Did you know that your spiritual challenges are part of your story that need to be shared? THE SOULMAKING ROOM Dee Dee Risher
AVAILABLE APRIL 2016 For many people, the middle years of life bring failure, uncertainty, and losses. Dee Dee Risher probes how struggles, losses, failures, and pain can actually result in a spiritually whole, authentic life. In her personal, vulnerable, and sometimes humorous narrative, Risher is honest about money, race, marriage, class, parenting, and spirituality. This powerful, poetic book shows how grappling with universal experiences of human life can make people more resilient, deeper, and truer to their identity. The Soulmaking Room is for anyone who wants to look life right in the eye and come out more whole. PAPERBACK: 978-0-8358-1525-3 • $16.99 eBOOK: 978-0-8358-1526-0 • $9.99 KINDLE: 978-0-8358-1534-5 • $9.99
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WHAT WE NEED IS HERE Practicing the Heart of Christian Spirituality L. Roger Owens In Jesus, we have all we need to grow and flourish. Roger Owens calls us to return to 7 basic spiritual practices that build and sustain our relationship with God. PAPERBACK: 978-0-8358-1510-9 • $13.99 eBOOK: 978-0-8358-1511-6 • $9.99 KINDLE: 978-0-8358-1530-7 • $9.99
AUTHOR’S INSPIRATION I wrote this book to try to come home to my true self. It is an exploration of how the mixed experiences of our lives—and perhaps especially the most painful, difficult, and murky parts— allow us to become more authentic. They shape us into who we were intended to be. This book is for people who have lived through stuff. It’s for people who have carried big dreams but lately seem to find themselves mired in the ordinary business of living. … May the storytelling here encourage you to tell your story. There are those in your life who need to hear it—and not just the shining and successful parts but also parts that are dark like earth. These are the parts of your story that really move you toward the light as you unfold your specific, silhouetted shape in the world.
ENDORSEMENTS Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, bell hooks, Richard Rohr, Murphy Davis, Ched Myers, Walter Brueggemann, David Janzen, Elizabeth Killough, and Robert Ellsberg
EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 1 Prophet, Woman, Holy Room The story begins with a yearning. An unnamed woman in the town of Shunem decides to build a room on her home for Elisha, the holy man. (Elisha was the prophet who carries the mantle after Elijah is swept up into a fiery chariot.) That act of hospitality changes her life. Now there came a day when Elisha passed over to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she persuaded him to eat food. And so it was, as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat food. She said to her husband, “Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God passing by us continually. Please, let us make a little walled upper chamber and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; and it shall be, when he comes to us, that he can turn in there.” One day, he came there and turned in to the upper chamber and rested (2 Kings 4:8-11, NASB). Unlike most women in scripture, this woman has some economic power. Just before she makes her appearance, scripture records Elisha’s miracles for a widow so poor that her two sons are about to be enslaved by creditors in payment for her meager debts. But no such threat of economic disaster plagues this prominent woman. She is resourced, and she is persuasive. Bookstore.UpperRoom.org | 800.972.0433 Bookstore.UpperRoom.org | 800.972.0433
She has the ear of her spouse, presumably the real source of her economic power in a society where women have no wealth of their own. She convinces her husband to build an upper room for the prophet. It is a simple space—a small, walled chamber with a bed, table, chair, and lamp, open to him whenever he chooses to come. And he does come. The decision to build this space became an utterly life-changing act. Acts of hospitality—giving or receiving—can alter our lives forever.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK PARTICIPATE: 26 chapters divided into 4 parts use the biblical story of the Shunammite woman and show how her actions shaped authenticity.
PRACTICE: Engage in at least one of these actions for one week: Share a lesson learned with a younger person at work or church. Invite someone to discuss a failure or success that has led them to their current status.
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