Live Hard

Jefferson Bethke burst into the cultural conversation in 2012 with a passionate, provocative poem titled “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus.” The four-minute video of Bethke’s spoken-word performance literally became an overnight sensation, with seven million YouTube views in its first forty-eight hours (and 24+ million within a year). The message hit like a blizzard on social-media sites and in forwarded e-mails, triggering an avalanche of responses running the gamut from encouraged to enraged.

These 90 devotions are for anyone who is waiting in the dark, wondering when life will get better. Some reflections will encourage you to press on, some will help you process your losses, others will make you laugh, and still others will show you the gift of lament, in both its grittiness and grace. Ultimately, they’re all intended to draw you closer to the God who is always for you–who is nearer than you know and loves you more than you can imagine.

Ff we spend our lives trying to be “the strong one,” we become exhausted, burned-out, and disconnected from our truest selves. What if it were different? Could there be a different way to be strong? Could strength mean more than pushing on and pushing through pain, bearing every heavy burden on our own? What if, instead, true strength were more like the tide: soft and bold, fierce and gentle, moving together as one powerful force? In Strong like Water, author and trauma therapist Aundi Kolber offers a framework for true flourishing.

Living Faith Out Loud: Real Life, Real Struggles, and Real Growth: A Pocket Devotional for When You're Ready to Live What You Believe Are you ready to live your beliefs, even when life gets messy? Living Faith Out Loud is a powerful pocket devotional for people facing real struggles. Whether you're overwhelmed, weary, waiting, or starting over, these 10 uplifting devotionals will help you reconnect with God freshly and honestly. Each chapter features: A relatable Scripture from the New Living Translation (NLT) A short, encouraging message rooted in real-life faith A reflection activity to ...

God's strength will carry you through the hard seasons and storms of life. In this beautiful gift book with inspiring photography, God's Strength for Hard Times draws on the words of beloved evangelist Billy Graham and the Bible to offer comfort and hope. When you feel weak or discouraged, you don’t have to face your problems alone! There is infinite power and support awaiting you in Jesus.

In the late 90s, a bad cop killed a good woman and DC Homicide Detective Marty Singer got to watch as the murderer walked out of the courtroom a free man. Twelve years later, the victim's daughter comes to Marty begging for help: the killer is stalking her now. There's just one problem: Marty's retired...and he's retired because he's battling cancer.

As one of the best-known honky tonkers to appear in the wake of Hank Williams’ death, Faron Young was a popular presence on Nashville’s music scene for more than four decades. The Singing Sheriff produced a string of top 10 hits, placed over eighty songs on the country music charts, and founded the long-running country music periodical Music City News in 1963.

In her latest mystery, Sammy Keyes feels responsible for the death of an old man whom she discovers on the fire escape and who, with his dying breath, begs her to take his wads of cash and throw them away!

Ready to kick mediocrity to the curb and start living life on your own damn terms? The American Hustle is your no-BS guide to making it big, no matter where you start. Edmond Geanta—an immigrant who clawed his way from broke and broken to successful and self-made—delivers raw, hilarious, and actionable advice for crushing it in every aspect of life. This isn't your typical self-help fluff. It’s tough love, gut punches, and wake-up calls mixed with stories so wild they’ll make your head spin. Why This Book Will Change Your Life: Real Stories, Real Struggles: Edmond shares his rise ...

Perhaps you've already experienced circumstances so shattering you may wonder today whether it's even possible to pick up the pieces. And maybe you can't. But God can—and the good news is, he wants to reassemble the shards of your life into a wholeness that only the broken can know.

Do you beat yourself up when what you feel doesn’t align with the person you think you should be? You “should” be a good friend, but you feel hurt by past betrayals. You “should” be content, but you feel lonely or unfulfilled. You “should” have faith, but you feel discouraged by unanswered prayers. Instead of working through these inner tensions, you guilt-trip or gaslight yourself, which just leaves you feeling stuck, defeated, and trapped by conflicting feelings. But there is another path.

Praise for Alice Crowley's writing: "I LOVED THE IMAGINATION OF THIS AUTHOR!" ~Satisfied Kindle Reader "FIVE STARS!" ~ Multiple Fans "Alice Crowley is one of our best living authors!" ~ G. Taylor The big, beautiful woman they've chosen... Her name's Bessie and she has always been told she was a healthy, plump corn-fed young woman. Now the Preacher has chosen her, to be the one to get initiated into his group of worshippers. And she consents to it. Now they are taking her, and she wants them to. They are using her as a vessel, and they have called upon the Beast in total human form, the ...

Jill had a happy, healthy 20-year relationship with her college sweetheart, two wonderful kids, and rescue cat from the Humane Society. They lived in a nice suburban home with a white picket fence and owned a small bar that was rated one of the “Best Mom & Pop” businesses in Tampa Bay. From the outside, everything looked perfect. Perfectly Queer takes the listener on Jillian Abby's poignant and painfully funny rollercoaster of self-discovery as she identifies and eventually accepts herself as a lesbian just before her 40th birthday.

In 2001 Dragon Door launched the modern kettlebell movement with publication of the Russian Kettlebell Challenge book and video, the world's first ever kettlebell instruction certification program, the RKC, plus a line of American-manufactured kettlebells. Here is the book that created one of the greatest shifts ever in the modern fitness world, where individuals could achieve startling physical transformations without ever having to set foot in a gym or grind out extended cardio sessions. Whether you are looking for rapid strength and conditioning gains or wish to lose weight--and keep it ...

In this positive and practical book, Gavin Ortlund looks to the Scriptures to discover a way in which to disagree with others that leads to greater understanding, peace, and love—and that shows a watching world something of Jesus. This is a much-needed book in a society that is losing the ability to disagree well. Whether over politics, religion, or culture, or the more everyday issues of normal life, points of view tend to be held with a polarizing intensity. Often we enter disagreements feeling that we have to win or we avoid them altogether.

Living in a broken world gives us plenty of reasons to armor up, shut down, and numb out. But God wants more for us than just getting by. When we harden ourselves to the world, we not only close ourselves off from the good things God intends for us, but close off avenues God wants to work through in others' lives as well.

Please, God, no more hard things. Nicki Koziarz knows what it's like to whisper those words to God. She understands what it feels like to be flooded by hopelessness and hard situations, wondering if it will ever stop. Hard circumstances often stir something so destructive in a soul: doubt.

And so continues the saga of the Clan invasion and the explosive struggle within the Inner Sphere. With secret aid from ComStar, the Terran-based sect that serves as the keeper of the Inner Sphere's technological secrets, the Clans' BattleMech warriors have been incredibly successful in their campaign of invasion. But ComStar has its own reasons for giving aid to the enemy, and if its strategy proves successful, the Inner Sphere worlds will finally be reunited under ComStar's rule.

In Love Thy Body, best-selling and award-winning author Nancy Pearcey takes on the hard questions about life and sexuality. She offers a respectful but riveting exposé of the secular worldview that lies behind trendy slogans and political talking points. A former agnostic, Pearcey is a sensitive guide to the secular ideas that shape current debates. She empowers listeners to intelligently and compassionately engage today's most controversial moral and social challenges.

Sometimes, life feels like a roller-coaster ride filled with ups, downs, twists, turns, and unexpected sudden drops. Instead of moving forward with peace and purpose, our lives spin out of control. When chaos and uncertainty threaten to make you feel helpless...what do you do?