Books
One of America’s most heralded young divers, David Boudia twice went for Olympic gold, training obsessively and whole-heartedly for success. In his first Olympics, he failed miserably, not winning a single medal. Four years later saw a different story: he mounted the podium twice, winning both gold and bronze. The difference? In the intervening years, he’d changed the focus of his quest from seeking glory for himself to giving glory to God. In Greater Than Gold, Boudia provides a behind-the-scenes access to the rarefied world of world-class athletics while also showing readers that when they place their hope in God, they receive what they’ve been seeking all along.
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Pujols: More Than the Game, by Scott Lamb and Tim Ellsworth (2011)
After a decade starring for the St. Louis Cardinals, Albert Pujols is already compared with names in the highest reaches of baseball’s pantheon: Ruth, Gehrig, Aaron, Mays. Slugging his way toward the Hall of Fame, Pujols has raised the game’s standard for greatness beyond any statistical measure. But the standard by which Pujols measures himself has less to do with baseball performance than with honoring God and exemplifying his faith for the millions who follow him.
From his birthplace in the Dominican Republic to his high-school days in Kansas City, from a single season in the minor leagues to the World Series and nine All-Star Games, Pujols has developed his immense talents on the baseball diamond, all the while focusing his direction—and the direction of his family—with the belief that a higher power is behind every achievement.
Authors Scott Lamb and Tim Ellsworth spare no tale of this growing baseball legend, all the while accentuating “the unseen hand of divine providence” that has shaped the man Albert Pujols has become. It’s a story that will inspire, and a reminder of the human quality behind superhuman achievement. A story—still in the making—of allowing God’s strength to guide one man’s path to be the best his game has ever seen.
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God in the Whirlwind: Stories of Grace from the Tornado at Union University (2008)
When a powerful EF-4 tornado with winds in excess of 200 miles per hour slammed the Union University campus on February 5, 2008, destroying eighteen dormitory buildings and causing $40 million in damage, the immediate assumption was that dozens if not hundreds of lives would have been lost. Miraculously, nobody died, and the next morning major media outlets flocked to Jackson, Tennessee, where Union students and faculty credited God for their survival and got to share their faith with millions worldwide.
God in the Whirlwind recounts the entire experience through twenty eye-of-the-storm accounts from those who saw the walls and ceilings crashing down upon them and felt their ears pop as the pressure dropped, from anxious parents who waited for their child’s call, and from Union leaders who marvel at the university’s unbroken spirit in the face of such devastation. This inspiring book also includes eighty photographs that visualize God’s mighty hand upon nature and his gentle hand of grace.