The Blessed Home

Everyone wants a home that is beautiful and clutter free. But most of us are unsure how to get there without breaking the bank. Popular interior designer Shannon Acheson takes the guesswork out of creating a lovely home. Home Made Lovely is a mind-set: decorating should be about those who live there, rather than making your home into a magazine-worthy spread. Shannon walks you through how to · decorate in a way that suits your family's real life · declutter in seven simple steps · perform a house blessing to dedicate your home to God · be thankful for your current home and what you already have · brush up on hospitality with more than 20 actionable ideas that will make anyone feel welcome and loved in your home In Home Made Lovely, Shannon meets you right where you are on your home-decorating journey, helping you share the peace of Christ with family members and guests.

Have you ever wondered how to build a happy, Christ centered family? Do you long for peace and harmony in your home? Does your heart desire to build a family that brings glory to God? Would you like to opt out of the rebellious and destructive youth culture and raise joyful, godly young people? Can you envision future generations of your family walking faithfully with the Lord and do you wonder how you can prepare your children for such a legacy? In The Blessed Family, the Bullen's delve into God's Word to reveal a plan for families and to share how timeless principles found there can help you to build a home that is a little piece of heaven on earth.

In nine stories imbued with the sensual details of Indian culture, Lahiri charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations.

Creating a home may be the most important thing we do as humans, yet most of us enter the adult world armed only with a few high school lessons on budgeting, birth control and baking cupcakes! No matter how many times we deep clean, declutter, rearrange the furniture or splurge for the latest “must-have,” we can't shake the ache that sneaks up on us in the quiet moments. Whispering that something is missing. In The Blessed Home, Amy Jae shares why home matters so much and how complicated inner messages keep us from feeling peace even in our own homes. Using the ancient art of Blessing, she reveals the beautiful way that painful emotions can become the portals for healing. Amy guides you through a simple two-step process of Cleansing and Blessing your home that includes: • simple methods to cleanse and reset the atmosphere of your home • how your daily choices (and the choices of prior owners) affect your home's atmosphere • learning to listen to the messages your home is sending you • using the power of your words to change the energy of your home • dozens of written blessings that you can begin using today • a special Home Blessing Ceremony for a new home or beginning a new chapter of life in your current home. Whether you simply want more serenity in your home or you're struggling with deep exhaustion, depression or anxiety, Amy will gently help you to listen to the “messages in the messes” and begin to clear and nurture your most sacred space ... your home. Filled with personal stories and helpful tools, The Blessed Home will inspire you to think and speak differently. With humor, grace and Blessing, you'll be ready to heal your home and create a sanctuary that nurtures both body and spirit.

Blessed Events explores how women who give birth at home use religion to make sense of their births and in turn draw on their birthing experiences to bring meaning to their lives and families. Pamela Klassen introduces a surprisingly diverse group of women, in their own words, while also setting their birth stories within wider social, political, and economic contexts. In doing so, she emerges with a study that disrupts conventional views of both childbirth and religion by blurring assumed divisions between conservative and feminist women and by taking childbirth seriously as a religious act. Most American women who have a choice give birth in a hospital and request pain medication. Yet enough women choose and advocate unmedicated home birth--and do so for carefully articulated reasons, social resistance among them--to constitute a movement. Klassen investigates why women whose religious affiliations range from Old Order Amish to Reform Judaism to goddess-centered spirituality defy majority opinion, the medical establishment, and sometimes the law to have their babies at home. In considering their interpretations--including their critiques of the dominant medical model of childbirth and their views on labor pain--she examines the kinds of agency afforded to or denied women as they derive religious meanings from childbirth. Throughout, she identifies tensions and affinities between feminist and traditionalist appraisals of the symbolic meaning of birth and the power of women. What does home birth--a woman-centered movement working to return birth to women's control--mean in practice for women's gender and religious identities? Is this supreme valuing of procreation and motherhood constraining, or does it open up new realms of cultural and social power for women? By asking these questions while remaining cognizant of religion's significance, Blessed Events challenges both feminist and traditionalist accounts of childbearing while broadening our understanding of how religion is ''lived'' in contemporary America.