The Red Geranium

A homeless vet. A couple grieving the loss of their only child. A single mother dreaming of owning her own business. They and others will receive the gift of a “magic” geranium. It was first given up by the young attorney, Katie Wilson, who believes the plant brought her career success, if not love. Does the geranium hold the power to change lives for the better? And if it does, is it finished sharing its gifts with Katie? No one really believes in “magic”. But as the red geranium travels across Pennsylvania, it touches the lives of each person who owns it, both young and old alike; the rich and the poor. The plant seems to have a life of its own. But when the geranium is dropped and broken did its “magic” end?

What happens to us does not have to define us. In The Red Geranium Sisterhood, women will find the inspiration to believe in and embrace their inherent worth by discovering and embracing the Creator’s radical love. Author Shelley M. Christian encourages women to discover their unique design and quit comparing themselves to others. Through her personal story, real-life accounts of others and the lens of Jesus’ esteem for women, Shelley gives readers the tools to rise above the injustices they have suffered and overcome bitterness, self-hatred and despair. Sharing her personal struggle with low self-worth, emotional hurdles and being bullied as a teen, Shelley uses techniques inspired from God’s Word to stop believing the lies, break free from negative influences and thrive. When women believe their own worth and celebrate the colors within each other, they will shake off the shame, reclaim their true identity and step up to the plate with courage. The goal of The Red Geranium Sisterhood is to inspire women to fully love and esteem themselves and then extend that same kindness to others until their surrounding culture is transformed into a sisterhood of friends. Instead of I and me, Shelley hopes we become a culture of us and we.

Bask in the sunshine of two heartwarming stories from best-selling author Janette Oke! In Nana’s Gift, a matriarch’s heirloom pearls serve to remind a young woman of what’s truly priceless. And in The Red Geranium, a loving child offers his great-grandmother something uniquely precious—and unforgettable. Two beautiful stories—gifts from the heart of immeasurable value.

A young boy struggles to understand his grandmother's illness and his discovery of a gift with the power to heal.

They are sometimes called storksbills and originated in South Africa. They may be star-shaped or funnel-shaped, and they range in color from white, pink, and orange-red to fuchsia and deep purple. The geranium and its many species, much loved and also much loathed, have developed since the seventeenth century into one of the most popular garden plants. In this book, Kasia Boddy tells the story of geranium’s seemingly inexorable rise, unearthing the role it has played in everything from plant-hunting and commercial cultivation to alternative medicine, the philanthropic imagination, and changing styles in horticultural fashion. Boddy shows how geraniums became the latest fad for wealthy collectors and enterprising nurserymen after they were first collected by Dutch plant-hunters on the sandy flats near present-day Cape Town. She explains that the flower would not be rare for long—scarlet hybrids were soon found on every cottage windowsill and in every park bedding display, and the backlash against the innocent plant followed quickly on the heels of its ubiquity. Today, geraniums can be found throughout the world, grown as annuals in the regions too cold for them to regenerate. In addition to exploring the history of geraniums, Boddy reveals the plant’s other uses, including how they are cultivated and distilled for their scents of citrus, mint, pine, rose, and various spices to use in perfumes. With their edible leaves, they are also used to flavor desserts, cakes, jellies, and teas, and some people believe that certain species provide an effective treatment for a cough. Featuring over one hundred illustrations, Geranium shows how the plant is portrayed in painting, literature, film, and popular culture, and provides an intriguing example of the global industrialization of plant production.

A magnificent work of original research that unravels history through textiles and cloth—how we make it, use it, and what it means to us. How is a handmade fabric helping save an ancient forest? Why is a famous fabric pattern from India best known by the name of a Scottish town? How is a Chinese dragon robe a diagram of the whole universe? What is the difference between how the Greek Fates and the Viking Norns used threads to tell our destiny? In Fabric, bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it. She beats the inner bark of trees into cloth in Papua New Guinea, fails to handspin cotton in Guatemala, visits tweed weavers at their homes in Harris, and has lessons in patchwork-making in Gee's Bend, Alabama - where in the 1930s, deprived of almost everything they owned, a community of women turned quilting into an art form. She began her research just after the deaths of both her parents —and entwined in the threads she found her personal story too. Fabric is not just a material history of our world, but Finlay's own journey through grief and recovery.