A Life Of Lovely

Find beauty. Find hope. Find your life of lovely. Annie F. Downs wants you to take each next step of life with excitement, heading forward with beauty and confidence. ​But what if the enemy is whispering lies that ​you are not smart enough, pretty enough, or rich enough? Or that ​you are too loud, too quiet, too thin, too fat, too much? What if you feel you don’t have what it takes to be who you really want to be? Personal yet powerful, A Life of Lovely offers young women honest stories, biblical truth, and courageous examples—all to encourage readers to persevere their way to hope. You will walk away excited about who you are becoming and challenged to look for lovely, fight to finish, and find the beautiful in your every day!

“I want you to take every step of your life with excitement for where you are headed. And I want you to feel beautiful and confident as you do.” But how? When the enemy whispers lies that you are not smart enough, pretty enough, or rich enough? Or you are too dumb, too loud, too quiet, too thin, too fat, too much or not enough? What if you don’t have what it takes to be who you really want to be? In Looking for Lovely, Annie F. Downs shares personal stories, biblical truth, and examples of how others have courageously walked the path God paved for their lives by remembering all God had done, loving what was right in front of them, and seeing God in the everyday—whether that be nature, friends, or the face they see in the mirror. Intensely personal, yet incredibly powerful, Looking for Lovely will spark transformative conversations and life changing patterns. No matter who we are and what path God has us on, we all need to look for lovely, fight to finish, and find beautiful in our every day!

Home-decorating expert Melissa Michaels invites you to experience the peace and joy that come from a well-balanced life that nurtures your home and soul throughout the year. You might think that you need to make big changes to create a better life but it’s often the small, intentional, everyday decisions that shape our environment over time and bring sustained contentment and well-being. Savor the process. Melissa Michaels shows you how to cultivate a lovely life in each season: Spring—experience renewal as you clean up and reimagine your spaces and learn to enjoy everything the outdoors has to offer. Summer—enjoy refreshment with a summer staycation, self-care nourishments, and the delightof simple pleasures. Autumn—make room for reconnection when you decorate to reflect your family, style, and story; embrace gratitude; and adopt seasonal rhythms for body, mind, and soul. Winter—enter a season of rest as you establish morning and evening rituals, winterize your bedroom, and indulge in restorative home spa treatments. Beautifully designed and photographed, A Lovely Life offers you tangible ways to make every day a better one.

A rare glimpse into the woman behind the mystique and the definitive guide to living genuinely with glamour and grace. “Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book and remembering—because you can’t take it all in at once.”—Audrey Hepburn On many occasions, Audrey Hepburn was approached to pen her autobiography, the definitive book of Audrey, yet she never agreed. A beloved icon who found success as an actress, a mother, and a humanitarian, Audrey Hepburn perfected the art of gracious living. More philosophy than biography, How to Be Lovely revisits the many interviews Audrey gave over the years, allowing us to hear her voice directly on universal topics of concern to women the world over: careers, love lives, motherhood and relationships. Enhanced by rarely seen photographs, behind-the-scenes stories, and insights from the friends who knew her well, How to Be Lovely uncovers the real Audrey, in her own words.

Three best friends, who just wanted a peaceful summer vacation after their last year in middle school, go through tonnes of twists and turns. Young love and high school problems run through the life of Katie Jones after an alarming incident and a big mistake. Her life completely changes as she experiences a series of events, including relationship problems. But even with all the love and support, will she be able to make it? Find out in Lovely Life.

Take the first steps to living as a healthier and happier woman and discover the spiritual importance of acceptance, gathering, and community. Jenn Johnson has come to realize that the pursuit of perfection is unrealistic and unfair. Instead, we need to pause and reflect on what's in front of us. But how? How can we slow down? How can we remain focused on what's important and do things with intention? What can we pursue that represents God's heart for us, things that are true, noble, right, pure, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy? By pursuing all things "lovely." Living a holistic and holy life, a life marked by beauty and truth, means being mindful and intentional about what we put in our bodies, how we present ourselves to the world, the spaces we create, and the people we let into our lives. When we set our minds on what is lovely, we begin to see ourselves and the world as God intended. We begin to be wholly renewed.

An insightful and uplifting memoir about a young Haitian girl in post-earthquake Haiti, and the profound, life-changing effect she had on one journalist's life. In January 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands of people and paralyzing the country. Catherine Porter, a newly minted international reporter, was on the ground in the immediate aftermath. Moments after she arrived in Haiti, Catherine found her first story. A ragtag group of volunteers told her about a “miracle child”—a two-year-old girl who had survived six days under the rubble and emerged virtually unscathed. Catherine found the girl the next day. Her family was a mystery; her future uncertain. Her name was Lovely. She seemed a symbol of Haiti—both hopeful and despairing. When Catherine learned that Lovely had been reunited with her family, she did what any journalist would do and followed the story. The cardinal rule of journalism is to remain objective and not become personally involved in the stories you report. But Catherine broke that rule on the last day of her second trip to Haiti. That day, Catherine made the simple decision to enroll Lovely in school, and to pay for it with money she and her readers donated. Over the next five years, Catherine would visit Lovely and her family seventeen times, while also reporting on the country’s struggles to harness the international rush of aid. Each trip, Catherine's relationship with Lovely and her family became more involved and more complicated. Trying to balance her instincts as a mother and a journalist, and increasingly conscious of the costs involved, Catherine found herself struggling to align her worldview with the realities of Haiti after the earthquake. Although her dual roles as donor and journalist were constantly at odds, as one piled up expectations and the other documented failures, a third role had emerged and quietly become the most important: that of a friend. A Girl Named Lovely is about the reverberations of a single decision—in Lovely’s life and in Catherine’s. It recounts a journalist’s voyage into the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, hit by the greatest natural disaster in modern history, and the fraught, messy realities of international aid. It is about hope, kindness, heartbreak, and the modest but meaningful difference one person can make.

Everyone wants a home that is beautiful and clutter free. But most of us are unsure how to get there without breaking the bank. Popular interior designer Shannon Acheson takes the guesswork out of creating a lovely home. Home Made Lovely is a mind-set: decorating should be about those who live there, rather than making your home into a magazine-worthy spread. Shannon walks you through how to · decorate in a way that suits your family's real life · declutter in seven simple steps · perform a house blessing to dedicate your home to God · be thankful for your current home and what you already have · brush up on hospitality with more than 20 actionable ideas that will make anyone feel welcome and loved in your home In Home Made Lovely, Shannon meets you right where you are on your home-decorating journey, helping you share the peace of Christ with family members and guests.