"God's goodness is bigger than all human badness," writes best-selling author John Claypool. "God's power and willingness to forgive are greater than our human capacity to sin." The Bible is often held up as a source of family values, but it is also full of families who falter and do so generation after generation. Few families have visited as much evil on each other as Abraham's descendants in Genesis. Using these stories, Claypool explores how God turns the "lead" of evil-like Jacob's theft of Esau's birthright, and Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery in Egypt-into the "gold" of abundant blessing, as alchemists were said to do in the past. God is always more interested in our future, according to Claypool, than in our pasts. In this book, as in his other books, Claypool explores the biblical texts carefully, and with a pastoral eye for the characters from Genesis and his contemporary readers. This book offers challenge and comfort to people who feel that their sins may be beyond God's concern and their lives beyond redemption.

In this revised second edition of Stories Jesus Still Tells, John Claypool brings fresh insight to a selection of parables, allowing us to hear Jesus' calm, persuasive voice still speaking to us through stories like the great banquet, the rich fool, and the final judgment. By providing us with a clearer understanding of the context of these stories in Jesus' immediate culture, Claypool demonstrates how accessible the parables were to his listeners, told in familiar terms that everyone who heard them could grasp. He writes: "This is how Jesus worked the miracle of reconciliation again and again. People would come to him in all degrees of panic, fear, and anger. Yet, instead of confronting them head-on and driving them deeper into their defensiveness, he would, like Nathan, defuse their anxiety by saying, 'Let me tell you a story. . . .' Then, drawn in by the narrative and with their defenses down, the listeners would see the story as a mirror, and its light would make their personal darkness visible. In this way, parables became events of revelation." And so it is with us, Claypool believes. When we open the deep places in our being to the parables-these stories Jesus still tells-then in a moment of surprise and insight, we who listen recognize ourselves in the characters and the decisions they face. The stories are no longer about them, but about us, and the opportunity for illumination and transformation in our own lives.

Learn how to embrace the painful gift of grief and use it for transformation and healing as you journey through the wilderness to a promised life The Unwanted Gift of Grief is a passionate, practical guide through the grieving process for those who have suffered lossand those who suffer with them. Rather than talking people out of their grief and pain as a way to make them feel better, this unique book invites them into the grief and pain as a way to healing, transformation and hope. Using real and in-depth ministry and counseling conversations, it identifies the journey through the wilderness of grief. This powerful book is equally valuable as a gift from a minister to a grieving person, as a professional guide for ministers and counselors, and as a training tool for lay ministers and congregation members. Built on the ministry concept of sojourning, The Unwanted Gift of Grief offers guidelines to be used in helping people in their journey through the adjustment period that follows a loss, a time that may include the darkness of disbelief, frustration, anger, sadness, depression, and healing light as they make their way through the wilderness of grief. Topics examined in The Unwanted Gift of Grief include: grief as gratitude and gift how family and culture can affect grieving different pathways through grief everyone grieves differently sudden loss, slow losing, rejection and suicide identifying the agony and characteristics of depression grief factors that affect marriage and sexuality saying Yes to death factors of faith, science and miracles the labor and contractions of dying and death the hope for healing and cure how to help: the Sojourner's Process Guide the Grief Date: A Guide for Couples fifty ways to make it through the wilderness and much more The Unwanted Gift of Grief is an essential resource for anyone lost in the wilderness of loss and grief, and for professionals, lay ministers, family, and friends who care for them.

In three meditations John Claypool speaks eloquently of the wounds all of us carry through life the wounds of grievance, guilt, and grief and how they can be healed. The wound of grievance comes from our suffering at the hands of others, we are pierced by guilt when we inflict pain in return, and we suffer grief when we are hurt by loss. By anecdote and personal example, Claypool helps us see that all these wounds can eventually be healed through the gifts of insight, forgiveness, and gratitude. With the help of scripture and Claypool s own pastoral wisdom, Mending the Heart is a powerful tool for reflection. Each meditation begins with verses from the psalms and ends with a prayer. This book is a wise resource for pastors and caregivers, especially in times of crisis and bereavement, but its simplicity and insight also make it a good guide to prayer and discernment as well as a fine gift book. Mending the Heart is the fourth in our series of Cloister Books: smaller format, gift edition books designed for meditative and devotional reading.