The Paths We Take is about three friends, Samantha, Jay, and Carli, who are planning a summer trip to Florida. They are also in the middle of school examinations and preparing for the school dance. The three friends plan to attend the dance together when Steve, a member of the schools football team, asks Carli to the dance. Samantha becomes anxious and uneasy with the thought of going with Jay alone until Jay admits he has loved her for a long time. Everything changes when its discovered that Samanthas parents are found buried at their abandoned house. Samantha is taken by the police and brought to a mental hospital. When she remembers the accident, she escapes the hospital only to get in an accident herself. Samantha is met by a guardian angel who tells her to choose a path. After making a selfless choice, all the nightmares she endured fades away.
You are Olivia. And your boyfriend broke up with you. While the end feels overwhelming, you’re really not the kind to let it faze you. So what do you do? You start a new love story, one where the ending is up to YOU. Will you fall in love with the bad boy, navigating through his many moods and sidestepping his dark past? Or will it be the gentle nerd, that mind- boggling puzzle you try your best to solve but just can’t? Can’t get that sexy CEO out of your mind— or that empty space in his bed waiting for you? Or are you looking for the magician to whisk you away from the drudgery to a life of danger and adventure? Whether it’s happily-ever-after or heartbreak or something else entirely, how Olivia’s love story ends is up to YOU.
Through inspirational poetry and stunning photography, this coffee-table book will remind you that no matter where we are on our path, we need to remember to pause, don't look back and enjoy the ride.
With over ten million albums sold and multiple Grammy nominations, the hard rock band Godsmack has become one of the most successful groups of the last decade. The band's driving beats and searing lyrics have garnered widespread acclaim, while their well-known work ethic has earned the industry's respect. Fans who attend Godsmack concerts are sure to be rewarded with a fiercely energetic show. The force behind the band comes largely from founder and front man Sully Erna. Onstage, growling into the microphone with characteristic intensity, he appears perfectly at home, and it's no wonder. Erna has been immersed in the world of rock ever since he got his first drum set at the age of five. Given his achievements, that early start might suggest that his career was a straight shot to the top. The truth is, Erna took so many detours during the years between his first drums and Godsmack's first contract that, more than once, he nearly forgot his destination. In The Paths We Choose, he relates the turbulent story of his life before the platinum albums and packed arenas. "The Lawrence I remember was full of murderers, thieves, and rapists and half the time those people were your next-door neighbors," Erna writes of his childhood hometown in the gritty Boston suburbs. Although the danger of the streets was a constant reality, young Sully's world really revolved around music. From the day he convinced his mom to pay for drum lessons, "beating the skins" was all he ever wanted to do. As he grew older, Erna began devoting all his energy to one band after another. Life as a marginally successful (and sometimes downright unsuccessful) musician was always unpredictable, and Sully's good times were equally matched by his frustrations. He learned that talent and passion were not enough; he also had to know who to trust. Beautiful blondes attracted Erna like a moth to an open flame, and his affairs with them were intense and often unstable. Outwardly hardened, yet privately vulnerable, he couldn't open up. This, combined with his high-adrenaline lifestyle, seemed bound to catch up with him and did. Here, Sully delves with surprising sensitivity into the emotional struggles that almost forced him to abandon his ambitions. Musical fame was never a given for Sully Erna. He could easily have continued to be "just another punk on the streets." The extraordinary success he now enjoys with Godsmack only came by an unlikely combination of talent, sweat, lucky breaks, and hard falls. Any one of the decisions he made along the way could have brought him to a dead end. But that just might be the whole point. Sully's story shows us that whatever hardship we may face, ultimately, our choices determine our destiny. He's made the most of every advantage and obstacle he has faced, and reminds us that we can, too. But for Sully, career success is not an ultimate destination. Every day brings a new fork in the road another path to choose.
Jess, Delia, Anne, and Lindsay have returned to Fairhope, Alabama, filled with hope and inspiration. But the paths of life are rarely straight, and the insights they gained at the retreat in Seaside, Florida, will be tested. Within weeks of breaking up with her long-term boyfriend, Mitch, Jess catches the eye of a doctor who has the main quality Mitch lacked: a Christian faith. As she takes the tentative steps to get to know him, she questions if his faith will be enough to offset his past. Delia started a long distance relationship with Max, the South Carolina native she met at the retreat. As their romantic relationship grows, their commitment to follow a godly path risks a head-on collision with that powerful emotion called lust. Annes thirteen-year-old daughter, Kelsie, experiences her own rush of hormones threatening the recent peace between mother and daughter. Can Anne and her husband, Ted, teach Kelsie to build relationships based on godly principles? While love is in bloom for the others, Lindsay and Johns marriage strains under the increasing dominance of work over faith and family. Will their best intentions trump Gods right order? As new relationships are built and established ones begin to crack, the ladies will need to lean on God more than ever. Where will He lead them? How will they seek Him along the way? Their stories are our stories. Their journeys are our journeys. Come join them on The Paths We Walk.
Set in Fairhope, Alabama, and the beach resort area of Scenic Highway 30A in Floridas panhandle, four thirty-something ladies support each other through the triumphs and hard decisions of life. When their own ladies retreat is canceled by the sudden illness of its veteran coordinator, Deli, Jess, Anne, and Lindsay travel to Seaside, Florida, for a local churchs meeting on biblical reflection and meditation. The verses they study bring unexpected insights into their relationships with God, their families, and even themselves. Single ladies, Deli and Jess, gain greater insight into what it means to be a part of a godly relationship. Deli battles her abuse history and takes a step of faith toward a future she never imagined could be hers. Jess, on the other hand, struggles to come to terms with her failing three-year relationship with a man who has little interest in God and faith. Meanwhile, Anne and Lindsay confront issues of motherhood. Annes pre-teen daughter has begun a slow descent into silence and moodiness leading Anne to question her long-held beliefs about parenting. Lindsay has her own questions, but with two young daughters now both school-aged, hers is a battle of mothers guilt against a possible return to her first love: a career in law. Their questions are our questions. Their journeys are our journeys. Come join them as they discover their own answers and Gods plan for their lives on The Paths We Walk.
THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—Over two million copies sold! A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller “Poignant, engrossing.”—People • “Lisa Wingate takes an almost unthinkable chapter in our nation’s history and weaves a tale of enduring power.”—Paula McLain Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong. Publishers Weekly’s #3 Longest-Running Bestseller of 2017 • Winner of the Southern Book Prize • If All Arkansas Read the Same Book Selection This edition includes a new essay by the author about shantyboat life.
An accomplished Fortune 50 executive translates for a western audience the lessons he learned from the land of his birth, India. Bob Miglani was stressed out, burnt out, and stuck until he rediscovered the enduring lessons of his childhood: celebrate impermanence, serve others, and move forward no matter what. Bob's message: chaos isn't going away--embrace it!
"In 2009, while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Robert Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our feet: How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others fade? What makes us follow or strike off on our own? Over the course of the next seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings from science, history, philosophy, and nature writing--combining the nomadic joys of Peter Matthiessen with the eclectic wisdom of Lewis Hyde's The Gift. Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic--the oft-overlooked trail--sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions: How does order emerge out of chaos? How did animals first crawl forth from the seas and spread across continents? How has humanity's relationship with nature and technology shaped the world around us? And, ultimately, how does each of us pick a path through life? With a breathtaking arc that spans from the dawn of animal life to the digital era, On Trails is a book that makes us see our world, our history, our species, and our ways of life anew"--Book jacket flap.
From composer, musician, and philanthropist Peter Buffett comes a warm, wise, and inspirational book that asks, Which will you choose: the path of least resistance or the path of potentially greatest satisfaction? You may think that with a last name like his, Buffett has enjoyed a life of endless privilege. But the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett says that the only real inheritance handed down from his parents was a philosophy: Forge your own path in life. It is a creed that has allowed him to follow his own passions, establish his own identity, and reap his own successes. In Life Is What You Make It, Buffett expounds on the strong set of values given to him by his trusting and broadminded mother, his industrious and talented father, and the many life teachers he has met along the way. Today’s society, Buffett posits, has begun to replace a work ethic, relishing what you do, with a wealth ethic, honoring the payoff instead of the process. We confuse privilege with material accumulation, character with external validation. Yet, by focusing more on substance and less on reward, we can open doors of opportunity and strive toward a greater sense of fulfillment. In clear and concise terms, Buffett reveals a great truth: Life is random, neither fair nor unfair. From there it becomes easy to recognize the equal dignity and value of every human life—our circumstances may vary but our essences do not. We see that our journey in life rarely follows a straight line but is often met with false starts, crises, and blunders. How we push through and persevere in these challenging moments is where we begin to create the life of our dreams—from discovering our vocations to living out our bliss to giving back to others. Personal and revealing, instructive and intuitive, Life Is What You Make It is about transcending your circumstances, taking up the reins of your destiny, and living your life to the fullest.
