Religious Grief

Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Love does. Amy Harte, an Emergency Medicine physician, lost her mother to cancer suddenly on the day of her residency graduation one year ago. As a doctor, she struggles with not being able to save her mother and experiencing her best day on her worst. Since then, she has turned from her relationship with God in her guilt and grief. Near the fateful day’s anniversary, her father calls to tell Amy the bank may take her childhood home. Amy knows she must save the house that holds the last precious memories of her mother. Meanwhile, Amy meets a gorgeous ...

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.

In the quiet college town of Binghamton, New York, two souls on unexpected journeys collide in a love story fraught with moral dilemmas, shattered faith, and the search for redemption. Rabbi Nachman Shapiro, a widower haunted by the tragic loss of his wife and infant daughter, escapes to Binghamton to find solace in his faith and work. But as he buries himself in his new life, the last thing he expects is Leah Sandler—a brilliant yet broken history professor with a past as painful as his own. Once part of an insular religious world, Leah has fought her way to a prestigious academic career...

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.

What readers are saying... "Lacy is heart wrenching, heartbreaking, and completely healing. I love the healing nature of love. I felt the entire journey in these pages. This is a story that needed to be told and a message of faith that needs to be heard." Amazon reviewer She had the perfect life, until she didn’t. Lacy Fields was so blessed, she felt like God’s favorite daughter. A husband she loved, a daughter she adored, and a soon-to-be granddaughter she planned to dote on. When a tragic accident wipes away two thirds of those blessings, everything in her life comes into question. ...

In what was to become the deadliest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma City bombing was one in a long line of violent attacks that have left communities across the nation searching for healing and hope. With the soaring message of the power of love to conquer evil, Grace from the Rubble tells the intertwining stories of four captivating individuals

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.

A memoir of the profound destabilization that comes from losing one’s faith - and a young woman’s journey to reconcile her lack of belief with her love for her deeply religious family.

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 ...

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.

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.

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. Rebecca Yoder is twenty years old and fears she might be single forever. At one point, she was on the verge of being engaged to a handsome young man in town. Then things went sour, leaving Rebecca to wonder what is wrong with her and whether she is unlovable. Can she let go of her memories with her lost love long enough to find joy with another? Or, will her insecurities keep her from...

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.

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.

Years ago Harry's cheating caused her heartbreak and a broken marriage...yet some bonds are unbreakable.Twila Westin has already visited the canyon several times since her mother’s return to her childhood home. But unlike her sister and brothers she’s yet to meet her mother’s new neighbor and friend, Clay Tobin. So far their schedules hadn’t allowed for it. Each time she was there to visit he’d been off somewhere filming another movie. And each time the simple fact that he was reminded her of her father and how much the two men had in common. She knew this time when she arrived at...

What if the dreaded world of Alzheimer's was also a world of emotional discovery? Eugenia Zukerman's poetry and simple prose, both heartbreaking and ultimately inspirational, ushers the listener into her world as she unflinchingly examines familial loyalties, moments from her past and present, and the need to face an uncertain future due to the diagnosis of a condition that she truly hopes "will remain unnamed."

Welcome to Morrissey County! This fictional region in Pennsylvania Amish country is home to several generations of strong-willed Amish women who know what they want in life, even if others disagree. Join these women on their search for love and acceptance. Morrissey County, 1979 Sarah Kauffman has always abided by the Ordnung, and not only because her father happens to be the town’s bishop and would, she feels, disown her if she didn’t. But when her mother passes away, she longs to escape the clutches of her father and run away to the Englisch world. When her father wants her to marry ...

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".

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.