Heres My Heart Heres My Hand

How do we foster a friendship with God and remain in it forever? It’s a difficult enough proposition for many people to believe that God—eternal, unchanging, all-knowing—could actually desire a relationship with them. But once they’ve accepted the premise that God indeed does want their friendship, it can be even more challenging to think about how to actually engage in that friendship, foster it, and remain anchored in it when life’s storms toss them about. In Here’s My Heart, Here’s My Hand, veteran spiritual director William A. Barry, SJ, helps us understand how we can experience a personal, lasting relationship with God and what effects that close relationship will have on our lives. Written in a warm, conversational tone, this book is a collection of nearly twenty of the finest previously published articles Fr. Barry has written on the subject of friendship with God. The selections are diverse in their overall themes—from discerning God’s will for our lives to forgiving as Jesus forgives—but each one shares the common thread of helping us see prayer as the way to a conscious, lifelong relationship with God.

This heartwarming picture book reassures children that a parent’s love never lets go—based on the poignant lyrics of JJ Heller’s beloved lullaby “Hand to Hold.” “May the living light inside you be the compass as you go / May you always know you have my hand to hold.” With delightful illustrations and an engaging rhyme scheme, this book offers the promise of security and love every child’s heart longs to know. From skipping stones and counting stars to climbing trees and telling stories, every moment is wrapped snugly in the certain warmth of a parent’s presence and God’s blessing. With poignancy and joy, this bedtime read captures the unconditional love parents want their children to know but so often fail to express amid the chaos of daily life.

The women of this book are mainly Pakeha. They are domestic servants, governors' wives and farmers, married, single, widowed or deserted. They write about love, friendship, children, destitution, illness and grief. Maori women write about land, loss and love, about families and domestic events - in both Maori and English.