Every family is hurting, and the wounds that come from our relatives can be deeper than all others. Conflict within a family can range from daily frictions and annoyances to rage and hatred and eventually estrangement. We want things to be different but have no idea where to start. After 25 years of ministering to families, Rob Rienow believes reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel--reconciliation with God and one another. You will come away with specific steps you can take in your relationships with your family members to pursue peace and healing in your homes. Each chapter includes key biblical examples as well as present-day stories of families who have experienced God's help and healing--including the author's own miraculous healing of his relationship with his father. Our families can bring out the best, as well as the worst, in all of us. May this book guide you in making your home and family a blessing in a broken world.

Every family has relational habits—both positive and negative—that have been passed down from generation to generation. Experienced counselor Beverly Hubble Tauke cites real-life stories and suggests specific “transforming practices” to change family patterns. By putting an end to the cycle of negativity, families can find the joy that God intended for them and enjoy healthy relationships for generations to come. This is a repackage with new title (previous title, [Overcoming the] Sins of the Family, 2004).

Your subtle energy field plays a major role in the ups and downs of your relationships. In this groundbreaking book, Keith Sherwood and Sabine Wittmann show you how to transform your relationships by healing the wounds, blockages, and attachments that drive family members apart. Featuring helpful examples and hands-on exercises, Energy Healing for Relationships helps you find a compatible partner, heal family dynamics, strengthen your connections to your loved ones, and overcome parental challenges. Tips and techniques for working with meditation, energy, positive thinking, chakras, mudras, and visualization will move you forward on your journey with your family and friends while also helping you learn to deal with the difficult people in your life. This book is designed to ensure that children grow up with all the love and self-confidence they need and to enhance the well-being of all the members of your family.

Denounced by some as a dangerous cult and lauded by others as a miraculous faith community, the International Churches of Christ was a conservative evangelical Christian movement that grew rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s. Among its followers, promises to heal family relationships were central to the group's appeal. Members credit the church for helping them develop so-called "awesome families"-successful marriages and satisfying relationships with children, family of origin, and new church "brothers and sisters." The church engaged an elaborate array of services, including round-the-clock counseling, childcare, and Christian dating networks-all of which were said to lead to fulfilling relationships and exciting sex lives. Before the unified movement's demise in 2003-2004, the lure of blissful family-life led more than 100,000 individuals worldwide to be baptized into the church. In Awesome Families, Kathleen Jenkins draws on four years of ethnographic research to explain how and why so many individuals-primarily from middle- to upper-middle-class backgrounds-were attracted to this religious group that was founded on principles of enforced community, explicit authoritative relationships, and therapeutic ideals. Weaving classical and contemporary social theory, she argues that members were commonly attracted to the structure and practice of family relationships advocated by the church, especially in the context of contemporary society where gender roles and family responsibilities are often ambiguous. Tracing the rise and fall of this fast-growing religious movement, this timely study adds to our understanding of modern society and offers insight to the difficulties that revivalist movements have in sustaining growth.

A warm, empathetic guide to understanding, coping with, and healing from the unique pain of sibling estrangement "Whenever I tell people that I am working on a book about sibling estrangement, they sit up a little straighter and lean in, as if I've tapped into a dark secret." Fern Schumer Chapman understands the pain of sibling estrangement firsthand. For the better part of forty years, she had nearly no relationship with her only brother, despite many attempts at reconnection. Her grief and shame were devastating and isolating. But when she tried to turn to others for help, she found that a profound stigma still surrounded estrangement, and that very little statistical and psychological research existed to help her better understand the rift that had broken up her family. So she decided to conduct her own research, interviewing psychologists and estranged siblings as well as recording the extraordinary story of her own rift with her brother--and subsequent reconciliation. Brothers, Sisters, Strangers is the result--a thoughtfully researched memoir that illuminates both the author's own story and the greater phenomenon of estrangement. Chapman helps readers work through the challenges of rebuilding a sibling relationship that seems damaged beyond repair, as well as understand when estrangement is the best option. It is at once a detailed framework for understanding sibling estrangement, a beacon of solidarity and comfort for the estranged, and a moving memoir about family trauma, addiction, grief, and recovery.

"No one book resolves a lifetime of hurts and misunderstandings, but it can remove the blinders from our eyes. Make an effort now." LOS ANGELES TIMES No matter how old you are and whether or not your parents are alive, you have to come to terms with them. This wise and practical book will show you how to deal with the most fundamental relationships in your life and, in the process, become the happy, creative, and fulfilled person you are meant to be.

Available January 2006 Genuine spirituality is rooted in our ability to be fully human, and nowhere is this more fully seen in our relationships with others. Focusing on marriage relationships, here priest/psychologist Padovani offers couples solid and practical advice gleaned from his thirty plus years as a counselor.