Through Heaven’s Gate and Back: A Spiritual Journey of Healing and What it Taught Me About Love, Life, and Forgiveness


Book Description

Lee Thornton's book is an autobiographical account of how her life-changing encounter during a near-death experience helped guide her on a path of healing. An upbringing that included childhood sexual abuse and deception left her battling depression and illness on her quest for wholeness. She recounts growing up as the daughter of a distinguished U.S. diplomat in a world where respectable appearances concealed the reality of underlying secrets, violation, duplicity and manipulation. In the course of going through a divorce, long separations from her son, struggles with unresolved family issues, and trying to heal from a chronic illness, she learns universal lessons about love, self-acceptance, and forgiveness that help her win her hard-fought battle for wholeness, authenticity, and the realization of her purpose. She hopes that sharing her story helps others who have suffered similar adversities or are seeking self-acceptance and greater fulfillment.




I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die


Book Description

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.




The Turkey Shack


Book Description

How did a farmer come to create a spiritual sanctuary? This book is the story behind the creation of Pathways Spiritual Sanctuary on a ranch in the Black Hills of South Dakota. An unlikely story that begins in a tin shed called the Turkey Shack. __________ Author's Preface: I'm a guy who wears Carhartt jeans, with pliers in the pocket. I also was the CEO of a $65 million agribusiness and the Executive Director of a $100 million-plus science research laboratory during its startup. Along the way I had spiritual experiences that mystified me. I didn't shave my head, don robes or join an ashram. My life continued, but it was changed. In 2010, I created Pathways Spiritual Sanctuary on my ranch in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Based on my history, you might think I'm an unlikely person to create a spiritual sanctuary, so let me tell you up front what I am not. I am not a guru. I am not a psychologist, philosopher, theologian or a person with a degree in any field that would seem relevant to spirituality. I do have bachelor's and master's degrees, but in agricultural economics. I remain the guy in Carhartts, a Nebraska farm kid, who happened to have some extraordinary experiences that allowed me to see a new world of love, compassion, tolerance and forgiveness. This book is the story of that journey--a story that begins in a tin shed called the Turkey Shack. Dave Snyder Founder Pathways Spiritual Sanctuary




You Have Chosen to Remember


Book Description

The awareness, peace of mind and joy that you are yearning for is available to you now. Anything real that has been obtained by religious leaders or spiritual gurus is also obtainable to you. In fact, awareness, peace of mind and joy are not so much obtained as they are realized and remembered. Love, harmony and awareness are natural qualities of your soul. If you simply extend what you truly are, you will create more beauty than anything that could or has ever been built. There are many paths you may choose to take in order to realize awareness, peace of mind and joy in your life. The journey will be as complicated as you choose to make it, or as easy as you allow it to be. This book provides simple strategies to make this process easy. You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy is an incredibly inspiring book filled with simple, yet very effective, strategies for remembering your true self, and embodying self-awareness, forgiveness, peace of mind and joy - in your day to day life.




Life Together


Book Description

After his martyrdom at the hands of the Gestapo in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer continued his witness in the hearts of Christians around the world. His Letters and Papers from Prison became a prized testimony to Christian faith and courage, read by thousands. Now in Life Together we have Pastor Bonhoeffer's experience of Christian community. This story of a unique fellowship in an underground seminary during the Nazi years reads like one of Paul's letters. It gives practical advice on how life together in Christ can be sustained in families and groups. The role of personal prayer, worship in common, everyday work, and Christian service is treated in simple, almost biblical, words. Life Together is bread for all who are hungry for the real life of Christian fellowship.







Keeping Faith


Book Description

“A triumph. This novel’s haunting strength will hold the reader until the very end and make Faith and her story impossible to forget.” —Richmond Times Dispatch “Extraordinary.” —Orlando Sentinel From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes, Change of Heart, Handle with Care) comes Keeping Faith: an “addictively readable” (Entertainment Weekly) novel that “makes you wonder about God. And that is a rare moment, indeed, in modern fiction” (USA Today).




Love Wins


Book Description

Millions of Christians have struggled with how to reconcile God's love and God's judgment: Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell? Is this acceptable to God? How is this "good news"? Troubling questions—so troubling that many have lost their faith because of them. Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud. But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them? What if it is God who wants us to face these questions? Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined. Love wins.




Bridging the Gap


Book Description

How does one transcend mankind to a heavenly being, the known to the eternal mystery? One spring day in 1971, Calvin Cassady, a southwest Missouri teenager, was a victim in an unexplained automobile accident on a curvy Ozark mountain roadway. The impact caused the car that Calvin was a passenger in to burst into flames, plunging him into a clouded existence that included a walk through the valley of the shadow of death, leaving him on the threshold of eternal life. Eternity surrounded him and filled him with absolute certainty of heaven. Standing before the Master and all his creation Calvin became troubled with the vision of his judgment and the life that he brought with him. Consumed with feelings of emptiness, he needed fulfillment. Bridging the Gap is the story of that miraculous event and the life of fulfillment that followed. Experience that fulfillment through Calvin's spouse, his children, his students, his friends, and through the lives of total strangers as they became players in the great spiritual adventures of his life. Observe as the Holy Spirit guides Calvin through natural disasters and serious health issues, and feel the love as he takes into the mission field. Bridging the Gap celebrates the ordinary and illustrates the extraordinary results that occur during a life lived for Christ. While you continue your spiritual journey, remember that faith, hope, and love conquer all. May your journey be fruitful, and may God's peace be with you.




Berlin Candy Bomber Special Edition


Book Description

The Berlin Candy Bomber is the story of how two sticks of gum and one man's kindness to the children of a vanquished enemy grew into an epic of goodwill‚-spanning the globe and touching the hearts of millions in both Germany and America. In June 1948, Russia cut off the flow of food and supplies to Berlin. The Americans, joined by the English and French, began a massive airlift to bring sustenance to the city and thwart the Russian siege. Gail Halvorsen was one of hundreds of U.S. pilots involved in the airlift. While in Berlin, he met a group of children standing by the airport watching the planes. He was impressed to share two sticks of gum with them, and he promised to drop candy the next time he flew to the area. The next day he wiggled the wings of his plane to identify himself and then dropped several small bundles of candy, using parachutes crafted from handkerchiefs. Local newspapers picked up the story. Suddenly, letters addressed to ""Uncle Wiggly Wings"" began arriving as the children requested candy drops in other areas of the city. Enthusiasm spread to America, and candy contributions came from all across the country. The blockade and airlift ended in 1949, but the story of the Candy Bomber lives on-a symbol of human charity, and the candy drops have continued into a new century.