Unexpected Hope

"It is cancer." Those three words would send Donna Ward, wife of baseball star Turner Ward, on a terrifying journey. First came the double mastectomy, resulting in overwhelming pain and a body that would not heal. Over the next eight years, Donna would face twelve more surgeries to repair the damage. Physical and emotional exhaustion wore her to the point of nearly giving up. The spiritual battle was worse, causing her to withdraw from everyone and doubt even the love of God and her compassionate husband. Where was God? How could He allow her to face all of this? Would it ever end? Through raw and vulnerable journal entries, Donna takes us on her journey. Current narrative sections speak of what she has learned since writing those words. Her deeply moving story is one of faith in God, love between husband and wife, and hope for a bright future-on this earth and beyond.

1859 Presque Isle, Michigan What Is the Secret That Could Shipwreck Both of Their Lives? All Emma Chambers ever wanted was a home, but when her steamboat sinks just outside Presque Isle, she's left destitute and with no place to stay. An unlikely solution arises when the lighthouse keeper arrives in town. He's just lost his wife and is having a difficult time caring for his child. So a traveling preacher gets the idea that the keeper and Emma might be the answer to each other's dilemma. After a hasty marriage, she finds herself heading to the lighthouse with this handsome but quiet stranger. Nothing in her aimless life, though, has prepared her for parenting a rambunctious toddler, as well as managing a household. Emma soon suspects Patrick may be hiding something from her, and then she hears a disturbing rumor about the circumstances surrounding his late wife's death. It seems as if her wish for a home and family of her own could end up leading her once more into turbulent waters.

‘The book to recommend to patients when they face coming to terms with unavoidable childlessness.' – British Medical Journal In Living the Life Unexpected, Jody Day addresses the experience of involuntary childlessness and provides a powerful, practical guide to help those negotiating a future without children come to terms with their grief; a grief that is only just beginning to be recognized by society. This friendly, practical, humorous and honest guide from one of the world’s most respected names in childless support offers compassion and understanding and shows how it’s possible to move towards a creative, happy, meaningful and fulfilling future – even if it’s not the one you had planned. Millions of people are now living a life without children, almost double that of a generation ago and the numbers are rising still. Although some are childfree by choice, many others are childless due to infertility or circumstance and are struggling to come to terms with their uncertain future. Although most people think that those without children either 'couldn't' or 'didn't want’ to be parents, the truth is much more complex. Jody Day was forty-four when she realized that her quest to be a mother was at an end. She presumed that she was through the toughest part, but over the next couple of years she was hit by waves of grief, despair and isolation. Eventually she found her way and in 2011 created Gateway Women, the global friendship and support network for childless women which has now helped almost two million people worldwide. This edition, previously titled Rocking the Life Unexpected, has been extensively revised and updated, with significant additional content and case studies from forty involuntarily childless people (mostly women) from around the world.

From a preeminent authority on the Catholic Church and papal biographer, "an intimate understanding of John Paul II" (Weekly Standard) In Lessons in Hope, George Weigel tells the story of his unique friendship with St. John Paul II. As Weigel learns the pope "from inside," he also offers a firsthand account of the tumult of post-Vatican II Catholicism and the Cold War's endgame, introducing readers to the heroes who brought down European communism. Later, he shows us the aging pope grappling with the post-9/11 world order and teaching new lessons in dignity through his own suffering. A deeply humane portrait of an eminent scholar learning a saint, Lessons in Hope is essential reading for anyone seeking a fuller understanding of a world-changing pope.

The challenges we face can be difficult even to think about. Climate change, war, political polarization, economic upheaval, and the dying back of nature together create a planetary emergency of overwhelming proportions. This revised, tenth anniversary edition of Active Hope shows us how to strengthen our capacity to face these crises so that we can respond with unexpected resilience and creative power. Drawing on decades of teaching an empowerment approach known as the Work That Reconnects, the authors guide us through a transformational process informed by mythic journeys, modern psychology, spirituality, and holistic science. This process equips us with tools to face the mess we’re in and play our role in the collective transition, or Great Turning, to a life-sustaining society.

Unplanned pregnancies happen to women in every season of life: the newly married, the never-married, the empty-nester, the teenager, the overworked mother, the career woman. Yet we rarely talk about how lonely and confusing this experience can be. In Surprise Child, Leslie Leyland Fields, who experienced two unplanned pregnancies in her forties, lyrically weaves her own story with the stories of other women who understand the isolation you face as expectations and plans are turned upside down to make room for a child. “Each year, more than three million women discover themselves pregnant–at a hard time, the wrong time, at a difficult place in their lives. I am one of those women.…” Together, these women walk with you month-by-month through the physical and emotional stages of pregnancy, voicing with startling honesty their own anxieties and struggles. Here you will find the companionship and hope you need to journey toward new life.

A veterinarian and an authority on holistic pet care uses case studies to demonstrate the integrative methods he has created to treat diseases that commonly afflict our pets, and highlights the courageous owners who never gave up.

Our lives can change in an instant. How do we go on when our lives have fallen apart? Made for Hope is the heartbreaking story of how one family lost a child and found hope in the midst of their grief. Made for Hope shows us what God has to offer in the midst of our brokenness as we grasp to make it through a difficult season. Heartfelt and vulnerable, it provides hope for those who have gone through loss and who are holding on to hope that God is not done writing their story. A heartfelt and vulnerable memoir, Sara R. Ward offers readers 15 gifts they can find in brokenness, no matter the circumstances.

When Kayla Aimee when into labor after only 24 weeks, she felt as though once solid ground had turned to glass beneath her feet. As her newborn daughter struggles to survive, Kayla finds herself asking "Where is God in this?" As Kayla lays bare her struggle to redefine her faith, her marriage, and herself within the context of a tragedy she never saw coming, she uncovers a hope that holds her together.

For years Christians have been asking, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" It turns out that many believers have been giving the wrong answer. It is not heaven. Award-winning author N. T. Wright outlines the present confusion about a Christian's future hope and shows how it is deeply intertwined with how we live today. Wright, who is one of today's premier Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity's most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection. He provides a magisterial defense for a literal resurrection of Jesus and shows how this became the cornerstone for the Christian community's hope in the bodily resurrection of all people at the end of the age. Wright then explores our expectation of "new heavens and a new earth," revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will happen with the "second coming" of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise. Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation—and if this has already begun in Jesus's resurrection—the church cannot stop at "saving souls" but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God's kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life. Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life, not only after death but before it.