Author : Anthony S. Abbott
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 35,40 MB
Release : 2008-12
Category :
ISBN : 9780978934231
Ten-year-old David Lears life is turned upside down when he is sent to boarding school and must figure out how to make his way in the world.
Author : Barbara Williams
Publisher : Seven Stories Press
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 40,2 MB
Release : 2016-04-19
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1609806735
Handsome Jack is a logger, nomad, and born dreamer. His young wife, Simone, has too many kids and never enough money to support or protect them. The family keeps on the move, shedding a grand total of twenty-seven homes. Their first child, Randy, is sensitive and brilliant and bold, protector of his younger siblings, the fearless star of their childhood adventures and misadventures—until something snaps inside him. The second child who comes a year after him, our narrator Barbara, is the lucky one, who can dream of getting out. Every time the family relocates, she feels “the hope in leaving and doing better next time.” Poverty, mental illness, sexual abuse, and injustice pursue them wherever they go. They live small-town life hard and suffer, most of all Randy. The great surprise of The Hope in Leaving isn’t that these characters descend increasingly into isolation and strife, but that despite this they remain a family, that there is always the spark of wit in their banter, and a kind of closeness no matter what happens, even a sense of normalcy. Gradually, the reader comes to understand why The Hope in Leaving is a book that had to be written. In it, Williams proves beyond doubt that there is one thing that can survive the worst of life and even death itself: love without judgment.
Author : Colette Livermore
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 10,42 MB
Release : 2008-12-02
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1439109591
The searing memoir of an extraordinary woman who served as a nun for eleven years in Mother Teresa's order, Hope Endures is a compelling chronicle of idealistic determination, rigid discipline, and shattering disillusionment. InÊher life's journey from certainty to doubt, Colette Livermore enters the Missionaries of Charity order in 1973 with unwavering faith and total surrender ofÊher will and intellect after seeing a documentary on the order's work in India. Only eighteen at the time, Livermore has been studying to enter medical school -- a lifelong goal -- but virtually overnight severs her many ties with family, friends, and the life she's known in beautiful, rural New South Wales in order to train as a sister to aid the poor. In the process, she also gives herself over to the order's unexpectedly severe, ascetic regime, which demands blind obedience and submission. Given the religious name Sister Tobit, Livermore serves in some of the poorest places in the world -- the garbage dump slums of Manila, Papua New Guinea, and Calcutta -- bringing hope and care to people who are desperately ill, hungry, abandoned, and even dying, and comforting whomever she can. Although she draws inspiration and strength from her humanitarian work, Livermore and other nuns risk their own physical health, as they are sent to dangerous areas while being unschooled in the languages and cultures, untrained in medical care, and sometimes unprotected by vaccines. Livermore herself succumbs to bouts of drug-resistant cerebral malaria that almost kill her and to a new strain of hepatitis. Over time she also beginsÊto notice that the order's rigid insistence on unquestioning obedience harms the young sisters mentally, emotionally, and spiritually -- and she experiences a terrible inner struggle to find the right path for herself. As she tries to respond to the suffering around her, she often falls into an incomprehensible conflict between her vow to obey and her vow to serve, between religious strictures and the practice of compassion, between authority and personal conscience. Pressured to stay with the order by Mother Teresa and other superiors, as well as by the younger nuns, Livermore nonetheless decides to leave at age thirty and attain her medical degree, continuing to take health care and relief to impoverished people in remote areas -- the isolated aboriginal communities of the Outback and war-torn East Timor. Even as she serves others as a medical doctor, she continues in a crisis of faith thatÊeventually leads her to become an agnostic. Hope Endures is the eye-opening, deeply affecting story of a brave woman's search for meaning in a world that is rent with tragedies and contradictions. It is also an unflinching critique of any faith that insists on blind obedience. For true hope to endure, Dr. Livermore demonstrates, we must always strive to question, to face the hard truths, and to discover the courage to follow our convictions.
Author : Mark Gregston
Publisher : Certa Publishing
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 12,95 MB
Release : 2017-09-05
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN : 1946466247
Author : Lauren Hough
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 34,80 MB
Release : 2021-04-13
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0593080777
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "A memoir in essays about so many things—growing up in an abusive cult, coming of age as a lesbian in the military, forced out by homophobia, living on the margins as a working class woman and what it’s like to grow into the person you are meant to be. Hough’s writing will break your heart." —Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist Searing and extremely personal essays, shot through with the darkest elements America can manifest, while discovering light and humor in unexpected corners. As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe--to Germany, Japan, Texas, Chile—but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond "The Family." Along the way, she's loaded up her car and started over, trading one life for the next. She's taken pilgrimages to the sights of her youth, been kept in solitary confinement, dated a lot of women, dabbled in drugs, and eventually found herself as what she always wanted to be: a writer. Here, as she sweeps through the underbelly of America—relying on friends, family, and strangers alike—she begins to excavate a new identity even as her past continues to trail her and color her world, relationships, and perceptions of self. At once razor-sharp, profoundly brave, and often very, very funny, the essays in Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing interrogate our notions of ecstasy, queerness, and what it means to live freely. Each piece is a reckoning: of survival, identity, and how to reclaim one's past when carving out a future. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL
Author : Mark Gregston
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 16,21 MB
Release : 2021-09-14
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 1637630204
Three million kids have grandparents parenting them. Are you one of those grandparents? Are you in need of some help? Are you in a crisis with your teen that you're not sure anyone has an answer for? There are natural communication barriers between grandparents and their teenage grandkids: • new and old cultures collide and the relationship sometimes flies out the window • hurtful words stab at a grandparent trying to help • memories are missed and arguments explode in a family Both grandparents and grandkids face these triggers, but from opposite sides. And sometimes they result in teens getting into drugs, kids smoldering in unexpressed anger that deepens into depression, and kids even harming themselves. The teenagers want attention and relationships; grandparents want to help. Help is available from author and well-known family expert Mark Gregston who has worked in teenage and family ministries such as Young Life and his own program, Heartlight, for over forty years. For Gregston, it’s all about relationships. Teens need to find out why they think no one understands them. And they need help to guide them through this contradictory world. Grandparenting Teens is a valuable resource that helps grandparents love their teens and relate to them in genuine, honest, life-changing ways. This book gives practical tips on how to start grandparenting teens in a way that fosters connection. Mark teaches skills such as getting everyone to listen—really listen. As a grandparent, you can help your teen learn to paint their honest, big-picture perspective, so no one’s left out of their world. They will learn gratefulness instead of giving grief. They will recognize when their grandparent understands their troubles and becomes their role model for life when everyone else turns away. And both grandparents and teens will find their point of contact—their bond. Gregston’s stories will entertain you. They will teach you. They will move you. Some will even change your life. This book is a must for every grandparent who wants to continue to have an influence on the life of their teen grandchildren. In this ever-important role, grandparents can offer something to their grandkids that they can receive from no one else.
Author : Eugene Moreau
Publisher : Lulu.com
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 48,35 MB
Release : 2019-05-25
Category : Self-Help
ISBN : 0359687385
This is a grown-up fable about waking up, day in and day out, into an unfulfilled life. About facing reality, and recapturing your dreams with the wonderment of youth, but the maturity of an adult. It's about finding purpose again and moving forward in a positive way, making good decisions and moving away from that place which the book describes as Almost. If you are not growing, moving forward, then you will live your life in that debilitating place called Almost. This book is the story of how to start your journey from Almost to Fulfillment. This book tells the story of Alex Andrews, who starts his journey from Almost to Fulfillment one evening after meeting Oliver at a local park. From the very beginning, Alex is challenged in ways he had never experienced before and soon both and his wife Aimee are igniting fresh fires in their life. Through the conversations between Alex and Oliver, the reader has a front row seat to witness the journey to a John 10:10 life.
Author : Megan Phelps-Roper
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 50,46 MB
Release : 2019-10-08
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0374715815
The activist and TED speaker Megan Phelps-Roper reveals her life growing up in the most hated family in America At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy. As Phelps-Roper grew up, she saw that church members were close companions and accomplished debaters, applying the logic of predestination and the language of the King James Bible to everyday life with aplomb—which, as the church’s Twitter spokeswoman, she learned to do with great skill. Soon, however, dialogue on Twitter caused her to begin doubting the church’s leaders and message: If humans were sinful and fallible, how could the church itself be so confident about its beliefs? As she digitally jousted with critics, she started to wonder if sometimes they had a point—and then she began exchanging messages with a man who would help change her life. A gripping memoir of escaping extremism and falling in love, Unfollow relates Phelps-Roper’s moral awakening, her departure from the church, and how she exchanged the absolutes she grew up with for new forms of warmth and community. Rich with suspense and thoughtful reflection, Phelps-Roper’s life story exposes the dangers of black-and-white thinking and the need for true humility in a time of angry polarization.
Author : Jeffrey Olsson
Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 29,1 MB
Release : 2009-03-17
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1462826539
In the first nine chapters of this book Jeff Olsson answers those who have asked why he would want to leave a faith community such as the Anglican Church of Canada and Christianity. A letter to my curious friends is Jeffs personal story where he explains how faith is not always a virtue when those who choose to believe do so at the expense of others. Chapters ten through twenty eight give a historical perspective on atheism and present a rational world view. Later chapters include a criticism of Augustinian and Papal views on morality and offer humanism as a viable alternative.
Author : Rosa Olivia Sanchez Salazar
Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 12,10 MB
Release : 2014-07-15
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1499051719
After what 17 year old Hope Scott thinks was an awful dreadful dream of her suicide the afternoon before she finds herself being awaken by her parents grieving argument as they walk in the house after having gone through the awful process of identifying their daughter at the local morgue. Confused of their behavior Hope runs after her father as this one goes for a walk. Crossing the street she discovers shes a ghost as a car runs through her. Scared Hope runs back home finding her grieving mother drinking and crying regretting not having been there for her. Hope proceeds to explain to her about years of depression, self harm and self loathing that lead the girl to her actions the night before. The purpose of this story is not to praise self harm nor suicidal tendencies that often come along with Depression but to help other teens going through this terrible illness know they are not alone and hopefully to stop and reflect before they act on their suicidal thoughts if they are going through any.
