Linda Taylor-Smith is a native Washingtonian who makes her home in Mitchellville, Maryland with her husband, Troy. The author of numerous poems and short stories, Linda Taylor-Smith is an educator, public speaker, and the Founder/CEO of The Betty Slade-Crowner Foundation; a charitable organization. She is currently at work on her next book, and the development of an online writers resource center.
Joy isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. But how do we find joy—and hold onto it—when so much in our life stands in the way? Living Joy: 9 Rules to Help You Rediscover and Live Joy Every Day equips you with the wisdom you need to experience joy to the fullest. With evidence, experience, and common sense, Chris Stefanick presents nine rules that will empower you to overcome the obstacles that are keeping you from unspeakable joy. You’ll learn why gratitude is the first key to unlocking deep joy silence creates space in your life for happiness rest, friendship, and fun are integral to joyful living and so much more. No matter the circumstances of your life, Living Joy will show you exactly how you can claim the joy you were created for.
From bestselling author of The Book of Delights and award-winning poet, a book of lyrical mini-essays celebrating the everyday that will inspire readers to rediscover the joys in the world around us. In Ross Gay’s new collection of small, daily wonders, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight. For Gay, what delights us is what connects us, what gives us meaning, from the joy of hearing a nostalgic song blasting from a passing car to the pleasure of refusing the “nefarious” scannable QR code menus, from the tiny dog he fell hard for to his mother baking a dozen kinds of cookies for her grandchildren. As always, Gay revels in the natural world—sweet potatoes being harvested, a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, a sunflower growing out of a wall around the cemetery, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree—and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us. The Book of (More) Delights is a volume to savor and share.
Learn to let go of your guilt, fear, and regret by turning to God in this book by the bestselling author of Bad Girls of the Bible. The forgiven life. The grace-filled life. It begins with an embrace. Wherever you are spiritually, whatever you have been through emotionally, you are already enfolded in the arms of One who believes in you, supports you, treasures you. He is waiting for you to embrace him in return. To accept the gift he's offering you. To listen for the whispered words you've longed a lifetime to hear: You are loved. All is forgiven.
Do you want to jump start your connection with joy in a mindful and meaningful way? Living in a turbulent and stressful time has left many of us feeling unhinged and overwhelmed. The pandemic and events of 2020 have changed nearly every aspect of our lives, and we are living in a time that feels vastly different than where we were at the end of 2019. This is truly a "Messy Middle," and it has left many of us feeling frazzled and detached from our purpose and our joy. Enter: A mindful approach to building joy, connection, and fulfillment into your life, starting right now. This tiny book is chock full of the inspiration, intention, and actionable steps that you can take to bring more joy into your every day. Inspired by the podcast of the same name, you'll learn how to navigate the messy middle of difficult situations and hard times. Life lessons on how to reconnect with your joy are gleaned from conversations with both rock stars and candlestick makers; all curated by one rebellious podcaster with a big heart. "Joy is not something that simply happens to us. Joy is a choice and we must keep choosing it." - Henri Nouwen
With exercises, practical tools, and inspiring stories, Deeper Dating will guide you on a journey to find the love—and personal fulfillment—you long for Lose weight. Be confident. Keep your partner guessing. At the end of the day, this soulless approach to dating doesn't lead to love but to insecurity and desperation. In Deeper Dating, Ken Page presents a new path to love. Out of his decades of work as a psychotherapist and his own personal struggle to find love, Page teaches that the greatest magnet for real love lies in our "Core Gifts"—the places of our deepest sensitivity, longing, and passion. Deeper Dating guides us to discover our own Core Gifts and empowers us to express them with courage, generosity, and discrimination in our dating life. When we do this, something miraculous happens: we begin to attract people who love us for who we are, we become more self-assured and emotionally available, and we lose our taste for relationships that chip away at our self-esteem. Without losing a pound, changing our hairstyle, or buying a single new accessory, we find healthy love moving closer . . . Deeper Dating integrates the best of human intimacy theory with timeless spiritual truths and translates them into a practical, step-by-step process.
How Are Your Finances Shaping Your Heart? Jesus knew that how we think about money shapes our character. Our approach can make us more like him—full of contentment, purpose, and freedom—or it can cause a tragic separation from God and the joy he offers. We need a firm foundation for faith and finances. In True Riches, John Cortines and Gregory Baumer invite us to experience four transformations in our financial lives, moving from pride to gratitude so that we see everything as a gift; coveting to contentment so that we spend wisely; anxiety to trust so that we save appropriately; and indifference to love so that we give extravagantly. Full of scripture, personal stories, and practical application, True Riches offers a clear path away from the empty pursuit of wealth and into more intimate relationship with God. All author proceeds donated to charity.
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.
Your outward appearance might make the first impression, but sixty seconds later, when that first impression is ancient history, it's your inner beauty that needs to shine! If you want to be truly hot, this book will show you exactly how, including the following:* Why you need to stop buying in to a cultural concept of beauty* How to transform the way you see and present yourself, inside and out* How to discover the secrets to the right look for you* Why different isn't bad--it's your key to hotness* How to choose happiness now, no matter your current situation* How to leave pain in the past* How to figure out what you really want* How to stop letting other people define your worth, potential, and purpose* How to find the right man and have the hottest marriage imaginable!* What it means to be "enough" (and it's not what you think!)We all experience loss and pain when our lives don't end up looking like we dreamed they would. Professional beauty expert and speaker Leta Greene looked that in the face and made a choice. Happiness and permanent hotness followed. Yours can too, right now, as Leta shares how to create the life and look you want in 15 simple steps--a transformation that will make you irresistibly, and lastingly, hot!
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver presents a personal selection of her best work in this definitive collection spanning more than five decades of her esteemed literary career. “No matter where one starts reading, Devotions offers much to love, from Oliver's exuberant dog poems to selections from the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Primitive, and Dream Work, one of her exceptional collections. Perhaps more important, the luminous writing provides respite from our crazy world and demonstrates how mindfulness can define and transform a life, moment by moment, poem by poem.” —The Washington Post “It’s as if the poet herself has sidled beside the reader and pointed us to the poems she considers most worthy of deep consideration.” —Chicago Tribune Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years. Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.
