Written by a mother whose son has fragile X syndrome and autism this book is about her reaction and coping strategies in relating to her son. She openly discusses working through her grief, anger and fears that her son's diagnosis brought and reinforces that it is possible to survive and find joy in parenting a special needs child.

We are living in challenging times. And it is easy to escape, pine for the “good old days,” or unrealistically dream our way into the future. Instead, we are invited, in this book, to face our troubled world, to identify our inner struggles of faith, and to voice our anxieties and pain. And most importantly we are invited to wrestle with the God who so often seems absent. Living with a fragile hope, we are called by the gospel to nurture an inner life that responds with faith and courage to the brokenness of our world and the woundedness of our inner being.

In this heart-rending true account, LeeAnn Taylor opens with an urgent prayer for death. With unrelenting honesty, she describes her harrowing battles raising three children with Fragile X syndrome and autism, the frightening episodes with her disabled sons, and the anguish of mothering these fragile children. When her ordeal escalates, she turns to death as her only escape. LeeAnn's story takes the reader deep into the heart of the human spirit. It is the luminous account of one woman's tragic descent into the darkness, and, ultimately, her triumphant emergence into the light of redeeming love. Chronicled by her own journal entries, The Fragile Face of God is a celebration of humanity-both the fragile and the sublime-and an intimate view into what makes our journey here one of purpose and eternal significance. Can our darkest hour give rise to miracles? Can departed loved ones intervene on our behalf? And can the most fragile among us light the way?

How do we practice hope after trauma? What shape does hope take after abuse? In grappling with these questions, Ashley E. Theuring implicates the entire church and advocates changing our theologies of hope and our understanding of resurrection. Reimagining the Empty Tomb narrative from the Gospel of Mark in light of the experiences of domestic violence survivors, Fragile Resurrection reveals the possibility for everyday practices and relationships to mediate hope and resurrection. Theuring constructs an embodied imaginative hope found in the wake of trauma, which can speak to our current context of trauma and uncertainty.

Who are these homeless teens wandering the streets of America, backpacks slung over their shoulders, cigarettes dangling from their hands? Why are they on the streets instead of safely harbored at home? A Fragile Thread of Hope answers these questions in the words of four young women rescued from the streets by the author, Andi Buerger. Her own childhood abuse made her keenly aware of three homeless teenaged mothers when she volunteered at a shelter on Thanksgiving of 2008. That day she decided to do something to help. A Fragile Thread of Hope is the story of Andi's redemption from the abuse that sought to define her intertwined with the eventual birth of Beulah's Place, a refuge for lost and wandering teens caught up in drugs, alcohol and even sex trafficking. The women speak their hearts, not just their experiences. The reader will see young street people in a whole new light.

Fragile X Syndrome is estimated to cause 10 per cent of all mental retardation and to be significantly linked to childhood autism. This volume provides a coherent, comprehensive overview of the disorder. The authors are leaders in the field and their approaches span the range of biological and psychological perspectives. The prevalence and historical roots of the Syndrome are examined, as are the wide range of symptomatic behaviours. Recommendations for intervention and treatment are discussed and current scientific findings are presented in a way that makes them accessible to a wide range of readers, including clinicians, teachers and parents.

A memoir in which the author tells how she and her husband learned their son J.P. had fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited form of mental retardation, discusses how she and other family members reacted to the news that they carried the premutation and had passed it to their children, and describes life with J.P., now a confident, imaginative adult.

This is a gripping medical narrative that brings readers into the complex world of newborn intensive care, where brilliant but imperfect doctors do all they can to coax life into their tiny, injured patients. Dr. Adam Wolfberg--journalist, physician specializing in high-risk pregnancies, and father to a child born weighing under two pounds--describes his daughter Larissa's precipitous birth at six months, which left her tenuously hanging on to life in an incubator. Ultrasound had diagnosed a devastating hemorrhage in her brain that doctors reasoned would give her only a 50 percent chance of having a normal IQ. With the knowledge that their daughter could be severely impaired for life, Adam and his wife, Kelly, consider whether to take Larissa off life-support. As they make decisions about live-saving care in the first hours of a premature infant's life, doctors and parents must grapple with profound ethical and scientific questions: Who should be saved? How aggressively should doctors try to salvage the life of a premature baby, who may be severely neurologically and physically impaired? What will that child's quality of life be like after millions of dollars are spent saving him or her? Wolfberg explores the fits and starts of physicians, government policy makers, and lawyers who have struggled over the years to figure out the best way to make these wrenching decisions. Through Larissa's early hospital course and the struggle to decide what is best for her, Wolfberg examines the limitations of newborn intensive-care medicine, neuroplasticity, and decision making at the beginning of life. Featuring high-profile scientific topics and explanatory medical reporting, this is the first book to explore the profound emotional and ethical issues raised by advancing technology that allows us to save the lives of increasingly undeveloped preemies.

An illustrated examination of the challenges of life for some four billion people on our planet, offered by the author/photographer in an effort to effect change through knowledge and awareness.