Quentin Vennie shouldn’t be alive―he has walked a path that many don’t live long enough to write about. Growing up in Baltimore, he was surrounded by nothing but dead ends. Statistics mapped out his future, and he grew hostile toward a world that viewed him with suspicion and disdain. He’s been shot at, sold drugs up and down the East Coast, lingered on the brink of incarceration, and stared down death more than once. Haunted by feelings of abandonment and resentment, he struggled with chronic anxiety and depression and battled a crippling prescription drug addiction. The day he contemplated taking his life was the day he rediscovered his purpose for living. Vennie’s survival depended upon his finding a new path, but he didn’t know where to turn―his doctor was concerned only with prescribing more medication. Vennie refused, and in a desperate attempt to save his own life, decided to pursue a journey of natural healing. After researching a few self-healing methods, he immediately bought a juicer from an all-night grocery store. He started juicing in the hopes that it would help him repair his body and clear his mind. He jumped headfirst into the world of wellness and started incorporating yoga and meditation into his life. This “wellness trinity” helped him cut back on and then quit the many medications he was on, overcome his addictions, and ultimately, transform his life while inspiring others to find their own unique path to wellness. Strong in the Broken Places is the harrowing story of Vennie’s life, the detours that almost ended it, and the inspiring turns that saved it. The odds were stacked against him, but he was able to defy expectations and claw his way out on his own terms. He is living proof that during our weakest moments, we have the power and ability to unlock unimaginable strength.

When linked to biblical teachings, understanding disability offers congregations and society the pathway to hope and change. Stewart Govig, himself disabled, provides a practical resource that enables congregational communities to achieve a balance of realism and hope in responding to the needs of all of its members. He examines the attitudinal barriers thrust upon persons with disabilities and investigates the biblical resources for overcoming these barriers. He advocates an understanding of the Christian community that removes social stigma.

This book is about my journeys through the darkest and deepest pain I have ever felt in my life, and is dedicated to two very sweet little boys: My ten-year old son, Manual Alejandre Padilla, and my first grandson, four-month old Traiten Andrew Salazar, who left us much too soon.

Raised under modern day Dickinsonian conditions, the author takes you on a tour of life on the streets to the continued misery and pain of combat in Vietnam. These experiences followed by service as a Police Officer, led to multiple failed marriages. A determination to succeed by any means necessary put him on a fast track to the top of the corporate world. But the constant remembrance of all things that he wanted to forget, led him down the Path To Self Destruction. You will read within these pages how easy it was for him to make mostly bad choices in life and how important it was for him to be Strong at the Broken Places. J.T. James-Excerpt from Introduction

From the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, how to manage your business in the face of challenge, change, and potential disaster For James Lee Witt, the man who rebuilt America's emergency response system, the most inspiring and effective lessons--about responsibility, team building, planning, and taking action--have guided real-life heroes through extraordinary situations. These lessons can be applied to business to guide you through the pressures you face each week--or once in a career or a lifetime. Whether describing earthquake preparation in California, moving a Missouri town out of a floodplain, or shoring up walls and spirits after the Oklahoma City bombing, Witt captures the moments when leaders step forward, how they motivate others, and what they need to triumph over adversity. Witt's home-spun wisdom teaches us to "Tear Down the Stovepipes" to build effective teamwork by thinking horizontally, not vertically; to find energizing people who improve morale, whether a V.P.'s secretary or a key client, since "A Lightning Rod Works Both Ways"; and to establish systems for capturing what happens--what goes right and what goes wrong--to ensure that every challenge leaves you "Stronger in the Broken Places." To bring home the ten lessons in this inspiring and useful book, Witt shares examples and strategies from corporations--from Malden Mills and Intel to Swissair and Kmart--who have overcome crisis by applying the same principles to their business every day.

James A. Harnish, from the Introduction: “I’m broken. So are you. We’re all broken people who live in a broken world. The critical question is, how do we find strength to put broken things back together again? This book is an invitation to touch the scars that mark the broken places in our lives, in the same way the risen Christ invited a doubting disciple to touch the nail scars in his hands. It is a challenge to explore some of the dark places in our human experience, to uncover the sinister power of sin, and to experience the way the grace of God meets us in our broken places to bring new life.”

In Dying to Teach, Jeffrey Berman confronts the most wrenching loss imaginable: the death of his beloved wife, Barbara. Through four interrelated narratives—how Barbara wrote about her illness in a cancer diary, how he cared for her throughout her illness, how his students reacted to his disclosure that she was dying, and how he responded to her death—Berman explores his efforts to hold on to Barbara precisely as she was letting go of life. Intensely personal, Dying to Teach affirms the power of writing to memorialize loss and work through grief, and demonstrates the importance of death education: teachers and students writing and talking about a subject that, until now, has often been deemed too personal for the classroom.

By the time he had reached middle age, Max Cleland thought he had nothing to live for. Vietnam had left him a triple amputee. He had lost his seat in the U.S. Senate, and in the grip of depression he had lost his fiancée, too. But instead of giving up, Cleland discovered that he has what it takes to survive: the heart of a patriot. Doctors did not give Cleland much hope when he returned from Vietnam, but he overcame his despair through his bonds with other wounded soldiers. Against all odds, he realized his dream of becoming a Senator. But after being smeared as unpatriotic in a reelection campaign, a long-dormant case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder sent him back to Walter Reed Hospital. Surrounded by the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, Cleland again found the faith and endurance to regain control of his life. In a gut-wrenching memoir that is free of bitterness but frank about the costs of being a soldier, Max Cleland describes with love the ties America’s soldiers forge with one another, along with the disillusionment many of them experience when they come home. Heart of a Patriot is a story about the joy of serving the country you love, no matter the cost—and how to recover from the deepest wounds of war.

When Beka Valentine's ne'er-do-well brother Rafe limps onto the Andromeda Ascendant in a stolen junker with a sputtering Slipstream drive, Beka can't turn him away, because he claims to have found the mother they never knew. Unfortunately, right now the Andromeda is the linchpin in a precarious negotiation between the Drago-Kazov Pride and the Human Interplanetary Alliance, which seeks to free Earth and other old-school planets from the Nietzschean yoke. But the HIA may also be allied with the pure-human-supremacist Knights of Genetic Purity, who, in their evangelical fervor, have become every bit as fanatical as the genetically engineered devil they oppose. If the HIA allies with the Genites, the Milky Way will see yet another Human-Nietzschean bloodbath. Captain Dylan Hunt has survived one already and will do just about anything to prevent another such debacle. Dylan can't count on Seamus Harper, the only unmodified human in his crew, who is naïvely susceptible to the appeal of the Genite cause. He needs every level-headed crewmate he's got, and Beka, for all her emotional Sturm und Drang, is the best pilot in three galaxies. But Beka can't resist the chance---however remote---to find her long-lost mother. Years before, Magdalena Valentine went on a quest . . . the same one Beka has made her own. A quest to find the advanced technology of the lost Vedran race. A technology so powerful it lets the Vedrans hide their solar system in the fabric of the Slipstream itself; so powerful it could destroy the universe as we know it. This quest is where it all must lead---where, if you ask a certain purple alien, it was always, inevitably, destined to lead. Now only Dylan Hunt can stop Beka Valentine from activating the Vedran device. And he may have to kill her to do it. That is, if Tyr Anasazi doesn't kill him first. Or the Knights of Genetic Purity. Or the Human Interstellar Alliance . . . led by one Seamus Harper. The fate of the universe hinges on what Dylan Hunt and his crew do next! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“An inspiring, intimate memoir about faith, resilience and the tenacity of love.”—People “In this emotional tale, a young couple see their lives changed in the blink of an eye—and learn to find love again.”—US Weekly Five months pregnant, on a flight to their “babymoon,” Allison Pataki turned to her husband when he asked if his eye looked strange and watched him suddenly lose consciousness. After an emergency landing, she discovered that Dave—a healthy thirty-year-old athlete and surgical resident—had suffered a rare and life-threatening stroke. Next thing Allison knew, she was sitting alone in the ER in Fargo, North Dakota, waiting to hear if her husband would survive the night. When Dave woke up, he could not carry memories from hour to hour, much less from one day to the next. Allison had lost the Dave she knew and loved when he lost consciousness on the plane. Within a few months, she found herself caring for both a newborn and a sick husband, struggling with the fear of what was to come. As a way to make sense of the pain and chaos of their new reality, Allison started to write daily letters to Dave. Not only would she work to make sense of the unfathomable experiences unfolding around her, but her letters would provide Dave with the memories he could not make on his own. She was writing to preserve their past, protect their present, and fight for their future. Those letters became the foundation of this beautiful, intimate memoir. And in the process, she fell in love with her husband all over again. This is a manifesto for living, an ultimately uplifting story about the transformative power of faith and resilience. It’s a tale of a man’s turbulent road to recovery, the shifting nature of marriage, and the struggle of loving through pain and finding joy in the broken places. Praise for Beauty in the Broken Places “Bold and commendable . . . A strength of this memoir is [Allison Pataki’s] scrupulous honesty.”—USA Today “A memoir about . . . determination and gratitude, and the value of putting one foot in front of another during a crisis.”—The Washington Post “Heart-wrenching.”—Women’s Health “Powerful and immersive . . . Pataki delivers an insightful look at how two people faced a life-altering test as a team ‘fighting to make the dreams of our future possible.’”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)