“Brilliant, rich...breathtakingly honest and sometimes very funny.” —Anne Lamott “I loved this book.” ­—Glennon Doyle “Extraordinary.” —Caroline Leavitt “Observant and warm...the finest company.”—Kelly Corrigan “A beautiful sucker punch, like life.“ —Ron Fournier “Subtle, powerful, and hypnotic...” — Martin Cruz Smith What happens when we can no longer pretend that the ground underfoot is bedrock and the sky above predictable? All Janine Urbaniak Reid ever wanted was for everyone she loved to be okay so she might relax and maybe be happy. Her life strategy was simple: do everything right. This included trying to be the perfect mother to her three kids so they would never experience the kind of pain she pretended not to feel growing up. What she didn’t expect was the chaos of an out-of-control life that begins when her young son’s hand begins to shake. The Opposite of Certainty is the story of Janine’s reluctant journey beyond easy answers and platitudes. She searches for a source of strength bigger than her circumstances, only to have her circumstances become even thornier with her own crisis. Drawn deeply and against her will into herself, and into the eternal questions we all ask, she discovers hidden reserves of strength, humor, and a no-matter-what faith that looks nothing like she thought it would. Beautifully written and deeply hopeful, Janine shows us how we can come through impossible times transformed and yet more ourselves than we’ve ever allowed ourselves to be.

The controversial evangelical Bible scholar and author of The Bible Tells Me So explains how Christians mistake “certainty” and “correct belief” for faith when what God really desires is trust and intimacy. With compelling and often humorous stories from his own life, Bible scholar Peter Enns offers a fresh look at how Christian life truly works, answering questions that cannot be addressed by the idealized traditional doctrine of “once for all delivered to the saints.” Enns offers a model of vibrant faith that views skepticism not as a loss of belief, but as an opportunity to deepen religious conviction with courage and confidence. This is not just an intellectual conviction, he contends, but a more profound kind of knowing that only true faith can provide. Combining Enns’ reflections of his own spiritual journey with an examination of Scripture, The Sin of Certainty models an acceptance of mystery and paradox that all believers can follow and why God prefers this path because it is only this way by which we can become mature disciples who truly trust God. It gives Christians who have known only the demand for certainty permission to view faith on their own flawed, uncertain, yet heartfelt, terms.

We all long for certainty in life, yet things often don't go as we expect. When facing illness, job loss, strained relationships, and other struggles, our impulse is to question God and strive to fix things ourselves. In this book, Shelly Miller, a trusted ministry leader, explores how difficult times can actually be purposeful times of spiritual growth. Weaving the exodus story from the Bible with her own story, she shares how to focus on God rather than trying to overcome challenges in our own limited strength. Each chapter features a simple spiritual practice to help us enjoy the peace and security that is only possible through Christ. Uncertain seasons will soon be translated as an aha instead of an oh no.

The author, founder and CEO of Living with Certainty, LLC, presents her multi-faceted approach to creating a life of deep-soul joy. Includes information on dwelling with awareness and sensing universal interconnectivity; discovering your individual soul-view; resonating high-frequency energy vibrations to align with your spiritual power frequency; eliminating static-inducing elements in thoughts, beliefs, relationships, and actions; listening to an internal instruction system; and following the universal guidance inherent in signs, signals, symbols, and synchronicities.

Inside an art gallery, it is easy to forget that the paintings there are the end products of a process involving not only creative inspiration, but also plenty of physical and logistical details. It is these "cruder," more mundane aspects of a painter's daily routine that motivated Brooklyn artist Joe Fig to embark almost ten years ago on a highly unorthodox, multilayered exploration of the working life of the professional artist. Determined to ground his research in the physical world, Fig began constructing a series of diorama-like miniature reproductions of the studios of modern art's most legendary painters, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. A desire for firsthand references led Fig to approach contemporary artists for access to their studios. Armed with a camera and a self-made "Artist's Questionnaire," Fig began a journey through the workspaces of some of today's most exciting contemporary artists.

"A modern retelling of the Biblical story of the rich man and Lazarus"--Cover

The writer, TV host, and advocate examines her life and career, including the challenges of being trans, a woman, and a person of color.