Behold is an old-fashioned word we rarely hear these days. It's not in most modern translations of the Bible. Yet Pamela Hawkins says this word softens the edges of her heart. "I cannot say this word without moving, without extending and lifting a hand, palm open, toward the object of my attention," she remarks. Enter Advent this year with an attitude of curious expectancy and trustful anticipation. Linger for a while and pay close attention to the meaning of the season as you focus on a si...

Journey through this Advent season with a purposeful focus on the Christ child. Meeting the Messiah encourages you to slow down and pay attention to the real meaning of Christmas. Six weeks of short readings and guided reflection will enrich your celebration of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. You will be filled with joy and thanksgiving as you think about scripture passages from the perspectives of the Holy Spirit, John the Baptist, Mary, the shepherds, the magi, and Jesus himself. This year...

What if it really wasn't that hard to find more peace, more quiet, more room in your heart for the Christ child to be born? Hawkins will guide you—calmly and simply—through the busy season of Advent, and you'll come out of the four weeks more centered, rested, and spiritually renewed. "The idea for this book arose from my own experience of contemplative prayer, prayer that finds its home, not in busy doing or speaking, but in becoming, in being," writes Ha...

A high unemployment rate, tensions and wars around the world, soaring gas prices, job stress…Are today's anxieties shrinking your Christmas spirit, your sense of joy, your purpose, your song? This Advent, expect the unexpected. Reconnect with the Christmas story, the arrival of Christ's biblical message of hope and healing for this world. Expecting the Unexpected is a spiritual feast for the mind and imagination. Use it each day of the four-week Advent season. Open it and find: vivid da...

Sometimes we struggle to believe we'll experience anything new as Advent comes around. What could we possibly learn that we haven't seen or heard before? If you're looking for an Advent study of a different slant, While We Wait: Living the Questions of Advent offers new ways of connecting the story with your own questions of faith and approaches an all-too-familiar narrative from perspectives we may have missed. You'll read about biblical figures mentioned in passing in the "original" Advent....