Showing results by narrator "Pam Ward" in All Categories

As she did so provocatively with military spouses in Army Wives, Tanya Biank gives us the inside story of women in today’s military - their professional and personal challenges from the combat zone to the home front. Since 9/11, more than 240,000 women have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan - more than 140 have died there, and they currently make up 14 percent of the total active-duty forces. Despite advances, today’s servicewomen are constantly pressed to prove themselves.

My dear Beth, though Uppsala, Iowa, takes its name from a city in my native Sweden, life here is different from what I have known. With my parents' blessing, I have taken employment in the home of Mr. Bridger, a dairy farmer, caring for his ill mother and two young, orphaned nieces. It is most unlike me to leave home, even in a temporary manner. But the need is great and Hattie Bridger and the children are so endearing. As for Dirk Bridger, he is an unhappy man, but also loyal, hardworking, and honorable.

An outspoken centrist, Senator Snowe stunned Washington in 2012 when she announced she would not seek a fourth term and offered a sharp rebuke to the Senate, citing the dispiriting gridlock and polarization. After serving in the legislative branch at the state and federal levels for 40 years, including 18 years in the U.S. Senate, she explained that Washington wasn’t solving the big problems anymore. In this timely call to action, she explores the roots of her belief in principled policy-making and bipartisan compromise.

Less than three months after retiring from a 30-year law enforcement career, Kim Colegrove's husband chose suicide. Since that day, Colegrove has been helping first responders across the country practice techniques to cope with the stress and trauma that their work brings. And this book continues that mission by offering first responders and their families hope by introducing meditation and mindfulness as viable and practical tools to help reduce stress, regulate emotion, and improve overall health and well-being.

Told for the first time, here is the story of a stray dog who eventually became affectionately known as Sergeant Stubby, the most famous war dog of World War I. Beloved award-winning children's author Ann Bausum brings her friendly writing style and in-depth research to her first book for adults. Stubby's story begins in 1917 when America is about to enter the war. A stray dog befriends Private J. Robert "Bob" Conroy at the Connecticut National Guard camp at Yale University, and the two become inseparable, eventually crossing an ocean and going to war together.

Originally published in 1978, A Step Further is Joni Eareckson Tada's response to thousands of letters she received from people puzzled about the "whys" of suffering. Joni answers these questions by taking a personal look at how God has used circumstances, people, and events in her own life and the lives of others.

Walking Toward Peace shares the intimate stories of veterans who, post-deployment, have wrestled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Through a process called "ecotherapy", spending time in nature to promote healing and mental health, they have found new tools to deal with issues that have resulted from combat experiences: survivor's guilt, nightmares, lack of trust, depression, hypervigilance, thoughts of suicide, and lack of purpose.

For Brenda Spahn, entrepreneur and businesswoman, wealth was a lifestyle - until a brush with the law threatened to send her to prison. In those dark moments, Brenda made a promise to God.

Spared incarceration, a renewed Brenda glimpsed into the lives of women serving time in one of the worst places in America - the JuliaTutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama. What she saw prompted a God-inspired vision. With a heart to help and a will that couldn't be crushed, Brenda fought the system and overcame tremendous obstacles to take ex-cons into her home.

"If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd sound like an American." "English accents are the sexiest." "Americans have ruined the English language." "Technology means everyone will have to speak the same English." Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English.

When her once-glamorous and witty novelist-mother got Alzheimer's, Eleanor Cooney moved her from her beloved Connecticut home to California in order to care for her. In tense, searing prose, punctuated with the blackest of humor, Cooney documents the slow erosion of her mother's mind, the powerful bond the two shared, and her own descent into drink and despair.

Discover how each figure of the nativity can lead your family closer to Christ this Christmas season. Learn the tradition of the tinkling bell, whip up a batch of French cocoa, create a tender mercy tree, and find ways to make your gift giving more meaningful as Celebrating a Christ-Centered Christmas guides you through seven meaningful traditions inspired by the nativity setting.

Many Christian women are torn between how the church has taught traditional gender roles and the liberty they see secular society afford to women. But what if the church's conventional teachings on the place of women aren't really biblical at all? On Purpose is a serious study on the verses in the Bible that have often been interpreted to define the role of women in the church, at home, and in the workplace. Julie Coleman reveals how the timeless principles in the Bible actually teach freedom for women. In fact, when rightly understood, these verses are a wake-up call.

Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity explores what it means to live in “Sabbath simplicity” by focusing on six aspects of Sabbath as spiritual practice: resting, reconnecting, revising, pausing, playing, and praying. Readers learn to slow down and find joy and meaning in the midst of their hectic lives.

The Rule of St. Benedict arose from an era when a great civilization was threatened by violence, economic forces that favored the wealthy, political leaders that lacked the trust of the public, and rampant xenophobia. In How to Live, Judith Valente explores the key elements of the rule and clearly demonstrates how incorporating this ancient wisdom can change the quality and texture of our lives offering a way forward from the divisions gripping our country.

Harris County, Georgia, 1912. A White man, the beloved nephew of the county sheriff, is shot dead on the porch of a Black woman. Days later, the sheriff sanctions the lynching of a Black woman and three Black men, all of them innocent. For Karen Branan, the great-granddaughter of that sheriff, this isn't just history; this is family history.

Ann Meyers Drysdale is one of the greatest stars in the history of basketball. But her rise wasn't without controversy. Her 1979 NBA bid to play with the Indiana Pacers brought a barrage of criticism. But Ann simply wanted to play among the best. She had always competed with the guys. A female first in many categories, Ann Meyers Drysdale was the first woman ever signed to a four-year athletic scholarship to UCLA, where she remains the only four-time Bruin basketball All American, male or female.

"Halie" Jackson grew up in poverty on the levees of New Orleans, hunting for alligators for food along the Mississippi River with her brother, Peter. But every Sunday young Mahalia sang proudly in the church choir, the youngest member at age five. She left school after eighth grade and worked as a maid to help support her family. However, her passion for singing her special brand of music known as "gospel" never waned.

In 1932, the city of Natchez, Mississippi, reckoned with an unexpected influx of journalists and tourists as the lurid story of a local murder was splashed across headlines nationwide. Two eccentrics, Richard Dana and Octavia Dockery, enlisted an African American man named George Pearls to rob their reclusive neighbor, Jennie Merrill, at her estate. During the attempted robbery, Merrill was shot and killed.

In Idaho, the land is good but life is hard for a German emigre whose dreams have turned to dust. Love found and lost can shatter a man's faith. But it is about to strengthen that of the woman to whom he turns - and in the drought of summer, a withered promise springs to life. Promised to Me is book four in the Coming to America series about women who come to America to start new lives. Set in the late 1800s and early 1900s, these novels craft intense chemistry and conflict....

Dear Inga, I’m thinking it is not good for my baby and me to stay much longer in Whistle Creek, Idaho. The sheriff is showing altogether too much interest. I suppose I should feel flattered, for Carson Barclay is not only strikingly handsome, but a man of character and faith who has shown Keary and me considerable kindness. But I’m afraid his affections are ones I cannot return. The secret I bear makes a future with him impossible. Yet Inga, when Sheriff Barclay is near, it’s everything in my Irish heart that wishes otherwise.