Showing results by narrator "Ann M. Richardson" in All Categories

Many looked on Gladys Aylward's expedition to mainland China as foolhardy and dangerous. It was. On her own, as a single female, she carried her passport and other documents, along with the only money and belongings that she had, in a small briefcase with a teapot and a saucepan tied to the handle. After having purchased her one-way ticket to China, she left the UK with a single-minded determination to do what God had commanded her. She knew she was meant to go to China - even if no mission was prepared to support her.

Jeya was only four years old and was terrified as she tried to peer about the dark and gloomy temple. Between the pillars was a huge stone body. She shivered when she saw its face. This, she knew, was Kali, the goddess of death and destruction. Why was Jeya there? Who would leave a little girl in the dark like that? Certainly not the God of love - he sent a woman to rescue these children from destruction - Amy Carmichael. And she had been a little girl herself once a little girl with long dark hair, and deep brown eyes.

The Daily Joy devotional inspires women to engage with God’s word every day, allowing the truth of the gospel to transform their lives throughout the year. Featuring content from the ESV Women’s Devotional Bible, Scripture meditations and articles are written by more than 50 Christian writers and pastors including Joni Eareckson Tada, Lydia Brownback, Dane C. Ortlund, Jen Wilkin, Sam Storms, and Nancy Guthrie. 

Patients enter the medical system with faith that they will receive the best care possible, so when things go wrong, it's a profound and painful breach. Medical science has made enormous strides in decreasing mortality and suffering, but there's no doubt that treatment can also cause harm, a significant portion of which is preventable. In When We Do Harm, practicing physician and acclaimed author Danielle Ofri places the issues of medical error and patient safety front and center in our national healthcare conversation. 

As a wife, you have an incredible amount of influence in your husband's life. He needs things only you can supply (not just sex!) - and some simple choices on your part can bring about big changes in your husband's heart. As you learn how to show your husband you love him in everyday ways, you'll make room in your marriage for deeper connection and lasting satisfaction. The joy you used to dream of finding someday can be yours today as you invest in a happy marriage!

Harmony King disappeared from Charleston as soon as she aged out of the foster system. Ten years later, she returns with just as many secrets as she had back then. As her past threatens to overwhelm her, she seeks mercy at the local church. There, the pastor finds her praying like her life depends on it and decides to entrust one of his tiny therapy dogs to her care. Will this special Chihuahua’s love be enough to help Harmony discover her own worth, and can it protect her when the dark past she tried so desperately to leave behind finally catches up to her?

Carolina Brown couldn’t be more different than her mama if she tried. Growing up, she worked hard to set herself apart, eager to leave town and accomplish big things in the wide world. But when her mother suffers a near-fatal accident, God calls Carolina back to Charleston to help her adapt to life in a wheelchair and to help make ends meet by temporarily filling in at the local diner. It’s there she meets the whimsical pastor Adam and his team of tiny therapy dogs.

On an average day, people make countless decisions: Should I get out of bed or hit the snooze button? What should I have for breakfast? Where should we go for this year’s vacation? While some decisions are easy to make, others can leave individuals paralyzed and full of anxiety. As Christians living in an increasingly individualistic society, what’s the best strategy for making decisions that honor God while becoming more like him in the process?

Silver Screen Kisses is a collection of stories inspired by movies that are on every favorite-movie list. Written by award-winning and best-selling authors, these contemporary romances take the listener back to Echo Ridge in the spring, when the promise of new love is budding just like the tulips around the Emerald Inn Bed & Breakfast.

Singular Intimacies is the story of becoming a doctor by immersion at Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country—and perhaps the most legendary. It is both the classic inner-city hospital and a unique amalgam of history, insanity, beauty, and intellect. When Danielle Ofri enters these 250-year-old doors as a tentative medical student, she is immediately plunged into the teeming world of urban medicine: mysterious illnesses, life-and-death decisions, patients speaking any one of a dozen languages, and overworked interns.

Country music hopeful, Lolly Winston, is in Alaska, seeking inspiration for her debut album. And when a hot tip says an agent's in town, she's convinced her big break is near. Meanwhile, Oscar Rockwell, a local veterinarian with a matchmaking mom, is one blind date away from freedom. He just wants peace, and for his mom to take in a pregnant cat.

Taylor Hunt loves her Army life. She’s always longed for adventure, for a cause worth fighting for, to prove herself—and she isn’t going to accomplish any of that in Anchorage, so far away from the action. She’s just biding her time until her transfer request comes through. Noah Rockwell enjoys the simple life. He’s happy working at the big box electronics store, living with his cat, and being single. He doesn’t want to complicate his lifestyle. When video games bring these strangers together, it will have them questioning life’s goals.

Charlie Rockwell has always believed in taking life one day at a time. She doesn’t do commitments. But when she sees a sad-eyed Rottie on TV, she just knows she has to rescue him. Soon one thing is clear—Charlie doesn't know how to be a dog-owner, and her new canine companion has even less of an idea how to be a pet. Will Porter doesn’t do commitments. Not anymore. He’s still hurting from what happened last time. It’s just him and his well-behaved golden retriever.

When Peggy Shippen, the celebrated blonde belle of Philadelphia, married American military hero Benedict Arnold in 1779, she anticipated a life of fame and fortune, but financial debts and political intrigues prompted her to conspire with her treasonous husband against George Washington and the American Revolution. In spite of her commendable efforts to rehabilitate her husband’s name, Peggy Shippen continues to be remembered as a traitor bride.

Some folks are born with a silver spoon jutting right out of their mouths. Others are a bit more like Miss Harmony King. That poor thing bounced in and out of so many foster homes growing up, that even my head spun circles trying to keep track of them all. Once Harmony hit 18, though, she disappeared from Charleston altogether. Fast forward nearly a decade, and now she’s back, bent over a pew, and praying like her life depends on it. I’d reckon that just maybe it does.

Carolina Brown couldn’t be more different than her mama if she tried - and truthfully most of us believe she worked hard at precisely that. She worked hard at everything else, too, and set off to college to accomplish big things in the wide world. Unfortunately, God called her right back to Charleston when her mama suffered a near fatal accident that left her requiring round the clock care.

Some say that whenever it snows in Charleston, God is giving a miracle to his most favorite of places. So, I reckon, the blizzard that bleached the entire sky that December must have been a blessing of epic proportions. It was certainly a miracle that I’d forgotten my cell phone after giving my Christmas Eve sermon, and had to race back to the sanctuary in order to retrieve it.

Journalist and Professor Susanne Althoff investigates the obstacles women and nonbinary entrepreneurs - especially those of color - face when launching, funding, and growing their companies, obstacles that persist because the current start-up world was engineered by and for White men. Through interviews with more than a hundred founders across the country and in all industries, Althoff paints a picture of an entrepreneurial system rife with bias and discrimination, where women receive less than three percent of this country's venture capital.

A fascinating journey through history and culture, examining how makeup affects self-empowerment, how people have used it to define (and defy) their roles in society, and why we all need to care.

Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin—the thrifty inventor-statesman of the Revolutionary era—but not about his love life. Poor Richard’s Women reveals the neglected voices of the women Ben loved and lost during his lifelong struggle between passion and prudence. The most prominent among them was Deborah Read Franklin, his common-law wife and partner for 44 years. Long dismissed by historians, she was an independent, politically savvy woman and devoted wife who raised their children, managed his finances, and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint while he traipsed about England.