Miss The Mark

Eliza Fricker gets it. Describing her perfectly imperfect experience of raising a PDA child, with societal judgements and internal pressures, it is easy to feel overwhelmed, resentful and alone. This book's comedic illustrations explain these challenging situations and feelings in a way that words simply cannot, will bring some much-needed levity back into PDA parenting. Humorous anecdotes with a compassionate tone remind parents that they are not alone, and they're doing a great job. If children are safe, happy, and you leave the house on time, who cares about some smelly socks? A light-hearted and digestible guide to being a PDA parent covering everything from tolerance levels, relationships and meltdowns to collaboration, flexibility, and self care to dip in and out as your schedule allows to help get to grips with this complex condition. This book is an essential read for any parent with a PDA child, to help better understand your child, build support systems and carve out some essential self care time guilt free.

A lucid and engaging study of the biblical theology of sin, taking into account views in theology, philosophy, and the social sciences, and offering insights for contemporary culture and ministry. "The haunting question of Karl Menninger, ''Whatever Happened to Sin?'', is given full, thick answer here. Sin has been flattened, trivialized, reduced to ''crime,'' and completely misconstrued among us. With shrewdness and finesse, Biddle shows the ''thickness'' of sin in the Bible, and the way in which sin, without reductionism, pertains to the deepest human reality. Biddle is one ''Mark'' that impressively does not miss! Walter Brueggemann Columbia Theological Seminary Biddle addresses the essential nature of sin. He examines the dominant Christian understanding of sin, carefully rereads key biblical texts, and reveals the lexical depth of meaning in the biblical tradition. Missing the Mark examines the following aspects of the subject of sin: key passages and terms in the Old and New Testaments that deal with sin, its consequences, its effect on the community; reflection on the nature of sin, including original sin, in classical Christian theology; the relationship of the biblical theology of sin to Western juridical practice as well as philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences; the implications of the biblical theology of sin for the life of the church and Christian ministry. The "sin as crime" metaphor, with its emphases on the juridical, the individual, and willful rebellion, and its interests in assignment of guilt and exaction of punishment, addresses certain aspects of the problem of human existence. Yet, although dominant in the Western popular mind, it does not fully reflect the biblical witness, nor provide a sufficient basis for the church''s ministry in addressing human wrongdoing and its consequences, nor take account of the insights of contemporary theological movements, philosophies, and social sciences that do not confirm its validity as a thorough description of the problem of being human. Consequently, the conventional understanding of sin offers the church meager tools for ministry. In response, Mark Biddle reveals the biblical insights often overlooked in the dominant theological tradition, tests these insights against those of contemporary theology, philosophy, and the social sciences to confirm their accuracy and currency as descriptions of significant aspects of the human condition, and shows the value of these insights into sin for ministry to the wide range of human pain and sorrow. Central, of course, to the difficulty in framing a "biblical" doctrine of sin is the incongruity between the semantic fields of terms for "sin" in the biblical languages and in Western languages. In common English usage, "sin" refers to "transgression of divine law" or to "the human propensity for such transgression," definitions that emphasize the act apart from its consequences or the tendency as a trait of human nature and that imply willful violation of a known standard. Biblical terms and usage involve a much broader spectrum of ideas--the act as a wrong regardless of intention, the real effects of the act loosed on the world as an abiding condition unless and until remedied, shortcomings resulting from ignorance or incapacity, a communal phenomenon with communal consequences, etc. The dominant Christian understanding of sin sees it primarily as a soteriological problem; that is, it pertains chiefly to what are the conditions that make salvation necessary. The Bible, and common experience, suggest, however, that sin is more than a blot on one''s record, that, as an organic continuum, it influences the world including and surrounding the sinner in real and lasting ways. Biddle explores the dynamics of sin as act, condition, and cause. Its effects cannot be remedied merely by a transaction analogous to forgiving a debt. Sin does damage that must, as far as possible, be repaired. A biblical view of sin understands that sin''s impact on the world reverberates throughout the sinner''s environment, across space and time. In this sense, sin becomes a cause, and it creates a distorted environment that is the pre-condition for other sin. Careful comparison of the Bible''s understanding of the complex phenomenon of human sin with reflection on common experience reveals that the Bible offers a corrective to Western Christian hyper-individualism, moral relativism, and inadequate theological tools and rationale for ministry to the full range of wrong and wrongdoing. Specifically, the Bible speaks to a number of aspects of sin often largely ignored in Christian theology and ministerial praxis.

Our faith in Jesus is a daily walk with Him. Each day we look to Jesus for everything we need as we walk through life. Strengthen your daily walk with these 365 daily devotions to encourage and challenge you.

The earliest of the four Gospels, the book portrays Jesus as an enigmatic figure, struggling with enemies, his inner and external demons, and with his devoted but disconcerted disciples. Unlike other gospels, his parables are obscure, to be explained secretly to his followers. With an introduction by Nick Cave

This is the NEW 2nd edition. The 1st edition ranked 4.8 out of 5 stars while on Amazon for 2 1/2 years. According to reader/reviewer Linda Briggs-Harty, "This is the best treatment of child abuse I've seen... The writing is rich, descriptive, fluent, emotionally imbued but spare and authentic. [The] voice in the book, in particular, moves me beyond words." According to reader/reviewer N.R., "I finally had time tonight and read your new edition. I've read your book three times in the past two years, all at different moments when I needed it. And you know what makes yours different from all the other books about child abuse, alcoholism, and mental illness? It's motivating! Not in the cheesy kind of way where it leaves you a few weeks after you've read it, but in a way where the words always seem to stay with you. And it's funny because each time, I get something new from it. I won't bore you with the details, but I do want you to know that I have been praying for two months for a sign over a personal matter, and you're new edition was definitely it and has helped heal those wounds and address a lot of the uncertainties that came with it. I think its amazing how youre able to influence and touch so many different people all suffering from various issues in less than 200 pages. Its simply incredible!" Back of Cover: The movement in Missing the Mark is a series of vignettes or jump cuts, similar to modern cinematic technique, exemplifying the fact that chaotic stories often have an absence of smooth transition and order. Drawing from the text The Wounded Storyteller, this creative nonfiction witness recounts a dysfunctional upbringing within the structure of what Arthur W. Frank purports as The Chaos Narrative. Author Keith Hoerner writes this piece to reclaim himself, to find his voice from beneath an antagonist who made him mute. Surprisingly, in reshaping the fractured pieces of his so-called life, he also discovers the existence of varied selves along the way (not only the ever-present lover but the admitted hater), which he has too long denied. After forty-nine years, he is now able to recognize love and hate can coexist as counter selves in the human heart. Keith [Hoerner] shows skill, control, and sensitivity to language. Michael Castro, PhD, Author of The Bush Years One of the most unflinchingly honest and beautiful theses Id ever read. Eve Jones, MFA, Author of Bird in the Machine

This book is a companion to The New Man by the same author. Nicoll discusses, by way of the Gospels, the idea that real religion is about realizing the potential for spiritual change, latent but unborn, that exists in everyone. "The Mark" is the realization of this transformation. The author explains that in the Gospels the word translated as "sin" means in the literal Greek "missing the mark", as of a spear thrown at some object and failing to hit it. And from meaning to miss the mark it came to mean failing in one's purpose, and so erring or wrongdoing. It is Dr. Nicoll's contention that when a man is overpowered by outer life and influenced only by outside agency that person is machine-driven by his senses, but internally on the wrong road. Such a person is dominated by external life and has no spiritual life. That part of them which is truly real, and from which their own individual existence and growth can begin, is lost. It is in the wrong place. And this is sin. That is, in this sense, everyone has missed the mark, missed the idea of their own true existence. Chapters discuss our spiritual existence, the nature of truth, the meaning of life, human will, and individual growth.

A gorgeous and magical collaboration between two critically acclaimed, powerhouse YA authors offers a richly imagined underdog story perfect for fans of Dumplin’ and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. There hasn’t been a winner of the Miss Meteor beauty pageant who looks like Lita Perez or Chicky Quintanilla in all its history. But that’s not the only reason Lita wants to enter the contest, or her ex-best friend Chicky wants to help her. The road to becoming Miss Meteor isn’t about being perfect; it’s about sharing who you are with the world—and loving the parts of yourself no one else understands. So to pull off the unlikeliest underdog story in pageant history, Lita and Chicky are going to have to forget the past and imagine a future where girls like them are more than enough—they are everything.