Religious Grief

The Yoder Family Saga follows widow Miriam Yoder and her four unmarried daughters, Megan, Rebecca, Josephine, and Lillian, as they discover God’s plans for them and the hope He provides for a happy tomorrow. A new student named Grace Eicher moves into the community to attend Megan Yoder’s school. Despite her best efforts, Megan finds herself drawn to the sad little girl and her baby brother, but especially to their widowed father. Is widower Jacob ready for someone new in his life, and will the children accept Megan as family? Will Megan leave her ailing mother for a chance at love?...

What do we think of when we think about heaven? What might it look like? Who or what might be there? Since humans began to huddle together for protection thousands of years ago, these questions have been part of how civilizations and cultures define heaven, the good place beyond this one. In this engrossing cultural history of heaven, Catherine Wolff delves into how people and cultures have defined heaven over the centuries. She describes how different faiths and religions have framed it, how the sense of heaven has evolved, and how nonreligious influences have affected it.

The Yoder Family Saga follows widow Miriam Yoder and her four unmarried daughters, Megan, Rebecca, Josephine, and Lillian, as they discover God’s plans for them and the hope He provides for a happy tomorrow. The Yoder women struggle to survive after Jeremiah Yoder succumbs to a battle with cancer. The family risks losing their farm and their livelihood. They are desperate to find a way to keep going. Will Miriam and her daughters be able to work together to keep their family afloat? Will God pull through for them and provide for them in their time of need? A Promised Tomorrow is the ...

As a troubled teenager, Tamara Laroux just wants the pain to go away. Crying out to God for forgiveness, she makes the heart-wrenching decision to end her life. As she plummets from her body to a place of vast darkness, torment, and agony, Tamara instantly realizes the finality of her rash decision and begs God to save her.

Chiara Luce, a girl full of vitality, suddenly fell gravely ill. And, strangely, moment by moment, a new life full of light began to unfold for her. She was 18 when she died, yet she had lived to the full. On September 25, 2010, Chiara Luce was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI and is now known as "Blessed Chiara Badano".

What readers are saying... "An excellent story - one showing exactly what God can do, if we only listen and get out of our own way. I absolutely loved this book. Thank you for making me laugh and cry, for helping me see things from a different perspectives and showing Gods amazing grace so clearly!" Amazon reviewer Sage Hoffman wants what her sister has. A normal life. A husband. The works. But moving on from the trauma she survived during her late teens proves more than she can bear—especially when she’s haunted by the sound of a tiny heartbeat she never knew existed. Because of the ...

Jenna Camden knew nothing would be the same again. She felt like a guest in her own home...empty rooms echoed with precious memories, quiet nights filled with shadows of so many cherished yesterdays. Nothing was the same. Not even Christmas.A Christmas love story of hope, courage, and the enduring strength of love… Jenna didn’t have to look around her home with its colorful and shining Christmas decorations, the tall Christmas tree in her front room with the many Christmas ornaments that told in a special way the story of her family, to know that no matter what she did it would never ...

Texas businessman Mike Fechner had it all. Money. Investments. Prestige. Until he did the unthinkable. He sold his company and poured his life's earnings into a ministry for the poor. With a strong faith in God at his core, this millionaire turned missionary envisioned a long future serving the urban Dallas poor and the people of poverty-stricken Africa.

When your life falls apart - through a death, a lost relationship, a diagnosis - you want more than anything to know that your pain has a purpose. And that beyond your pain, a new day awaits. Tricia Lott Williford discovered this in a few tragic hours when her 35-year-old husband died unexpectedly. In And Life Comes Back, she writes with soaring prose about her tender, brave journey as a widow with two young boys in the agonizing days and months that followed his death.

Through captivating stories and with disarming honesty, Bussie gives concrete, practical strategies to help listeners cultivate hope, seek joy, practice accompaniment, compost their pain, and rediscover the spiritual practice of lament. Tackling difficult questions without political divisiveness, Bussie speaks to both progressive and conservative Christians in ways that unite rather than divide.

On a February day in 2008, Forrest Church sent a letter to the members of his congregation, informing them that he had terminal cancer; his life would now be measured in months, not years. In that remarkable letter, he wrote: "In more than one respect, I feel very lucky." He went on to promise that he would sum up his thoughts on the topics that had been so pervasive in his work-love and death-in a final book.

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. In recent years non-religious funerals have become more common, but without an established canon of texts to fall back on, it can be difficult to plan an appropriate service for a loved one who had no religious belief or connections. Texts recommended by secular humanists, especially modern texts, can sometimes sound trite or overly informal.

In this unabridged audio download, Letters from the Land of Cancer, award-winning writer Walter Wangerin Jr. offers his profound insights into the greatest challenge we face: confronting our own mortality. Diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in January 2006, Wangerin began writing letters to his friends and family members. Now he offers these intimate letters to all who ask questions about living and dying well.

Losing a loved one can leave you feeling broken, but grief is not something that can be fixed or cured. It is the experience of missing a part of yourself. In Victorious Heart, Kim Peacock openly recounts the devastating loss of her oldest daughter, Nicole, and reveals how the Lord carried her through—and is still carrying her through—the deepest sorrow of her life.

Choices is the fifth novella in the ongoing Andersen Family Saga. Livia Andersen was a woman who held her family together with a quiet smile and an iron will. It’s been less than a month since her death and the four children she leaves behind struggle with the shifting changes in their lives now that she’s gone. But they are not alone. Her grandchildren and other members of Livia's large and extended family are also grappling with life without her there to turn to... Trisha Slavik knows better than most that sometimes you don’t always get the answers you’re looking for. She knows ...

Two years after Marilyn loses her fiancé to cancer, she becomes a Christian and marries Henry, joining him in a worldwide ministry that leaves little time for family or personal reflection. When her old grief resurfaces, she’s shocked by the tsunami that rips through their lives. Intensive counselling fails to bring healing, and when Henry writes a public letter that decimates their churches and spins them out of fellowship—and lifelong employment—she faces an emotional and spiritual reckoning that challenges her to the core.

You'll meet people who know about darkness, yet still look for light and laughter. Bob finds life and fellowship at the natural burial ground that is his wife's last resting place. Kim's baby lived for only eight days yet left a lasting impact on her mother's heart and on the world. Matthew, who has prostate cancer, lives alone but learns to join song with others travelling a similar road. Ruth has a global pandemic to contend with on top of secondary cancer; while she can't choose her circumstances, she can choose to focus on all that remains possible.

Kate Braestrup's life was transformed by the loss of her husband; now Kate faces the possibility that she may lose her son. As a young mother, Kate Braestrup discovered the fierce protectiveness that accompanies parenthood. In the intervening years - through mourning her husband and the joy of remarriage and a blended family - Kate has absorbed the rewards and complications of that spirit. But when her eldest son joins the marines, Kate is at a crossroads.

A Journey Through Grief, Loss, Hope and Recovery will benefit those working through sorrow, and those comforting others. Choosing to thrive in the midst of trauma, loss, and illnesses that change lives forever for both young and old alike is the underlying message in this audiobook. It is never easy, but there is hope to thrive and not just survive the journey to recovery. In some way, pain, loss, and tragedy unmistakably touch all of our lives.

Collection of short stories: The Conqueror Earthworms -- Granddaughter's fascination with earthworms brings grieving widow back to the land of the living. You Asked for It -- New pastor tries to cure church of "But we've always done it that way before." Something Smells Good; It Has to Be Brownies -- Struggling writer and artist team up to sell their wares. The Case of the Rich Dead Mom -- P I Bobbi Heck is asked by one of the heirs to investigate a rich woman's death. Carrier Pigeon -- Fledgling missionary is recruited by an organization that is not what it appears to be.