My Unexpected Life Now

Life has many positives along with the negatives. Writing this book helped me overcome many negatives and announce the positives in my life. I am so proud to say that everything I have, everything I am, everything the future holds is all because of the relationship I have with Christ. I hope this book helps people through difficult times and know where to focus their energy through the storms of life. I encourage you to read this and take it to heart. These poems helped me while I was writing them and I hope they will help you as you read them.

At age 28, Martina Clark was told she had HIV and five years to live. With a sense nothing to lose, she dove into activism and, unexpectedly, fell into an international career starting as the first openly HIV-positive person to work for UNAIDS. A mix of personal memoir, travel, humor and an up-close look at the squishy underbelly of the United Nations, My Unexpected Life follows her personal journey-emotional and physical-interwoven with her professional path. From diagnosis to starting treatment, surviving an abusive marriage and fostering a teenage daughter, Martina's memoir adds an insider's view to the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Throughout, she draws parallels to the COVID pandemic, reflecting on her experiences as she journeys through life with an incurable illness, a well-stamped passport, and a stubborn determination that keeps her alive to bear witness to the human condition.

‘The book to recommend to patients when they face coming to terms with unavoidable childlessness.' – British Medical Journal In Living the Life Unexpected, Jody Day addresses the experience of involuntary childlessness and provides a powerful, practical guide to help those negotiating a future without children come to terms with their grief; a grief that is only just beginning to be recognized by society. This friendly, practical, humorous and honest guide from one of the world’s most respected names in childless support offers compassion and understanding and shows how it’s possible to move towards a creative, happy, meaningful and fulfilling future – even if it’s not the one you had planned. Millions of people are now living a life without children, almost double that of a generation ago and the numbers are rising still. Although some are childfree by choice, many others are childless due to infertility or circumstance and are struggling to come to terms with their uncertain future. Although most people think that those without children either 'couldn't' or 'didn't want’ to be parents, the truth is much more complex. Jody Day was forty-four when she realized that her quest to be a mother was at an end. She presumed that she was through the toughest part, but over the next couple of years she was hit by waves of grief, despair and isolation. Eventually she found her way and in 2011 created Gateway Women, the global friendship and support network for childless women which has now helped almost two million people worldwide. This edition, previously titled Rocking the Life Unexpected, has been extensively revised and updated, with significant additional content and case studies from forty involuntarily childless people (mostly women) from around the world.

An Unexpected Life By: Tonio Rocciano Tonio Rocciano was just fifteen. Considered “too young” and “too small,” no one would hire him. So he robbed a bank. He was caught and sentenced to the state reformatory in 1947. At seventeen, Tonio was conditionally released. As a Navy frogman he participated in the Korean invasion at Inchon. Tonio would be discharged for striking an officer. Once he was a civilian, Tonio fought with a man who had called him a racial slur; Tonio was incarcerated once again in Buena Vista. An unfortunate event sent Tonio to the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City in a cell on Death Row. The truth is yet to be known. Unwind the story of An Unexpected Life: Tonio’s twists, tumbles and intrigue will draw you into this fascinating account of a multiracial youth finding his way.

MY UNEXPECTED JOURNEY [Beating the Odds to Become a Walking Miracle] By Pastor G. Lee McClanathan Every person deals with "unexpected journeys". They are never welcome, they just show up. Such journeys can include the following issues: health, finances, relationships, employment, retirement, grief, church. Pastor Lee's unexpected journey was a health issue (stroke, heart attack, seizures, auto-immune disorder). He was not expected to live, but did. It meant loss of career, and the beginning of a "new normal". In the process he developed a winning strategy. He says he had to make some choices... "Would I GIVE UP or GROW UP?; Be BITTER or BETTER?; Choose to be a WHINER or a WINNER?" He believes that if he and most of the Bible characters we meet in God's Word can beat the odds... then we can do it too. Lee desires to be a "difference-maker", believing "God isn't finished with him yet". Friend, just as God has a unique purpose and plan for Lee, He has a plan and purpose for you! So with eyes wide open... trust God for your "unexpected journeys". When you're down and out for the ten count, He can RAISE YOU UP, because our God is an AWESOME GOD! You too can find victory even while walking in the valley of the shadow of death.

I never thought of myself as dad material. Until my one-night stand showed up in my small Alaskan town five months pregnant. But I don’t shy away from responsibility. First, because I’m a Greene and not to boast but we’re kind of a big deal in Sunrise Bay. Second, I’m the Sheriff. I couldn’t have predicted how protective I’d become for the safety of her and my unborn baby to the point of asking her to move in with me and be my roommate. Just when I think I have the situation under control, another surprise knocks me over, but it only spurs me to double down. I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t think it through. Somewhere between the dinners, the TV show binging, the doctor appointments, and me walking in on her naked, lines blurred. In what feels like warp speed, my bachelor for life status is in jeopardy and I’m fighting for the most important thing of all—my family.

All Groan Up: Searching for Self, Faith, and A Freaking Job! is the story of the GenY/Millennial generation told through the individual story of author Paul Angone. It’s a story of struggle, hope, failure, and doubts in the twilight zone of growing up and being grown, connecting with his twentysomething post-college audience with raw honesty, humor, and hope.

It's been ten years since Payton Thatcher's twin sister died in an accident. Payton has reinvented herself as a partner in a successful party-planning business and is doing just fine-- as long as she manages to hold her memories and her family at arm's length. With her middle sister Jillian's engagement, Payton's party-planning skills are called into action, which means working alongside her opinionated oldest sister, Johanna. When a frightening diagnosis threatens Jillian's future, old wounds are reopened and the family faces the possibility of another tragedy. Will they pull together or be driven further apart?