What is a blessing? Do you have to believe to receive one? Can you doubt while you pray? And can you extend grace to others while still desperately in need of it yourself? Once a week Episcopal priest Adrian Dannhauser stands outside her Manhattan church beside a chalkboard sign that reads "Ask me for a blessing (because God knows you need one)." Passersby stop, chat, and ask for prayer: for a sick friend, an addicted son, an upcoming job interview, the state of our nation, or the grief of our world. Bus drivers sometimes open their doors for a quick prayer before the light turns green, and someone once took her to meet their doorman so she could bless him too. Half of those who stop are in crisis. Someone always cries. A few are simply curious. Through the heartfelt, frank, and sincere stories of her unique ministry, Dannhauser offers glimpses into the tender, holy, and sometimes hilarious moments of sidewalk prayers. With a potent blend of reverence and irreverence, as well as insights from Christian scriptures, she delves into the power that ancient ideas--blessing, forgiveness, miracles, and prayer--hold in a disenchanted world. For people of Christian faith, other faiths, or no faith at all, having spiritual conversations, even awkward ones with strangers on the street, can help us face our vulnerability, where we may discover a grace sufficient for all.
The Blessing by Nancy Mitford It isn't just Nanny who finds it difficult in France when Grace and her young son Sigi are finally able to join her dashing aristocratic husband Charles-Edouard after the war. For Grace is out of her depth among the fashionably dressed and immaculately coiffured French women, and shocked by their relentless gossiping and bedhopping. When she discovers her husband's tendency to lust after every pretty girl he sees, it looks like trouble. And things get even more complicated when little Sigi steps in . . . The Blessing is a hilarious tale of love, fidelity, and the English abroad, tailored as brilliantly as a New Look Dior suit. 'Entirely original, inimitable and irresistible' Spectator 'Deliciously funny' Evelyn Waugh 'Utter, utter bliss' Daily Mail
When wealthy, hard-driving corporate genius Jason Wilding reluctantly takes a break from his business and his husband-hunting girlfriends for a Christmas visit to his hometown, he has no idea what his physician brother has in store for him. It seems that Amy Thompkins, a whimsical young widow, has captured David's heart, but courting with a demanding baby in tow has been difficult. In order to pursue her, he persuades Jason to move into her home and take care of her spoiled but adorable son Max for a week. For a fiercely efficient CEO, it's an impossible scene: a falling-down old house and a widow living on next to nothing, with no marketable skills. But Amy's joy for life, her love for her son and her sparkling humour are irresistible - and tiny Max adores Jason beyond reason. Soon, Jason sees Amy and her future as a prime target for his strategic planning. The mutual attraction is glowing bright. But what to do about David?
How do we express the good that God wants for those we love? How do we experience blessing through pain and suffering? Why would we bless even enemies? How do we keep spoken blessings in sync with God’s will? And how do we integrate blessing, a concept woven throughout the entire Bible, into the fabric of our everyday lives? In Given, you will journey outside of your comfort zone, into a world of blessing as a relational calling—as a way God relates to you and a way you’re called to relate to others. You will travel across countries, cultures, and centuries of church history to expand your paradigm of a word ripe with significance. Along the way, you’ll be inspired to begin the essential Christian practice of being given by God as a blessing. Journey with author Tina Boesch to discover your calling to a meaningful way of living and relating to God and others, inspired by Christ, who gave himself on the cross so that we could fully experience God’s blessing.
Packed with compelling news stories and up-to-date research, this expanded version of the bestselling The Blessing helps readers discover the roots of family acceptance. Includes step-by-step instructions on how to be a blessing and pass on life-changing acceptance to family and friends.
Provides parents with advice on using Jewish teachings from the Torah and Talmud to overcome struggles with raising children, nurture strengths and uniqueness, and encourage respectfulness towards their parents and others.
We all admire humility when we see it. But how do we practice it? How does humility--the foundational virtue of the normal Christian life--become a normal part of our everyday lives? Jerry Bridges sees in the Beatitudes a series of blessings from Jesus, a pattern for humility in action. Starting with poverty in spirit--an acknowledgment that in and of ourselves we are incapable of living holy lives pleasing to God--and proceeding through our mourning over personal sin, our hunger and thirst for righteousness, our experience of persecutions large and small, and more, we discover that humility is itself a blessing: At every turn, God is present to us, giving grace to the humble and lifting us up to blessing.
Counsel parents of teens on how to overcome anxiety and dependence in older children by drawing on a Jewish system of character refinement that focuses on developing a young person's sound judgment.