The greatest love story of all time culminated in a Cross, yet continues forever. Do you long to deeply experience this great, eternal love story? Jesus promises if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. (James 4:8 NAS) Our Beloved, Our Friend is an opportunity to draw near to Jesus, to experience and respond to His love, and to grow in your relationship with Him. You will prayerfully explore the Word and experience Jesus in forty Bible-study meditations that use a simple, instinctive method a Pattern taken from Psalm 119. (Journaling space is provided.) This relationship-based Pattern can become a part of you as you pray the Word into your life. It will enable you to behold Jesus within your soul, in the happenings in your world, and in every facet of your life. It facilitates a closer walk with Jesus that allows His limitless, liberating love to permeate your spirit, then overflow from you and touch others. After youve completed the forty Bible study meditations, Our Beloved, Our Friends easy-to-use Pattern and Appendix can continue to help you dig into the Word for yourself and deepen your relationship with Jesus. The Pattern can serve you as a tool: - to use in ongoing personal devotional time with Jesus - to share in one-on-one fellowship - to mentor, disciple individuals and groups - to lead Bible studies, retreats, and seminars - to study a single verse, a portion of Scripture or a book of the Bible - to teach Sunday school or other small groups with little or no preparation Our Beloved, Our Friend will assist you through the lens of the Word and the light of the Holy Spirit to know and love Jesus more intimately, to fulfill your call to live the Word and share His love.

Hal and Melanie have a way of writing that makes you feel as though you are sitting down and having a conversation with them. What they write is solid. What they write is Biblical. What they write actually works and is doable. They don t pull punches or just try to make you feel good. They handle delicate issues with Biblical responses. Since we know that God s word never returns void, we know that this book will change lives. -Phyllis Sather, author of Purposeful Planning Hal & Melanie Young have written another fabulous and much-needed book, My Beloved and My Friend: How to Stay Married to Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses. Brilliant book. Of course it is; I knew it would be. They are the folks...who wrote Raising Real Men. I loved that book, and I knew I d get a lot from this one too. -Debra Brinkman, Footprints in the Butter Faith should impact your behavior. This one truth, emphasized repeatedly in the Bible, prompts Jesus followers to adopt Jesus priorities and Jesus behaviors in our human relationships. In this book, Hal and Melanie seize this understanding and seek to apply it to the covenant relationship of marriage. -Dave Buller at Christian First This book was hard to put down, I have pages dog eared, I have highlighted sections that I want to return to and I ve shared several great passages with my husband. I love how Hal and Melanie Young shared their private life and the struggles that they have gone through. I felt like I was a special friend that they were confiding in and in return I was learning so much about myself. -Kimberly Huff at Natural Beach Living This book felt more like a conversation with friends than a how-to manual. This is not a rekindle your romance kind of book. It s also not a here s why you fight, now work around it kind of book. It s a straightforward story of how two sinners, saved by Grace, live out their marriage covenant while being best friends. It s the perfect kind of marriage book. -Laurie Bostwick at Our Abundant Blessings Noth-ing is held back as they use God s word to show a clear path to being a Godly cou-ple and hav-ing a mar-riage that show it as well. -Steve Blackston at Husband of a Homeschool Mom I ve read a few marriage books no, actually I haven t. I ve purchased a few books, read a few pages, got bored with them, and got rid of them. My Beloved and My Friend is different than all those other marriage books I ve come across. -Tabitha Zehner at The Homeschool Four

"These stories are full of love, light and hope.With Nature surrounding and embracing us, mysteries can shine forth through our imagination.The two sisters Arya and Maya, magically find a new friend, Yadira who is an expression of their love and willingness to expand their world through play.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING NAOMI WATTS “A beautiful book . . . a world of insight into death, grief, art, and love.” —Wall Street Journal “A penetrating, moving meditation on loss, comfort, memory . . . Nunez has a wry, withering wit.” —NPR “Dry, allusive and charming . . . the comedy here writes itself.” —The New York Times The New York Times bestselling story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog. When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them. Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.

“The heart of Orr’s poetry, now as ever, is the enigmatic image . . . mystical, carnal, reflective, wry.”—San Francisco Review This book-length sequence of ecstatic, visionary lyrics recalls Rumi in its search for the beloved and its passionate belief in the healing qualities of art and beauty. Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved is an incantatory celebration of the “Book,” an imaginary and self-gathering anthology of all the lyrics—both poems and songs—ever written. Each poem highlights a distinct aspect of the human condition, and together the poems explore love, loss, restoration, the beauty of the world, the beauty of the beloved, and the mystery of poetry. The purpose and power of the Book is to help us live by reconnecting us to the world and to our emotional lives. I put the beloved In a wooden coffin. The fire ate his body; The flames devoured her. I put the beloved In a poem or song. Tucked it between Two pages of the Book. How bright the flames. All of me burning, All of me on fire And still whole. There is nothing quite like this book—an “active anthology” in the best sense—where individuals find the poems and songs that will sustain them. Or the poems find them. Gregory Orr is the author of eight books of poetry, four volumes of criticism, and a memoir. He has received numerous awards for his work, most recently the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Orr has taught at the University of Virginia since 1975 and was, for many years, the poetry editor of The Virginia Quarterly Review. He lives with his family in Charlottesville, Virginia.

From a Caldecott Honor-winning artist comes a cozy classic-in-the-making about finding your friends and sticking together through thick and thin. "Our Friend Hedgehog feels like a modern-day Winnie the Pooh. It's so warm and full of joy and love. It's got classic written all over it." --Victoria Jamieson, Newbery Honor-winning author of Roller Girl Sometimes you make a friend, and it feels like you have known that friend your entire life. . . . Hedgehog lives on a teeny-tiny island with only her stuffed dog, Mutty, for company. When a great storm carries Mutty away, she embarks on a quest to find her friend. Following the trail of clues Mutty left behind, brave Hedgehog meets a wiggly Mole, a wordy Owl, a curmudgeonly Beaver, a scatterbrained Hen and Chicks, and a girl who's new to the neighborhood, Annika May. With bravery and teamwork, there's nothing that can stop these seven from finding Mutty, but along the way they discover something even more important: each other. The first book in a new series from Caldecott Honor winner Lauren Castillo, Our Friend Hedgehog: The Story of Us has the feel of a timeless classic, introducing an unforgettable cast of characters who will star in many more adventures to come.

In the year 2023, after a nuclear Armageddon, only a few pockets of people have survived. One of these groups of survivors, mostly rock climbers and mountaineers, subsists through the leadership of Jude, a biblical archaeologist and rock climber. Jude is given a chance to go back in time by using an invention of a surviving U.S. scientist. Jude is transported back to Palestine during the first century, where he searches for Jesus, to verify if he truly was the Messiah, or a charlatan. Dying from nuclear cancer, Jude spends most of his given time looking for Jesus, finally finding him meditating on a mountaintop. Jude, mesmerized by Ishias (Jesus) power becomes his first follower and best friend, Judas. His friendship and his knowledge of Ishia of Nazerat become the pivotal force in the last three years of their lives. Jude becomes the Judas, torn apart between being Ishias beloved friend and being his betrayer. The shocking and controversial ending is for you, the reader, to read and discover. It will tear at your very soul but it will rejuvenate and strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ. A must for every Christian to read!