Winner of a first-place award in memoirs, a second-place for best front cover artwork, and a third-place in the category first time author of a book from the Catholic Media Association. Where is God when the innocent suffer? Jennifer Hubbard began to grapple with the question in 2012 when her six-year-old daughter Catherine was killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In the depths of her grief, Hubbard founded an animal sanctuary in Catherine’s memory, creating a place of healing for her family and their community and fulfilling her daughter’s dream. Hubbard’s courageous witness will uplift your faith and demonstrate how Christ’s redemptive suffering provides a path of hope, even in the darkest moments of our lives. Hubbard’s daughter Catherine was a happy little girl who wanted to spend her life rescuing animals. All that changed on the morning of December 14, 2012. Though her daughter’s tragic death marked the end of Hubbard’s world as she’d known it, she instinctively held on to her faith in God, realizing it was the only way she could bear the initial impact of her daughter’s death and the subsequent waves of grief and loss as her marriage ended and she was forced to forge a new life. A typographic mistake on Catherine’s obituary led Hubbard to an unexpected invitation to fulfill her daughter’s dreams of opening an animal shelter. She began to channel her grief into a work of peace by starting a foundation in her daughter’s memory, by writing, and by helping her son recover after surviving the tragedy that took his sister’s life. Ultimately, it was Hubbard’s faith that gave her the courage to entrust her daughter to God and to seek his plan for her own life. “God helped me to look back on my life up to that time and to see all the ways he had been preparing me for what was to come,” she writes. In Finding Sanctuary, Hubbard shares her journey of healing and transformation in order to help those who may be grappling with an inability to trust in the goodness of God. You will learn: to recognize the diamonds of divine insight and encouragement when you are deep in the mine of pain and despair; to be patient with yourself as you take the time you need to process what is happening; and to look both to the past and the present for signs of God’s presence, preparing you to move toward acceptance, forgiveness, and peace. Each chapter in the book is dedicated to one step in Hubbard’s journey toward wholeness and includes reflection questions to guide you to consider what God is teaching you as you make your own way toward God’s kingdom of peace.

Her mother was unhappy because Marid used the phone a lot so she put a passcode on it to lock her out. Although Marid couldnt call out, her friends could call her. She expected her mother to limit that, but she didnt. Instead, she waited to punish her until after the Christmas holidays. Marid was talking about returning to school, when her mother lowered the boom. Marid, she said, Ive decided that you are going to attend a different school. Standing there in stunned disbelief, Marids heart started breaking in half. Shed lose all her close friends and her favorite teachers. Although she hadnt gone for more counseling sessions, most of all she would lose Myra Stantons protection. Myra had always asked how she was doing whenever she saw her in the hallways. Her mother had trashed Myra many times to Marid but she didnt believe her the way she used too. Marid was beginning to see that her mother was a bully, and she was wrong for the way she treated her. Angrily, she demanded, Why did you do this to me? You want me to fail and be miserable dont you? Emily looked at her daughter and said Really Marid? Since when do you know whats best? I know whats best better than anyone, especially not that interfering bitch Myra Stanton. Tearfully Marid said, How could you do that? Why do you hate me so much? Icily her mother replied, Hate you? Dont flatter yourself. Youre nothing but a manipulative bitch. You lied about me! Youre just like your father, the same kind of liar! Your rein of telling lies is finished; you arent going to get away with your lies so easily in a brand new school, without Ms. Myra there to protect you, are you? Marid just stared at her, before turning away and going to her room. She slammed the door shut, expecting her mother to follow and hit her, but she didnt care anymore. She lay on her bed sobbing into her pillow for hours, before she fell asleep.

Abbot Christopher Jamison, from BBC2's THE MONASTERY and new show THE SILENCE, suggests ways in which the teachings of St Benedict can be helpful in everyday life. Have you ever wondered why everybody these days seems so busy? In FINDING SANCTUARY, Father Christopher Jamison offers practical wisdom from the monastic tradition on how to build sanctuary into your life. No matter how hard you work, being too busy is not inevitable. Silence and contemplation are not just for monks and nuns, they are natural parts of life. Yet to keep hold of this truth in the rush of modern living you need the support of other people and sensible advice from wise guides. By learning to listen in new ways, people's lives can change and the abbot offers some monastic steps that help this transition to a more spiritual life. In the face of many easy assumptions about the irrelevance of religion today, Father Christopher makes religion accessible for those in search of life's meaning and offers a vision of the world's religions working together as a unique source of hope for the 21st century.

These spiritual lessons are based on Native American shamanism but fit a wide range of interests from yoga and alternative medicine to Bible study and nature hiking. Hands-on exercises, step-by-step instructions for ceremonies, and sketches by the author's wife explain how to clear spaces of unwanted energy, create simple ceremonies, connect with spirit guides and angels, and interpret symbols. An extended discussion tells how to make a medicine wheel that resembles a labyrinth and use it as an engine for distance healing. Additional ceremonies for daily living, healing the earth, and soul retrieval are also described, and the spiritual quest itself is shown to follow the process of choosing a sacred place in nature, finding a sacred place within oneself, and connecting to the inner and outer worlds. Readers are encouraged to keep a notebook about their spiritual growth and refer to the key words and suggestions for internet research that are included.

Finding Sanctuary in the Midst of Alzheimer’s is currently the only Bible study on the market for dementia caregivers and the communities that serve them.

Romantic Suspense to Keep Readers Guessing Until the Last Page Sophie Wittenbauer left her strict Mennonite hometown under a cloud of shame and regret. After a rough childhood, her teenage poor choices harmed others, leaving her with no choice but to change her life. Her entry-level writing job at a newspaper puts her in the right place at the right time to overhear office gossip about a prisoner who has information on a decades-old unsolved crime. While the other reporters write off the tip as the ravings of an angry criminal, Sophie can't ignore it because she knows the name of this prisoner from her old life. Upon learning from the man that one of the other suspects is hiding out in the Missouri town of Sanctuary, she takes on a false identity to investigate and meets the young pastor of a local church--the very man she'd loved as a troubled teenager. As she gets closer to finding the suspect, will the truth of her own past come out before she discovers the identity of the criminal--or the very person she's seeking puts a fatal stop to her investigation?

Wynter Evans is a promising young reporter for a television station in St. Louis, but even a bright future doesn't take away her pain over the disappearance of her brother nine years ago. So when she stumbles across a photograph of a boy with an eerie resemblance to him, she can't pass up the chance to track him down. With research for work as her cover, she sets out with one of the station's photogs for the place where the picture was taken: the town of Sanctuary. Almost as soon as she arrives, she meets the town's handsome young mayor, Rueben King, and together they begin to uncover long held secrets that could tear the small town apart and change everything Wynter thought she knew about her life. As the truth of her family's past hides in the shadows, it's clear someone will stop at nothing to keep the answers she's searching for hidden forever--even if the cost is Wynter's very life.