The ideas presented within these pages can help the reader focus on improving self and community through imagination and thinking. There is hope for change when the inspiration comes from within. When it comes to freedom of thought, it is easier to change one mind at a time than entire cultures. As long as there are individuals who express optimism for such change, there is hope for all of us. The topics cover common themes that people and society come across while passing through the fire of daily life. These themes are about all of us. They are about time, space, matter, spirit, humanism, and universalism. They attempt to explain by seeding the complex with the simple. There are no endings, only beginnings in awareness when its purpose is to unify consciousness on Earth with universal life. When this occurs rightly, our perceptions will move us into that next stage of being: universal inclusiveness and its eternal expansion.

Nasrin didn't realize that her life was about to be forever altered when she left her house for work in the early morning hours of December 3, 1997. Suddenly shaken by a violent jerk and a loud crash with an oncoming car, she found herself unable to move. But this story is more than just a personal chronicle of a tragic event and its aftermath. It is an invitation to her miraculous journey of encounter with a God of mercy and love, in whom we find hope and healing. Nasrin writes with inspiring beauty and honesty. Read this wonderful book and be reminded of how God intends to create beauty and glory out of the shattered dreams and ashes of our lives. -Rev. Sasan Tavassoli, Ph.D an inspiring story that will forever change your view of life amidst difficult circumstances. -Hormoz Shariat, Ph.D., Iran Alive Ministries Passing Through the Fire will cause your heart to burn as you read Nasrin's passionate story. Her life of surrender and faithful walk with her Savior paints a glorious portrait of a fruitful survivor. -Joan Elizabeth Driggs, Author of Love's Rescue Passing Through the Fire reveals the secrets to a life of freedom and purpose. Nasrin continues to challenge and inspire me with the living proof that we can have true wholeness and healing regardless of our circumstances! -Lisa Winters Cox, Inspirational Author and Teacher

This Civil War biography “draw[s] upon fresh material . . . to offer some important new insights. . . . An outstanding addition.” (NYMAS Book Review) As the brigade he commanded attacked a Confederate battery on a hill outside Petersburg in July 1864, a bursting shell blew Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain from the saddle and wounded his horse. After the enemy battery skedaddled, the brigade took the hill and dug in, and up came supporting Union guns. Chamberlain figured the day’s fighting ended. Then an unidentified senior officer ordered his brigade to charge and capture the heavily defended main Confederate line. Chamberlain protested the order, then complied, taking his men forward—until a bullet slammed through his groin and left him mortally wounded. Miraculously surviving a battlefield surgery, he returned home to convalesce. Struggling with pain and multiple surgeries, Chamberlain debated leaving the army or returning to the fight. His decision affected upcoming battles, his family, and the rest of his life. Passing Through the Fire: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in the Civil War chronicles Chamberlain’s swift transition from college professor and family man to regimental and brigade commander. Drawing on Chamberlain’s extensive memoirs and writings and multiple period sources, historian Brian F. Swartz follows Chamberlain across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia while examining the determined warrior who let nothing prevent him from helping save the United States. “Swartz writes eloquently and well. This book is suitable for students and for those readers with little prior background in the Civil War as well as for readers with a strong interest in the subject.” —Midwest Book Review

An unusually polyvalent symbol, fire assumes numerous functions in the Bible. It is a defining feature of theophanies, it serves as an instrument of judgment, and in some instances it cleanses and purifies. Examining a complex of traditions ranging from John the Baptist to Jesus of Nazareth and from the Pauline to the Petrine Epistles, Daniel Frayer-Griggs identifies a recurring motif in the New Testament, arguing that these disparate traditions, which appear in both very early and very late New Testament texts, testify to a shared belief that everyone--both the righteous and the wicked--would be subjected to eschatological judgment by fire and that the righteous would experience this judgment as a fiery ordeal through which they would be tested and, in some cases, ultimately purified.