From telemarketers to traffic jams to twenty-item shoppers in the ten-item line, our lives are full of interruptions. They're often aggravating, sometimes infuriating, and can make us want to tell people what we really think about them. But they also tell us something quite important about ourselves. The prophet Jonah's life was interrupted by a clear call of God that made him mad enough and scared enough to run in the completely opposite direction. Yet it wasn't really an interruption. It was an opportunity for Jonah to be involved in something the likes of which the Old Testament world had never seen: national revival in a Gentile country. What if Jonah had seen God's interruption for what it truly was—a divine intervention that held more adventure and possibility than any other thing he could have been doing at the time? What could have felt any better than being directly in the center of God's will? Yet we play it that same way—always running from major pains and minor problems that just don't seem to suit us at the time. Who knows what we're missing by being so interruption avoidant? In this very personal account of opportunities lost and lessons learned, popular conference speaker and author Priscilla Shirer shows how to embrace the amazing freedom and fulfillment that comes from going with God, even when He's going against your grain. .
The Interrupted Life: Lessons from Jonah by Priscilla Shirer is a 64-page, pocket size booklet that contains daily nuggets of inspiration, based on content from the in-depth women's Bible study Jonah: Navigating a Life Interrupted.
"Striking, original, and stimulating. Even readers with extensive familiarity of the literature regarding women in prison will learn something new."--Mona Danner, PhD Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice
Jonah: Navigating a Life Interrupted - DVD Leader Kit by Priscilla Shirer helps a leader facilitate this women's Bible study experience and contains all that is needed to conduct the small group time. What do we do when God interrupts our lives? Many times, like Jonah, we run! In this 7-session Bible study, Priscilla redefines interruption and shows that interruption is actually God's invitation to do something beyond our wildest dreams. When Jonah was willing to allow God to interrupt his life, the result was revival in an entire city.Leader Kit Includes: * Two DVDs * One Member Book with leader helps
A collection of the diaries and letters of Etty Hillesum (1914-43) who lived in Amsterdam that were composed in the shadow of the Holocaust, but their interest lies in the light-filled mind that pervades them and in the internal journey they chart.
In the midst of the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, Etty's writings reveal a young Jewish woman who celebrated life and remained an undaunted example of courage, sympathy, and compassion. Through this splendid translation by Arnold J. Pomerans, commissioned by the Etty Hillesum Foundation, readers everywhere will resonate with the spirit of this amazing young woman.
Life Interrupted introduces us to survivors of human trafficking who are struggling to get by and make homes for themselves in the United States. Having spent nearly a decade following the lives of formerly trafficked men and women, Denise Brennan recounts in close detail their flight from their abusers and their courageous efforts to rebuild their lives. At once scholarly and accessible, her book links these firsthand accounts to global economic inequities and under-regulated and unprotected workplaces that routinely exploit migrant laborers in the United States. Brennan contends that today's punitive immigration policies undermine efforts to fight trafficking. While many believe trafficking happens only in the sex trade, Brennan shows that across low-wage labor sectors—in fields, in factories, and on construction sites—widespread exploitation can lead to and conceal forced labor. Life Interrupted is a riveting account of life in and after trafficking and a forceful call for meaningful immigration and labor reform. All royalties from this book will be donated to the nonprofit Survivor Leadership Training Fund administered through the Freedom Network.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into “normal” life—from the author of the Life, Interrupted column in The New York Times ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Rumpus, She Reads, Library Journal, Booklist • “I was immersed for the whole ride and would follow Jaouad anywhere. . . . Her writing restores the moon, lights the way as we learn to endure the unknown.”—Chanel Miller, The New York Times Book Review “Beautifully crafted . . . affecting . . . a transformative read . . . Jaouad’s insights about the self, connectedness, uncertainty and time speak to all of us.”—The Washington Post In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone. It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times. When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward—after countless rounds of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant—she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live. How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked—with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt—on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.
This is the story of my younger brother, Dr. Manu Dua, who battled oral cancer for almost two years. These are a series of blogs that he penned when faced with his own mortality at the young age of 34. He had accepted and made peace with his fate. These blogs are filled with much depth and wisdom. It chronicles his realization of life and what and who truly matters. May these blogs serve as a gentle reminder to not take life for granted. That no matter what we plan, things are out of our control, call it our fate or destiny. That through the darkest of times, there is still hope, and the power of the human spirit through adversities prevails. May you find comfort in his words should you or your loved ones walk this difficult road. -Dr. Parul Dua Makkar
Foreword by Mandy Arioto, President of MOPS International Teresa Swanstrom Anderson is living the life she thought she never wanted. With an art history degree and dreams of living in Europe as a curator, Teresa had big plans for herself. She had no desire to have kids -- didn't even like them -- but after a decision to lay her exciting plans at the feet of Christ, God began changing her heart little by little. While dating the man who eventually became her husband, the two felt called to adopt from Africa. Now, Teresa's house is bursting at the seams with the loves of her life -- her husband, Ben, and their six children, four of whom were born in Ethiopia. She believes in celebrating the everyday and instilling the love of God and others in her children's hearts. She views her life as a series of redirected dreams, stumbling, falling, getting up, and wondering if she is investing her time where it matters most. Through it all, Teresa grasps joy tightly amid the craziness of everyday life. Go from dreaming about your life to living it fully with God in control. Pick up this book, grab a notebook, curl up on the couch, and open your heart to the potential of allowing your life to become beautifully interrupted. Includes reflection questions and Bible study prompts. Have you gotten so caught up in life and your well-intentioned plans that you may have accidentally planned God right out of it all? Teresa Swanstrom Anderson did just that. Her carefully laid out life changed course when she whispered to God, "Send me. Use me." Be inspired as you read Beautifully Interrupted and learn the importance of giving your plans back to God and allow Him to expand the borders of your life and heart. This book offers strategies and encouragement for living through the in-between times of waiting, as well as facing trials with grace and active faith. Become equipped to brave the storms and embrace the life-changing power of seeking God's plan first and sacrificing time and set plans in favor of something far greater.
