A Broken Tree

Using genealogy to discover his family’s secrets, Steve Anderson uncovers the uncomfortable truth about his biology and the questions it raised for his eight siblings and him. Like many people using new DNA technologies today, Anderson is shocked by his findings and determined to uncover how the truth of one’s biology can impact lives and relationships.

How to invite God to step in and break the cycle of dysfunction Elizabeth Oates is no stranger to a dysfunctional family. She may look like the quintessential soccer mom now, but her childhood was full of uncertainty, abandonment, and many very dark days. Without a positive role model, an emotionally stable family member, or a consistent community, she had to forge her way ahead just to survive day to day. It wasn't until she was preparing for a family of her own that she began to learn the lessons that would lead to a more hopeful future for herself, her husband, and her children. Now she shares those lessons with other women struggling to create healthy families despite their own unhealthy family foundations. Through introspective and probing questions, Mending Broken Branches guides the reader to accept her past, understand her present, and find a vision for her future. The interactive design includes space to work through the journaling prompts provided, as well as extra-wide margins for notes of reflection while reading. With the gentle voice of a trusted mentor, Elizabeth encourages and equips women to cultivate strong, flourishing, God-honoring lives, and to break the cycle of dysfunction.

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Winner of the 2022 BookTube Silver Medal in Fiction * Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction "A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. Balm for our bruised times." -David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue A rich, magical new novel on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he's searching for lost love. Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited--- her only connection to her family's troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world. A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak's best work yet.

The Broken Leaf invites you to explore the beauty and gospel images found in Japanese art and culture. Through ten short meditations, discover for yourself just how God might be revealing his story in the everyday objects of your life whenever and wherever you may be.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I loved watching the TV show Leave It to Beaver, which portrayed a perfect family living out their lives. I wished I could have such a family, but I knew that was beyond what my own family could ever hope to achieve. #2 The author’s father was a salesman, and he spent the work week traveling through several states meeting with community fire chiefs and city council members to convince them to buy one very big truck. He was rarely home, and when he was, he spent most of his time drinking with his war buddies. #3 I was left to wonder what the early years were really like. When I was in my mid-forties, I worked with my town’s historical society gathering dozens of oral histories from the original settlers. I wanted to fly back to my hometown and visit my oldest sister, Holly, who still lived there. Holly was not going to share a single recollection with me. #4 The stories my parents told me were never recorded, and I was not allowed to hear them until after they died. I grew up hearing the stories, and as I grew older, I deliberately declined invitations to play with my cousins so that I could hear the stories being told by my older siblings.