Because Each Life Is Precious PDF Download

Author: Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780060724405
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
When thirty-three-year-old Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief made the decision to risk his life and his family to save Private First Class Jessica Lynch -- an American soldier he did not know -- it was more than the everyday reckoning with death that permeates wartime. It was the culmination of a life spent at odds with the repressive regime that held his country. Mohammed's story is a coming of age tale in a society where violence and betrayal were everyday events, where one in five adult males worked for the state's security apparatus, where a president-for-life demanded absolute loyalty and adulation. Yet even as he navigates a culture tarnished by brutality and corruption, Mohammed reveals unexpected sides of Iraq -- scenes of surprising tenderness and stubborn generosity -- and emerges as an unlikely hero whose values transcend ideology: honor, compassion, and an unshakable belief in the sanctity of human life.

Author: Stephen C. Shaffer
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725298732
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
In a fast-paced world full of distractions, how do we create space to have conversations about faith? Parents long to talk about Jesus with their children, but are unsure where to begin. Families want to slow down and reconnect with what matters most, but struggle to squeeze anything into already busy schedules. Teens and adults desire to go deeper in their faith, but are filled with unanswered questions. In Our Only Comfort, Rev. Stephen Shaffer provides individuals and families with a helpful structure for growing in Christian faith. In a series of 364 daily devotions, Our Only Comfort will take families, young adults, and new believers through the core teachings of the Christian faith through the lens of the Heidelberg Catechism. Wrestling through questions like “Who is Jesus?” “How do I pray?” and “What does it mean to keep the Ten Commandments?” these short devotions create opportunity for conversations about faith between parents and children and provide nourishment for faith to grow.

Author: Ann Patchett
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063092808
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." —Publisher's Weekly “Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

Author: Christopher J. H. Wright
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310574358
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Many Christians believe that they have to understand everything about their faith for that faith to be genuine. This isn't true. There are many things we don't understand about God, His Word, and His works. And this is actually one of the greatest things about the Christian faith: that there are areas of mystery that lie beyond the keenest scholarship or even the most profound spiritual exercises. Sadly, for many people these problems raise so many questions and uncertainties that faith itself becomes a struggle. But questions, and even doubts, are part of faith. Chris Wright encourages us to face the limitations of our understanding and to acknowledge the pain and grief they can often cause. In The God I Don't Understand, he focuses on four of the most mysterious subjects in the Bible and reflects upon why it's important to ask questions without having to provide the answer: The problem of evil and suffering. The genocide of the Canaanites. The cross and the crucifixion. The end of the world. "However strongly we believe in divine revelation, we must acknowledge both that God has not revealed everything and that much of what he has revealed is not plain. It is because Dr. Wright confronts biblical problems with a combination of honesty and humility that I warmly commend this book." —John Stott

Author: Susan Faludi
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429922125
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of Backlash—an unflinching dissection of the mind of America after 9/11. In this most original examination of America’s post-9/11 culture, Susan Faludi shines a light on the country’s psychological response to the attacks on that terrible day. Turning her acute observational powers on the media, popular culture, and political life, Faludi unearths a barely acknowledged but bedrock societal drama shot through with baffling contradictions. Why, she asks, did our culture respond to an assault against American global dominance with a frenzied summons to restore “traditional” manhood, marriage, and maternity? Why did we react as if the hijackers had targeted not a commercial and military edifice but the family home and nursery? Why did an attack fueled by hatred of Western emancipation lead us to a regressive fixation on Doris Day womanhood and John Wayne masculinity, with trembling “security moms,” swaggering presidential gunslingers, and the “rescue” of a female soldier cast as a “helpless little girl?” The answer, Faludi finds, lies in a historical anomaly unique to the American experience: the nation that in recent memory has been least vulnerable to domestic attack was forged in traumatizing assaults by nonwhite “barbarians” on town and village. That humiliation lies concealed under a myth of cowboy bluster and feminine frailty, which is reanimated whenever threat and shame looms. In The Terror Dream, “Faludi provides stunning and depressing evidence of a concerted effort to silence women and roll back women’s rights in the wake of 9/11 . . . She brings in a Mack truck’s worth of testimony and proof” (Amy Wilentz, Los Angeles Times).

Author: Sarah Wilson
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006296318X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
As seen in USA Today's hottest releases and The Washington Post's 10 New Books Spotlight “Sarah Wilson is a force of nature – quite literally. She has taken her pain and grief about our sick and troubled world and alchemized it into action, advocacy, adventure, poetry, and true love.” — ELIZABETH GILBERT Wake up and reclaim your one wild and precious life. New York Times bestselling author Sarah Wilson shows you how in this radical spiritual guidebook, the book we need NOW. Many of us are living with the sense that things are not right with the world and are in a state of spiritual PTSD. We have retreated, morally and psychologically; we are experiencing a crisis of disconnection—from one another, from our true values, from joy, and from life as we feel we are meant to be living it. Sarah Wilson argues that this sense of despair and disconnection is ironically what unites us—that deep down, we are all feeling that same itch for a new way of living. Drawing on science, literature, philosophy and the wisdom of some of the world’s leading experts, and her personal journey, Wilson offers a hopeful path forward to the life we love. En route, she shows us how to wake up and reconnect with life using “wild practices” that include: · Hike. Embrace the “walking cure” as great minds throughout history have. · Go to your edge. Do what scares you and embrace discomfort daily. · #Buylesslivemore. Break the cycle of mindless consumption and get light with your life. · Become a soul nerd. Light up your intellect with the arts. · Get “full-fat spiritual”. Have an active practice and use it to change the world. · Practice wild activism. Through sustained, non-violent protest we can create our better world. The time has come to boldly, wildly imagine better. We are being called upon, individually and as a society, to forge a new path and to find a new way of living. Will you join the journey?

Author: Krish Kandiah
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 1444745328
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Tying in to a nationwide joint campaign by the Evangelical Alliance and Care for the Family, Krish Kandiah wants us all to take seriously Jesus's call to 'suffer the little children' by engaging with the needs of the many thousands of children up and down the country who are in care and whom the church could and should be helping. Krish and his wife Miriam have adopted and fostered children themselves and their experience - and that of the many others in this book - is very different from the popular myth which suggests social services seek to prevent Christians from getting involved. Krish argues that whatever the state's stance may be, it is a part of our calling as God's church to get involved where it's hardest, and to help these children out of the tough realities they find themselves in. Filled with stories from people who have adopted or were adopted themselves, alongside practical advice on how it all works and the challenges that will come, this book makes a compelling case that the church can and must make a difference in these children's lives, and asks us all to consider our response.

Author: Piers Anthony
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780812575439
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
The author of the bestselling Xanth fantasy series tells his own remarkable life story in this candid autobiography. Focusing on the past 15 years of his career, Anthony also presents a heartwrenching selection of letters and poems from his most ardent young fans who have found in his writings a kindred spirit who understands their anguish and their dreams. (June)

Author: Lee Irwin
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438407572
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Awakening to Spirit explores the nature of spirituality in the postmodern age as a personal journey within a living, responsive cosmos. In a world of multiple religious traditions, spiritual ambiguity, and widespread secular atheism, Lee Irwin offers a non-traditional view of spirituality that's intrinsic to personal growth and development. He presents Ten Principles that reflect stages of spiritual growth and culminate in a mystical encounter inherent to an experiential view of contemporary spirituality. Various physical, emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and psychic aspects of spiritual development are considered, leading to a discussion of spiritual maturity, old age, and self-renewal. Social relations, compassionate love, and responsible, mature human relationships are emphasized. Altered states of consciousness (dreams, visions, mystical experiences) are presented as a valid, necessary means for an understanding of Spirit, and many ideas from contemporary cosmology, process theology, parapsychology, and western esotericism are integrated into the book.

Author: Rebecca Yarros
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
ISBN: 1640638172
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
How do you define yourself when others have already decided who you are? Six years ago, when Camden Daniels came back from war without his younger brother, no one in the small town of Alba, Colorado, would forgive him—especially his father. He left, swearing never to return. But a desperate message from his father brings it all back. The betrayal. The pain. And the need to go home again. But home is where the one person he still loves is waiting. Willow. The one woman he can never have, because there are secrets buried in Alba that are best left in the dark... Great and Precious Things is a heart-wrenching forbidden romance about family, betrayal, and ultimately how far we’re willing to go on behalf of those we love and who need us most.