In Search Of Grace

“Searching for Grace invites you into the kind of relationship that we all long for deep in our hearts. The relationship between Scotty and Russ is scary, vulnerable, painful, but gorgeously loving and drenched in grace.” —Paul David Tripp, author of New Morning Mercies Anxious? Burnt out? Weary? Why is it so hard for our souls to find rest? In Searching for Grace, Russ and his mentor, Scotty Smith, explore the contours of their lives and why embracing God’s grace unreservedly is so difficult for many of us. Their honest conversations offer priceless lessons for parched souls everywhere. Many of us feel anxious and unfulfilled by our everyday existence, yet deeply long for a purposeful, meaningful, and peace-filled life. That tension creates a background buzz of profound discontentment behind everything we do. There is a better way. Searching for Grace reveals the conversations between Russ and Scotty that transformed Russ’s life forever, helping him identify the mindsets that contributed to his restlessness. Straight from his little black journal, Russ shares the seven life-giving principles he learned from Scotty that unleashed him to a refreshingly new life, radically built on God’s grace.

After years as a Hollywood writer and filmmaker, Kristin Hahn felt a crisis of faith: she had no spiritual group she could call her own. Setting out on a three-year journey, she began an investigation of America's religious traditions, practices, and beliefs. Crisscrossing the nation, Hahn spent a week cloistered in prayer with convent nuns and a month of Ramadan fasting with Muslims. She went door-to-door with young Mormon missionaries and head-to-head with turbaned Sikh yogis. She sat through marathon meditations with Buddhist masters and spent days in conversation and ceremony with an 0jibwe medicine man. Her explorations exposed her to the rich, ancient culture of the Jews and brought her into the enclaves of Christian Scientists and Amish farmers, as well as the less traditional realms of Scientology, neopagan witchcraft, and the congregations of new-age gurus. And this was only the beginning. Openhearted, humorous, and always thoughtful, In Search of Grace offers nourishment for our spiritual hunger -- and a myriad of ways to find a religious home.

In this remarkable tale of hope and survival, Hannah Luce tells how, as the sole survivor of a terrible plane crash, she came to grips with her faith: “a calamitous, fascinating memoir, written with surprising spiritual sophistication” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). On May 11, 2012, a small plane carrying five young adults, en route to a Christian youth rally, crashed in a Kansas field, skidding 200 yards before hitting a tree and bursting into flames. Only two survived the crash: ex-marine Austin Anderson, who would die the next morning from extensive burns, and his friend Hannah Luce, the daughter of Teen Mania founder and influential youth minister Ron Luce. This is Hannah’s story. In Fields of Grace, Hannah details the investigation of her faith, her coming-of-age as the dutiful daughter of Evangelical royalty, her decision to join her father’s ministry outreach to teens, and her miraculous survival and recovery following the accident. It also serves as a tribute and testament to the lives of the dear friends who perished in the catastrophic plane crash and reveals how their memory continues to inspire all that she does. Here is the “riveting personal account” (Booklist) of a girl who grew up as the daughter of one of the most influential evangelical leaders of our time, who questioned her early religious convictions somewhere along the way and who, from the embers of that doomed plane ride, finally found her faith.

"In the two decades since this book was first published, excuse- making has flourished - both as a practice and as a process inviting investigation and theory. Indeed, how could it be otherwise?" So write the authors in their new introduction. But they also maintain that excuse-making is a critical element in what social psychologists refer to as "reality negotiation." Originally published by John Wiley in 1983. Praise from readers "Illuminating the strategies that prop up favorable views of self, this book is even more relevant today than when it was first published." Roy F. Baumeister, Florida State University "Excuse making is forever with us and this book still is our best guide to understanding it." Sharon Stephens Brehm, Indiana University "A true classic. It belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who wants to fully understand the subtleties of interpersonal communication." Robert B. Cialdani, Arizona State University "The best analysis of the tendency to shift blame to others. Its style, consistency, comprehensiveness, and theoretical insights are unmatched." Donelson R. Forsyth, Virginia Commonwealth University "It is great to see this classic get a fresh face. I highly recommend it." Everett L. Worthington, Virginia Commonwealth University

Growing up in the 50s with a single mother and no father, Hope is a loner with a wonderful imagination. The letters she writes to her imaginary friend, Grace, help her cope with the difficult times in her life - her mother's sad days, their money worries, the pressures of not fitting in. On her eleventh birthday, Hope is shocked to learn that Grace is real. Hope decides that by finding Grace, their family will be healed. But, like most adventures, things do not go exactly as she hopes.

For Lisa Velthouse’s whole life, Christianity had been about getting things right. Obeying her parents. Not drinking. Not cursing. Not having premarital sex. Vowing to save her first kiss until she got engaged, even writing a book called . . . well, Saving My First Kiss. (This, it turns out, does not actually help a girl get a date.) Yet after two decades of trying to earn God’s okay, she found her faith was lonely, empty, and unsatisfying. So she turned to more discipline, of course: fasting! By giving up her favorite foods—sweets—Lisa hoped to somehow discover true sweetness and meaning in her relationship with God. Until, one night at a wedding, she denied herself the cake but failed in such a different, unexpected, and world-rocking way that it challenged everything she thought she knew about God and herself. Craving Grace is the true story of a faith dramatically changed: how in one woman’s life God used a bitter heart, a broken promise, and the sweetness of honey to reveal the stunning wonder that is grace.

In 1955 New York three spirited young women living at the famed Barbizon Hotel form an unlikely friendship and come of age in the glamorous post-war city that could make--or break--them.