Showing results by narrator "Ann Richardson" in All Categories

Elin Willows’ popular debut Inlands explores the emotional journey of a young woman who leaves behind her life in Stockholm and finds herself in a new place at the edge of the Arctic Circle. Overwhelmed by nature’s magnitude and the simplicity and strangeness of her new life, she searches for a new identity and for ways to overcome her feelings of alienation. Rather than returning to the known (Stockholm, her friends and family), she chooses to stay and struggles to adapt to its new customs.

In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the American government confiscated the homes, animals, businesses, and personal possessions of Japanese Americans, citizens all. At the Tule Lake Internment Camp, a Japanese American girl sought solace by retreating to the furthest edge of the camp’s barbed-wire enclosure. Outside the barbed-wire-crowned metal fence, with its frightening armed guard towers, a curious American boy one day cautiously approached on his bike to say a nervous hello to the girl who so intrigued him from a distance. This visit started four years of meetings.

Sent away on an orphan train at 14, smart and lovely Blanche Spencer lands in St. Louis, Missouri, as a nursemaid, wearing rags and sleeping in a pantry. To rise above her servitude, she begins a self-education program. A trade booth at the 1904 World’s Fair and a Cobden, Illinois, apprenticeship launch her into a hat-making career, which she documents in a tiny diary, The Bonnet Book.

Refugia (reh-FU-jee-ah) is a term describing places of shelter where life endures in times of crisis, such as a volcanic eruption, fire, or stressed climate. Ideally, these refugia endure, expand, and connect so that new life emerges. Debra Rienstra applies this concept to human culture and faith, asking: In this era of ecological devastation, how can Christians become people of refugia? How can we find and nurture these refugia in our human cultural systems and in our spiritual lives? Refugia Faith speaks to people securely within the faith as well as to those on the edge.

Being a mom is challenging no matter how long you’ve been doing it. You want to give your best to your family, but pouring yourself out each day can leave you exhausted, overwhelmed, and feeling like you have nothing left to offer. In Unraveled, authors and fellow moms Stacey Thacker and Brooke McGlothlin encourage you to start finding strength and peace in the One who loves you most.

In Out of Chaos, Jessica LaGrone challenges the hope-destroying belief that God has abandoned us in our broken relationships, our pain, and our grief. In the midst of our out-of-control lives, God is there, and he specializes in making new things from the chaos threatens to drown us, transforming it from raw ingredient to beauty and grace.

Are You Two Sisters? is Susan Krieger's candid, revealing, and engrossing memoir about the intimacies of a lesbian couple. Krieger explores how she and her partner confront both the inner challenges of their relationship and the invisibility of lesbian identity in the larger world. Using a lively novelistic and autoethnographic approach that toggles back and forth in time, Krieger reflects on the evolution of her 40-year relationship. She describes building a life together, from sharing pets and travels to getting married.

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.

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? Writing from her own experience and pointing to biblical examples, Aimee Joseph offers a biblical and theological framework for decision-making.

More than 200 years later, the “voyage of discovery” — with its outsized characters, geographic marvels, and wondrous moments of adventure and mystery — continues to draw us along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Revisit the Lewis and Clark Trail and its famous people, landmarks, and events, exploring questions the expedition continues to raise, such as, What really motivated Thomas Jefferson to send out his agents of discovery? What “mutinous expressions” were uttered? What happened to the dog? Why did Meriwether Lewis end his own life?

From her childhood in Norway to the seasons she spent working as a guide on Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, Arnesen courted the cold, and her memoir reflects the knowledge and passion for Arctic and Antarctic exploration that grew with her adventures in the wintry reaches of Norway and beyond. Tracing her path from the heroic stories of explorers like Fridtjof Nansen and Ernest Shackleton to her own crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap in 1992, Arnesen credits the inspiring feats of those who preceded her.

Katherine Yoder has loved Johnny Mullet since the two were children, but he’s never returned her affections. Now Johnny is trying to forge a new life for himself by purchasing a farm and building a business of his own. But times are tough, and he soon learns that he can’t take anything for granted - especially Katherine. Before Johnny has the opportunity to tell Katherine his true feelings, she’s struck by a serious illness. While Katherine struggles to recall recent memories of Johnny, a surprise visitor comes back into her life.

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.

In Captives: How Stolen People Changed the World archaeologist Catherine M. Cameron provides an eye-opening comparative study of the profound impact captives of warfare and raiding have had on small-scale societies through time. Cameron provides a new point of orientation for archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and other scholars by illuminating the impact that captive-taking and enslavement have had on cultural change, with important implications for understanding the past.

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.

Mixing personal history, interviewee voices, and academic theory from the fields of care work, the sociology of work, medical sociology, and nursing, Taking Care of Our Own introduces us to the hidden world of family caregivers. By taking a multidimensional approach, Sherry N. Mong seeks to understand and analyze the types of skilled work that family caregivers do, the processes through which they learn and negotiate these new skills, and the meanings that both caregivers and nurses attach to their care work.

Life is unpredictable. One day your journey is calm and effortless. Next day it's full of potholes. Why not take God's hand and walk this road together as fresh answers to your challenges are revealed? Lisa Are Wulf, an award-winning author, has walked this path too. She offers encouragement and a clear way forward, strengthening your special bond with Jesus. Reaching for God's Hand features 40 short reflections, soothing bible verses and prayers, plus a quiet time with God.

The non-judgmental acceptance of the feelings that emerge in our thoughts and emotions, in the present, manifests into a lifelong mindful practice. The similarities of the various modalities found around the world to practice mindfulness are more numerous than the differences and, in some cases, than the activities of a culture. They are passed down from generation to generation with the name of the activity rather than the more trending term of mindfulness.