You Are The Beloved

Seven million copies of his books in print! This daily devotional from the bestselling author of such spiritual classics as The Return of the Prodigal Son and The Wounded Healer offers deep spiritual insight into human experience, intimacy, brokenness, and compassion. “Henri Nouwen’s timeless and loving words are quiet prayers that will forever live in my heart.”—Brené Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Braving the Wilderness “We are the Beloved,” Henri Nouwen famously wrote. “We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children, and friends loved or wounded us. That’s the truth of our lives. That’s the truth I want you to claim for yourself.” You Are the Beloved empowers readers to claim their central identity as the Beloved of God and live out that truth in their daily lives. Featuring key insights from Nouwen’s previously published works, along with a selection of never-before-seen writings, this profound collection of daily readings will appeal to those who know and love Nouwen’s work as well as to new readers seeking deeper awareness of their identity as a child of God.

When Nouwen was asked by a secular Jewish friend to explain his faith in simple language, he responded with "Life of the Beloved, " which shows that all people, believers and nonbelievers, are beloved by God unconditionally.

“This gentle, gorgeously written book may be one of my favorites ever.” —Jenna Bush Hager (A Today show “Read with Jenna” Book Club Selection!) “A thoughtful, beautiful multigenerational novel about love, God, jealousy, and friendship.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love “A moving portrait of love and friendship set against a backdrop of social change.” —The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice) “Here is the power of the novel in its simplest, richest form: bearing intimate witness to human beings grappling with their faith and falling in love. That Wall executes it so beautifully? Well, this is exactly why we read literary fiction...The best book about faith in recent memory.” —Entertainment Weekly (A-) Charles and Lily, James and Nan. They meet in Greenwich Village in 1963 when Charles and James are jointly hired to steward the historic Third Presbyterian Church through turbulent times. Their personal differences however, threaten to tear them apart. Charles is destined to succeed his father as an esteemed professor of history at Harvard, until an unorthodox lecture about faith leads him to ministry. How then, can he fall in love with Lily—fiercely intellectual, elegantly stern—after she tells him with certainty that she will never believe in God? And yet, how can he not? James, the youngest son in a hardscrabble Chicago family, spent much of his youth angry at his alcoholic father and avoiding his anxious mother. Nan grew up in Mississippi, the devout and beloved daughter of a minister and a debutante. James’s escape from his desperate circumstances leads him to Nan and, despite his skepticism of hope in all its forms, her gentle, constant faith changes the course of his life. In The Dearly Beloved, we follow these two couples through decades of love and friendship, jealousy and understanding, forgiveness and commitment. Against the backdrop of turbulent changes facing the city and the church’s congregation, these four forge improbable paths through their evolving relationships, each struggling with uncertainty, heartbreak, and joy. A poignant meditation on faith and reason, marriage and children, and the ways we find meaning in our lives, Cara Wall’s The Dearly Beloved is a gorgeous, wise, and provocative novel that is destined to become a classic.

You're not what you do. You're not what you have. You are not what others say about you. You are God's beloved. Are you ever concerned that you don’t deserve to love and be loved because you are continually having to prove yourself? In You Are Beloved, Bobby Schuller shows you how to let go of these fears and put your trust in the One who sees you for who you really are. Here is an easy to follow, proven path to personal dignity for all those who think they are not good enough no matter how much they achieve. This path is illuminated by the truths that it is not about what you accomplish, but what has already been accomplished for you; not about what you have, but what has already been provided; and not about who others say you are, but who God says you are. Know that you are valued, cared for, and embraced. You Are Beloved will help you rebuild your life as a response to that assurance.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past. Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present. Combining the visionary power of legend with the unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel is one of the great and enduring works of American literature.

A radically fresh interpretation of how we can best serve others from the bestselling author of The Return of the Prodigal Son, hailed as “one of the world’s greatest spiritual writers” by Christianity Today “In our own woundedness, we can become a source of life for others.” In this hope-filled and profoundly simple book, Henri Nouwen inspires devoted men and women who want to be of service in their church or community but who have found traditional outreach alienating and ineffective. Weaving keen cultural analysis with his psychological and religious insights, Nouwen presents a balanced and creative theology of service that begins with the realization of fundamental woundedness in human nature. According to Nouwen, ministers are called to identify the suffering in their own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of their service. Ministers must be willing to go beyond their professional, somewhat aloof roles and leave themselves open as fellow human beings with the same wounds and suffering as those they serve. In other words, we heal from our wounds. The Wounded Healer is a thoughtful and insightful guide that will be welcomed by anyone engaged in the service of others.

In the final year before his death, Nouwen began to write an account of the death of his friend Adam, a severely handicapped young man. Through this story, Nouwen found a new way to tell God's story and the story of all human creatures, broken and yet beloved.

Maira Kalman, with wit and great sensitivity, reveals why dogs bring out the best in us Maira Kalman + Dogs = Bliss Dogs have lessons for us all. In Beloved Dog, renowned artist and author Maira Kalman illuminates our cherished companions as only she can. From the dogs lovingly illustrated in her acclaimed children’s books to the real-life pets who inspire her still, Kalman’s Beloved Dog is joyful, beautifully illustrated, and, as always, deeply philosophical. Here is Max Stravinsky, the dog poet of Oh-La-La (Max in Love)-fame, and her own Irish Wheaton Pete (almost named Einstein, until he revealed himself to be “clearly no Einstein”), who also made an appearance in the delightful What Pete Ate: From A to Z. And of course, there is Boganch, Kalman’s in-laws’ “big black slobbering Hungarian Beast.” And that’s just the beginning. With humor and intelligence, Kalman gives voice to the dogs she adores, noting that they are constant reminders that life reveals the best of itself when we live fully in the moment and extend unconditional love. “And it is very true,” she writes, “that the most tender, complicated, most generous part of our being blossoms without any effort, when it comes to the love of a dog.”