Wrestling With an Angel: A Story of Love, Disability and the Lessons of Grace


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"It sounded at first like something out of an old horror movie. I thought maybe someone was just playing around, but then I heard it again and again, a loud piercing cry, and less like Hollywood every time. The windows were down in my police cruiser on that warm fall day, but I still couldn't tell where the sounds came from. I began looking around for the unlikely sight of someone being disemboweled in a mall parking lot on a Saturday afternoon. Seeing nothing, and still hearing the screams, I called in a 'disturbance.' Around the next corner I found the source of the commotion." So begins Greg Lucas' captivating account of life as a husband, a police officer, and Jake's dad. Jake Lucas, the first of four children, lives with severe physical and mental challenges. Caring for him each day is an ordeal few of us can imagine, and this story of Jake's first 17 years is not one you will soon forget. But the remarkable thing is how the whole narrative is saturated with wonder at the grace and goodness of God, who brings hope and promise through his Son into the darkest of circumstances. In this book, we see that Jake's problems are our problems, only bigger, and the challenges of caring for him carry profound lessons about God's care for us. Wrestling with an Angel is about tragedy and laughter and pain and joy. It is about faith and grace and endurance and God's unfailing, loving wisdom daily being worked out in each of our lives, whatever the nature or extent of our difficulties. Here is a book that may explain faith to you in ways you never quite grasped, through a life few of us can relate to. When it is all done, we come away better able to live as Christ calls us to live.




An Angel's Heart


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A Calculus of Angels


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In an alternate eighteenth-century Europe devastated by alchemical disaster, Sir Isaac Newton and his able assistant, Benjamin Franklin, confront enemies who seek humankind’s destruction Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery of philosopher’s mercury in 1681 gave rise to a remarkable new branch of alchemical science. Forty years later, the world stands poised on the brink of a new dark age . . . England is in ruins, crushed by an asteroid called to Earth by the very alchemy Newton unleashed. France is in chaos following the long-delayed death of Louis XIV. Cotton Mather, Blackbeard, and the Choctaw shaman Red Shoes set sail from the American colonies to investigate the silence lying over the Old World. And in Russia, Tsar Peter the Great, now host to the evil entity that kept the Sun King alive, seizes a golden opportunity for conquest as he marches his unstoppable army across a devastated continent. Meanwhile Newton and his young apprentice, Ben Franklin, hide out in Prague, awaiting the inevitable violent collision of all these disparate elements—human and demonic alike—while a fugitive Adrienne de Mornay de Montchevreuil pursues the secrets of the malakim and her own role in their conspiracy to obliterate humankind. The second volume of the Age of Unreason series, Greg Keyes’s masterwork of alternate history, A Calculus of Angels brilliantly expands the scope of the world he introduced in Newton’s Cannon as an unforgettable cast of historical heavyweights collide on a different Earth where magic and science coexist.




The Corruption of Angels


Book Description

On two hundred and one days between May 1, 1245, and August 1, 1246, more than five thousand people from the Lauragais were questioned in Toulouse about the heresy of the good men and the good women (more commonly known as Catharism). Nobles and diviners, butchers and monks, concubines and physicians, blacksmiths and pregnant girls--in short, all men over fourteen and women over twelve--were summoned by Dominican inquisitors Bernart de Caux and Jean de Saint-Pierre. In the cloister of the Saint-Sernin abbey, before scribes and witnesses, they confessed whether they, or anyone else, had ever seen, heard, helped, or sought salvation through the heretics. This inquisition into heretical depravity was the single largest investigation, in the shortest time, in the entire European Middle Ages. Mark Gregory Pegg examines the sole surviving manuscript of this great inquisition with unprecedented care--often in unexpected ways--to build a richly textured understanding of social life in southern France in the early thirteenth century. He explores what the interrogations reveal about the individual and communal lives of those interrogated and how the interrogations themselves shaped villagers' perceptions of those lives. The Corruption of Angels, similar in breadth and scope to Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou, is a major contribution to the field. It shows how heretical and orthodox beliefs flourished side by side and, more broadly, what life was like in one particular time and place. Pegg's passionate and beautifully written evocation of a medieval world will fascinate a diverse readership within and beyond the academy.




Queen Of Angels


Book Description

In a world of wonders, wealth, and 'perfect' mental health, a famous poet commits gruesome murder . . . why? That crime, that question, leads a policewoman to a jungle of torture and forgotten gods; a writer to the bohemian shadows of a vast city; and a scientist directly into the mind-the nightmare soul-of the psychopath himself . . .




Angelology


Book Description

What are angels? Who are they and what can we learn from them? In Scripture, angels are mentioned over 250 times in thirty-four books of the Bible. Angels were present, rejoicing at God's forming of the earth (Job 38:4-7). They visited Abraham's house and brought judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18, 19:13). They were involved with the transmission of the Ten Commandments to Moses (Gal 3:19). An angel gave prophecies to Daniel about Israel's future (Dan 9, 10). Likewise, an angel prophesied the messiah's birth to both Mary and Joseph (Matt 1, Lk 1). An angel strengthened Christ after he experienced temptation in the wilderness (Lk 22:43). An angel set Peter free from prison (Acts 12:7-10), and one comforted Paul before his shipwreck in the ocean (Acts 27:23-24). Angels will be involved with administering judgment throughout the Great Tribulation (Rev 8) and will come with Christ to judge the earth (Matt 16:27). Throughout Scripture, angels are everywhere! In Angelology, we will consider many questions about angels, including who they are, their creation, types of angels, specific angels, their ministry, their future, and much more. The study of angels is not just speculative; we can learn a great deal from them, as they are fellow servants and worshipers of God (Rev 22:9). Let's study angelology together with the Bible Teacher's Guide. "The Bible Teacher's Guide ... will help any teacher study and get a better background for his/her Bible lessons. In addition, it will give direction and scope to teaching of the Word of God. Praise God for this contemporary introduction to the Word of God." -Dr. Elmer Towns, Co-founder of Liberty University




An Angel of Obedience


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Jackson Carter just wants a normal life. Sure, at thirteen, he's just retired from an illustrious career as a classical musician and entered Harvard as a freshman mathematics major. And yeah, he's responsible for raising his two younger brothers while mom is off in Brazil or Thailand spending every last dime they have. But he'd still just like a couple of friends to hang out with and maybe even a girlfriend. But a normal life just isn't Jackson's destiny. He has become obsessed with patterns: the mathematical properties found in the formation of clouds, the outline of a mustard stain on a picnic table, the intricate working of light and dark found in a curtain at the Sydney Opera House. When his mathematics instructor shows him a fractal image, Jackson becomes so engrossed that he cannot look away. Then someone hammers a pre-Roman curse to his front door summoning an angry demon, and his littlest brother starts receiving messages from Eddie Cochran, the dead Rockabilly singer. And, of course, there are the corporate paramilitary units stalking the parking lots of Harvard, his other brother's hysterical blindness, and a demented ex-weatherman from Little Rock, Arkansas who thinks Jackson is an evil genius who needs a good ass-kicking. And, oh yeah, everyone seems to think Jackson may be the anti-Christ. So much for a normal life. An Angel of Obedience is the sometimes funny, sometimes scary, always exciting tale of Jackson Carter, boy genius, over-burdened older brother, and potential destroyer of the known universe. It's a story that just goes to prove that when time and space are on the brink of extinction, that's when you need your friends and family the most.




Jr.’S Angel


Book Description

How did an angel enter Victor Wolfs life? The answer was simpleat the hockey rink when a little schoolteacher asked a favor of him: to bring her the head of a poisonous snake when he went snake hunting. She didnt look like an angel. The deep discolored circles under her eyes reminded the coach of a raccoon. She looked as though she hadnt had a good nights sleep in a while. The tough hockey coach didnt look much better. He also had circles that everyone said were from too much nightlife. They each had their dark secrets. Jr.s Angel intertwines the coach and the teacher as they reveal details of their pasts. The coach played a chess game with God for much of his life. As the game neared its end, the coach realized that God would always be the Winner. As though to make amends, God sent him the only woman Victor Wolf ever really loved. The file cabinet is nearly empty, although a few notes remain. Now I had begun to store my notes that covered twenty years of my life and adventures with my husband. As I filed some papers, I came across a book by one of Vics favorite authors, Ernest Hemingway. Hidden inside was a quote by Hemingway, Every mans life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. This folded scrap of paper held a clue to Vics philosophy. Vic loved Hemingway because the man wrote about how he had experienced life. Vic knew the best fiction had to be based upon reality and experience. Vics notes and writings revealed how he lived life. But his life held sorrow and disappointment, until he met the woman who introduced him to the concept of love. Vics story had left many unanswered questions. This book fills in the missing gaps of many characters. Jr.s Angel is a tribute to love, a word that a tough guy couldnt speak until he fell under the influence of a little schoolteacher who had been abused and put in a corner. She survived somehow. Once she met the tough guy, she flourished. The two found each other: warrior and angel. Unselfish love and dedication allowed each to thrive. He became her true love and hero; she became his angel on this earth.




Angel's Inferno


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A 1950s amnesiac and hard-boiled detective sets out for revenge in this blend of mystery, supernatural horror, and metaphysical fiction. Private investigator Harry Angel is in a jam. Handcuffed in his apartment along with the cops and a corpse, he stands accused of violently murdering three people. The good news is he knows who did it. But in order to exonerate himself, Harry must first make his escape—and figure out his own identity. With the authorities hot on his heels, Harry travels from New York and Boston to Paris and the Vatican in search of an elusive stage magician. Eventually piecing together his mysterious past, he descends into the dark world of the occult. And very soon he will have vengeance upon the devil himself . . . A terrifying thriller, Angel’s Inferno is the long-awaited follow-up to the Edgar Award–nominated noir suspense novel Falling Angel, the basis of the film Angel Heart. Praise for Falling Angel “Terrific . . . One of a kind . . . I’ve never read anything remotely like it.” —Stephen King “A chilling homage to the hard-boiled detective novel of the Raymond Chandler school.” —The New York Times “A near perfect book . . . Not since Psycho changed the bathing habits of thousands has a novelist so completely turned conceptions inside out.” —Los Angeles Times




The Golden Legend


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