If you've ever felt overworked, overwhelmed, or just plain unlucky, this book is for you. Through this collection of stories, wisdom, and practical advice, readers will meet four ordinary women who have faced extraordinary life challenges. Together, they have a history of six marriages, ten children, four stepchildren, six dogs, two miscarriages, two cats, a failed adoption, widowhood, and foster parenthood. They have built companies, lost companies, and sold companies. One of them was shot and left for dead on a tarmac in South America, and two lived through the deaths of spouses. Raising babies and teenagers together, they have known celebrity and success along with loneliness and self-doubt. This book started simply with four friends getting together at the kitchen table to talk about their lives. Week by week and story by story, they realized their support of each other could help other women struggling with life's myriad issues of work, family, and love, as well as the big questions of life and death. For over a decade, the power and strength of their collective friendship has enabled these women to not only survive but to thrive. The remarkable results are in this collection of lessons and stories and wisdom, which can help any woman turn any misfortunate event into a joy-filled opportunity. This Is Not the Life I Ordered is the culmination of weekly "kitchen table coaching" sessions that took place for more than a decade and were designed to support one another through life's ups and downs. The women realized their support of each other could help other women struggling with life's myriad issues of work, family, and love, as well as the big questions of life and death. The power and strength of their collective friendship has enabled these women to not only survive but to thrive and the remarkable results are in this collection of lessons and stories and wisdom, which can help any woman turn any misfortunate event into a joy-filled opportunity. * Features practical "Wit Kit" tips - exercises and actions for readers to become their own life coach and start their own kitchen-table cabinets.

In this practical workbook Stephen A. Macchia looks to St. Benedict as a guide for discovering your rule of life. It takes time and effort; you must listen to God and discern what he wants you to be and do for his glory. But through the disciplines of Scripture, prayer and reflection with a small group you will journey toward Christlikeness.

Professional career reinvention is possible and this resource shows women how to play to their strengths, discover their passions, and own confidence as they plan their next career move. Told through the lens of amazing women who have re-ignited and reinvented their careers, the journey begins with the author's own emotional career transition.

November, 1978. Speier joined Congressman Leo Ryan's delegation to rescue defectors from cult leader Jim Jones's Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Ryan was killed on the airstrip tarmac. Jackie was shot five times at point-blank range. While recovering, Jackie had to choose: Would she become a victim or a fighter? She chose to become a vocal proponent for human rights. Here she reveals her story of resilience as a widow, a mother, a congresswoman, and a fighter, to inspire other women to draw strength from adversity in order to do what is right. -- adapted from jacket

For the first time—and in the best translation ever—the complete Book of Disquiet, a masterpiece beyond comparison The Book of Disquiet is the Portuguese modernist master Fernando Pessoa’s greatest literary achievement. An “autobiography” or “diary” containing exquisite melancholy observations, aphorisms, and ruminations, this classic work grapples with all the eternal questions. Now, for the first time the texts are presented chronologically, in a complete English edition by master translator Margaret Jull Costa. Most of the texts in The Book of Disquiet are written under the semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, an assistant bookkeeper. This existential masterpiece was first published in Portuguese in 1982, forty-seven years after Pessoa’s death. A monumental literary event, this exciting, new, complete edition spans Fernando Pessoa’s entire writing life.

An Ordered Love is the first detailed study of sex roles in the utopian communities that proposed alternatives to monogamous marriage: The Shakers (1779-1890), the Mormons (1843-90), and the Oneida Community (1848-79). The lives of men and women

G. H. Lang was a remarkable Bible teacher, preacher and writer of a past generation who should not be forgotten by today's Christians. He inherited the spiritual "mantle" of such giants in the faith as George Müller, Anthony Norris Groves and other notable saints among the early Brethren movement. He traveled all over the world with no fixed means of support other than prayer and faith and no church or other organization to depend on. Like Mr. Müller before him, he told his needs to no one but God. Many times his faith was tried to the limit, as funds for the next part of his journey arrived only at the last minute and from unexpected sources. This autobiography traces in precise detail the dealings of God with his soul, from the day of his conversion at the tender age of seven, through the twilight years when bodily infirmity restricted most of his former activities. You will be amazed, as you read these pages, to see how quickly and continually a soul can grow in grace and in the knowledge of spiritual things if they will wholly follow the Lord. Horace Bushnell once wrote that every man's life is a plan of God, and that it's our duty as human beings to find and follow that plan. As Mr. Lang looks back over his long and varied life in the pages of this book, he frequently points out the many times God prepared him in the present for some future work or role. Spiritual life applications abound throughout the book, making it not just a life story but a spiritual training manual of sorts. Preachers will find sermon starters and illustrations in every chapter. Readers of all kinds will benefit from this close-up view of the dealings of God with the soul of one who made it his life's business to follow the Lamb wherever He should lead.