Family Graces

Mealtime presents a wonderful opportunity not only to reconnect with the family-catch up on the day's events, soccer scores and personal victories-but also to reconnect with God, thanking him for the glory of the day and those personal victories. With more than one hundred readings, compiled from Scripture, poets and well-known church leaders, Table Graces for the Family, ensures a variety of choices for a variety of days. Besides special prayers for family occasions, religious and national holidays, a selection of musical blessings rounds out a collection that promises to nourish the soul.

Under cotton candy clouds, the children play in The Lemon Drop Forest in a very sweet way. Under cotton candy clouds a gingerbread family lives in a sugary world filled with delectably sweet images and scents. This scratch and sniff book features clear stickers that smell like gingerbread, lemon drops, chocolate, peppermint, and more!

“The Graces demands to be read twice: The first time for the suspense; the second for the subtleties you missed initially.” —The New York Times Book Review Everyone loves the Graces. Fenrin, Thalia, and Summer Grace are attractive, rich, and glamorous, and they’ve cast a spell over their high school—and their entire town. They’re also rumored to have powerful connections all over the world. If you’re not in love with one of them, you want to be one of them. This is especially true for River, the new girl at school. River’s different from the rest of the horde that both revere and fear the Grace family. She’s dark, aloof, and just maybe . . . magical. And she wants to be a Grace more than anything. But what the Graces don’t know is that River’s presence in their town is no accident. The first rule of witchcraft is that if you want something bad enough, you can get it . . . no matter who has to pay. “A teenage girl becomes obsessed with a family of reputed witches . . . vivid . . . powerful.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Eve conjures up an intriguing vision of small-town mystique, with the Grace family depicted as unknowable and otherworldly—the mystery of whether magic is at play hangs over much of the story—and self-involved, obsessive River’s less-than-trustworthy narration adds to the air of uncertainty.” —Publishers Weekly

As a teenager, Gary Morland lived in an unhappy, dysfunctional family characterized by addiction and disharmony. When he started a family of his own, he brought with him those same destructive patterns. Yet he sensed there must be a way to have a family shaped by acceptance and grace, a family that was loving, whole, and at peace with one another. The problem was, he didn't know how. In this life-giving book, Morland shares his journey of discovering the timeless tools of family peace that transformed him and his family. He shows how these tools broke the unhealthy patterns of the family he grew up in and saved his relationship with his wife and two daughters. With refreshing honesty and humility, he helps readers believe that they too can start from where they are right now--no matter how broken--to transform their family culture and their family legacy and to generously offer grace to the people who matter most in their lives.

To Grace, family has always meant her Ma, her Nana and her cat Paw-Paw, but in all her school reading books families have a mother and a father, a boy and a girl, and a dog and a cat. So when Papa invites her to visit him in the Gambia, she dreams of finding a family straight out of one of her story books. But, when she arrives, she finds that her father has a new family. She has a little sister and a baby brother, and even a dog, but the mother is the wrong one she thinks. Although she has a lovely time, she feels as though there isn't enough of her to go around and that she can't manage two families. It is her Nana who helps Grace realise that families are what you make them, just like stories. A warm and delightful follow-up to the international bestseller and modern classic, Amazing Grace, this is an important story for all families and children today.

While Grace supports her artist husband, Wellington Holmes, as he recovers fully both mentally and emotionally from a deliberate plane crash, the faith-based power couple now face a new set of seasons in their lives. Grace celebrates the development of a ground-breaking Liquid Art Intelligence product, and Wellington opens the doors to the Wellington Holmes Art Academy. They are the subjects of a new movie; revel in a newfound romance; see delightful, discerning, and renewed family ties with their two children; and facilitate a growing Artist Wife Organization with national members. But it’s evident all is not well in their life seasons. Grace’s secret admirer could get her killed, and evil threats are commonplace. In Grace’s Seasons, author Sharron Bedford-Vines skillfully exploits deep-seated involvements in Grace and Wellington’s lives. In this, the second book, she features the Artist Wife Organization, detectives, an old nemesis, and new arch enemies as they surface from throughout the world disrupting their glamorous and cosmopolitan fine-art, celebrity lifestyle.

120 mealtime blessings from around the world, featuring a variety of sentiments, from the amusing to the heartfelt to the sacred. Offering thanks for our daily bread is just about universal. A Chinese proverb gives us this reminder, “When eating bamboo shoots, remember the man who planted them.” The Irish lyrically ask that “the sweet light within you guide you on your way.” And for those who like to cut to the chase, there’s “Good bread, good meat, good God, let’s eat.” What they have in common is a joyous and heartwarming appreciation for life’s bounty. Beautifully illustrated, these pages a bounty of blessings, timeless prayers, and irreverent sayings that connect us to all cultures and countries. Saying Grace is an expression of gratitude perfect for holidays, passing around the family table, or for solitary contemplation—whenever the spirit moves you.

Sometimes, grace gets messy. Caleb Kaltenbach was raised by LGBT parents, marched in gay pride parades as a youngster, and experienced firsthand the hatred and bitterness of some Christians toward his family. But then Caleb surprised everyone, including himself, by becoming a Christian…and a pastor. Very few issues in Christianity are as divisive as the acceptance of the LGBT community in the church. As a pastor and as a person with beloved family members living a gay lifestyle, Caleb had to face this issue with courage and grace. Messy Grace shows us that Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” doesn’t have an exception clause for a gay “neighbor”—or for that matter, any other “neighbor” we might find it hard to relate to. Jesus was able to love these people and yet still hold on to his beliefs. So can you. Even when it’s messy. “Messy Grace is an important contribution to the conversation about sexual identity for churches and leaders. Caleb's story is surprising and unique, and he weaves it together compellingly. He states his views clearly, leaves room for disagreement, and champions love no matter where you are in this conversation.” —Jud Wilhite, Sr. Pastor, Central Christian Church