These artists, like the book's essayists, find significance in beauty that is cultivated amidst the perennial human struggle for goodness, meaning, and dignity."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Sometimes everything you ever learned about yourself is wrong Fashion is a fickle industry, a frightening fact for twenty-four year old model Ivy Clark. Ten years in and she’s learned a sacred truth—appearance is everything. Nobody cares about her broken past as long as she looks beautiful for the camera. This is the only life Ivy knows—so when it starts to unravel, she’ll do anything to hold on. Even if that means moving to the quaint island town of Greenbrier, South Carolina, to be the new face of her stepmother’s bridal wear line—an irony too rich for words, since Ivy is far from the pure bride in white. If only her tenuous future didn’t rest in the hands of Davis Knight, her mysterious new photographer. Not only did he walk away from the kind of success Ivy longs for to work maintenance at a local church, he treats her differently than any man ever has. Somehow, Davis sees through the façade she works so hard to maintain. He, along with a cast of other characters, challenges everything Ivy has come to believe about beauty and worth. Is it possible that God sees her—a woman stained and broken by the world—yet wants her still?

When all signs point to heartbreak, can love still be a rule of the road? A “touching father-daughter story” (Kirkus Reviews) from the author of Bittersweet and Twenty Boy Summer. Jude has learned a lot from her older sisters, but the most important thing is this: The Vargas brothers are notorious heartbreakers. She’s seen the tears and disasters that dating a Vargas boy can cause, and she swore an oath—with candles and a contract and everything—to never have anything to do with one. Now Jude is the only sister still living at home, and she’s spending the summer helping her ailing father restore his vintage motorcycle—which means hiring a mechanic to help out. Is it Jude’s fault he happens to be cute? And surprisingly sweet? And a Vargas? Jude tells herself it’s strictly bike business with Emilio. Her sisters will never find out, and Jude can spot those flirty little Vargas tricks a mile away—no way would she fall for them. But Jude’s defenses are crumbling, and if history is destined to repeat itself, she’s speeding toward some serious heartbreak…unless her sisters were wrong? Jude may have taken an oath, but she’s beginning to think that when it comes to love, some promises might be worth breaking.

A DIAMOND MAGNATE DARK ROMANCE NOVEL"An epic dark romance with heart-breaking depth and sizzling sensuality!" - Anna Zaires, New York Times bestselling authorSix years ago, Harold Dalton framed me for theft and sent me to jail to steal my diamond discovery. He gave his daughter to Jack Clarke in exchange for the excavation rights. Today, I'm walking free, and I'm coming for him with a vengeance. Six years of cruelty make beasts out of men. I'm going to take back what he stole from me, and more. I'm not interested in his properties or shares. I don't want his small change. I want his biggest asset. Beautiful, mentally unstable, Angelina Dalton-Clarke.Worth billions, she's the wealthiest widow in the country, and also the craziest. Her self-harming tendencies had Jack declare her incompetent before he put a gun to his head and blew his brains out. Lina isn't allowed to touch a cent of her riches. Her father manages her finances. He has all the signing power. As her husband, that chore will fall to me. But if she thinks I only want her for her money, she's sadly mistaken.*This book is a stand-alone. No cliffhanger.

“No human language possesses adequate words to describe what it feels like to watch as life slowly leaves your newborn baby. I have never felt so palpably and sickeningly helpless in my entire life. I was strong like wet tissue paper is strong. The moment felt like a horrible dream . . . except this bad dream was my reality.” How can a good God let babies die? Does He really have my best in mind? Will He ever heal my broken heart? The Bible tells us that God is good and that everything He does is good. But what about when the pain of this life bristles against that definition of God’s undeniable goodness? It is in those times when the deepest questions of our souls emerge. After learning that her unborn daughter would not be able to survive outside of the womb, author Sarah Rieke was pressed face-to-face with these difficult questions. Three years later, following the fatal diagnosis for her unborn son, Sarah was once again forced to reconcile God’s goodness against the brokenness of the world. Even Broken Can Be Beautiful is the story of the author’s own personal journey to find purpose in the most difficult, confusing, heart-breaking moments of life. It is the story of learning to lean hard on the God who can bring good from even the most despairing situations, an honest story of deep pain redeemed by the beauty of the cross of Christ. In this book, you, too, will uncover the sacred truth that because of Christ, even our most deeply broken places can be made beautiful.

Fashion is a fickle industry, a frightening fact for twenty-four year old model Ivy Clark. Ten years in and she's learned a sacred truth-appearance is everything. Nobody cares about her broken past as long as she looks beautiful for the camera. This is the only life Ivy knows-so when it starts to unravel, she'll do anything to hold on. Even if that means moving to the quaint island town of Greenbrier, South Carolina, to be the new face of her stepmother's bridal wear line-an irony too rich for words, since Ivy is far from the pure bride in white. If only her tenuous future didn't rest in the hands of Davis Knight, her mysterious new photographer. Not only did he walk away from the kind of success Ivy longs for to work maintenance at a local church, he treats her differently than any man ever has. Somehow, Davis sees through the façade she works so hard to maintain. He, along with a cast of other characters, challenges everything Ivy has come to believe about beauty and worth. Is it possible that God sees her-a woman stained and broken by the world-yet wants her still?