Surfing For God

"Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is knocking for God." - G. K. Chesterton What if lust for porn is really a search for true passion? In a world where there are 68 million searches for pornography every day and where over 70 percent of Christian men report viewing porn in the last year, it's no surprise that more and more men struggle with an addiction to this false fantasy. Common wisdom says if they just had more willpower or more faith, their fight would be over. Is the answer really that simple? According to the counselor and ministry leader Michael John Cusick, the answer is no--but the big truth may be much more freeing.Backed by scripture, Cusick uses examples from his own life and from his twenty years of counseling experience to show us how the pursuit of empty pleasure is really a search for our heart's deepest desire--and the real key to to resistance is discovering and embracing the joy we truly want. Cusick's insights help readers understand how porn struggles begin, what to do to prevent them, and most importantly, how to overcome the compulsion once it begins. In the end, this powerful book shows us all how the barrier built by porn addiction can become a bridge to abundant life.

Crowd Surfing With God is a coming of age journey through poems: a story of self-acceptance that discusses growing up with a rare genetic disorder & mental illness, family & being in a multifaith household, pop culture, & the acts of playing & listening to music bringing you closer to yourself & to healing. "Crowd Surfing With God is a book of consistent breaking and re-fixing. I love most how the book pulls at the edges of all of Adrienne Novy's many parts, stepping outside the binaries of love, loss, identity, genre, and all manner of things holy. There is sharp language, and palpable imagery, yes. But what works best about the book is how it grabs a reader by each arm, dragging them into many new directions, where something new and impossibly bright is waiting to be discovered." --Hanif Abdurraqib, author of The Crown Ain't Worth Much and They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us "All of us cry and yet still the next day arrives, whether we like it or not, but it presents itself with an invitation to move forward in life. Strength lives within vulnerability. This book is a prime example of just that. It's inspiring to anyone who has felt like a bit of a misfit, a black sheep, or a burden. It's a gift to be able to share our stories and rise above, so I hope that it is well received and keeps on inspiring others to live through our pain. Those who get to read this can find relation and comfort in the most sincere manner and are lucky to have stumbled upon such an eye opening book. Thank you, Adrienne." --Caitin Stickels, model, actress, and singer featured in Allure, Cosmopolitan, Daily Mail, V Magazine, and more "Throughout this book, Adrienne asks the reader to not only reveal their softness, but revel in it. This book is a dance party, a late night confession, and a victory anthem to belt in the car. It invites us to praise the music that saved us and the people we sing along with. Holy is our survival. Fierce is our living. Let us celebrate what created us by not destroying us, and sing the chorus one more time." --Bianca Phipps, author of White River Happiness

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography** Included in President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List “Without a doubt, the finest surf book I’ve ever read . . . ” —The New York Times Magazine Barbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter. Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses—off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships forged in challenging waves. Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly—he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay, on Maui—is served up with rueful humor. As Finnegan’s travels take him ever farther afield, he discovers the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissects the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, and navigates the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity. Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little-understood art.

On June 3rd, 2007, right after competing in his first surfing contest, Nate Lytle sensed that surfing may have become a distraction in hearing from God. As he drove home that night, Nate made a commitment to God that he wouldn't surf for a whole year. The next day Nate fell from the top of a ten foot ladder, shattering his skull and leaving him with a severe brain injury. Nate was not expected to live, and even if he did survive, the doctors said he would never walk, talk, or communicate again. As word spread about Nates condition, his surfing buddies urged one another on with the phrase "Pray for Nate." More God tells the compelling story of how God brought back Nate from the brink of death and put him in the very unique position of speaking truth into the lives of those who cannot speak for themselves.

They say Bethany Hamilton has saltwater in her veins. How else could one explain the tremendous passion that drives her to surf? How else could one explain that nothing - not even the loss of her arm in a horrific shark attack - could come between her and the waves? That Halloween morning in Kauai, Hawaii Bethany responded to the shark's stealth with a calmness beyond belief. Pushing pain and panic aside, she immediately thought: 'Get to the beach...' Rushed to the hospital, where her father, Ted Hamilton, was about to undergo knee surgery, Bethany found herself taking his spot in the operating theatre. When the first thing Bethany wanted to know after surgery was 'When can I surf again?' it became clear that her unfaltering spirit and determination were part of a greater story - a tale of courage and faith that this modest and soft-spoken girl would come to share with the world.

Cheri Hamilton, Bethany’s mom, tells the inspiring story of the Hamilton Family. Bethany Hamilton’s incredible story of surviving and thriving in the wake of a shark attack, told in her best-selling autobiography Soul Surfer, has sold more than 1.5 million copies. Yet her family’s adventures started long before Bethany lost her arm and became a pro surfer. Now Cheri Hamilton, Bethany’s mom, tells the inspiring story of the Hamilton Family. Raising a Soul Surfer invites readers to journey with the Hamiltons to the lush islands of Hawaii, to experience a worldwide news event, Bethany’s shark attack, from her parents’ point of view. Witness the many small steps of faith and how God stepped in and gave them a higher purpose.

The jewel in the crown of Queensland's Sunshine Coast, Noosa's untouched natural beauty offers all visitors a very special experience. For surfers, it represents a holy grail - one of the few places in the world where perfectly-formed waves break upon a shore that has been spared from the ravages of so-called progress, yet a world class resort village is just moments away.