An entertaining collection of inspirational, gritty, challenging writing that follows an unwilling atheist's first encounters with God, her ensuing struggles and progress as a reluctant believer, and her ultimate discovery of contentment and rest in faith.

Confessions of an Amateur Believer

Kirk, Patty

Religion & Spirituality

Thomas Nelson Publishing

A captivating memoir from a cook who's traveled across the globe cooking, tasting, and enjoying good food.
Patty Kirk has always loved food: eating it, cooking it, sharing it, talking about it. At six, she scrambled the last of the family's vacation provisions over the camp fire and concocted a delicacy-eggs with bacon and onions. Overnight she became the family cook and discovered a lifelong passion for cooking that accompanied her through decades of roaming and finally to the farm in Oklahoma where she now lives. Starting from Scratch narrates Kirk's wanderings in the U.S. and abroad from a culinary perspective, sounding the spiritual, political, and emotional depths of Brillat-Savarin's famous observation, "Tell me what you eat; I'll tell you who you are." In this candid and engaging food memoir---complete with recipes!---good food beckons from the past as well as the future: surrounding us, eluding us, drawing us, defining us.

Starting from Scratch: Memoirs of a Wandering Cook

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Thomas Nelson. Inc.

A thoughtful, courageous exploration, in the tradition of Kathleen Norris's Amazing Grace, of how to actively seek God and find evidence of God's presence from a believer who experienced a decade of unbelief. In her Confessions of an Amateur Believer, Patty Kirk gave readers an honest account of what it means to embark on a real relationship with God in today's world. Now, in A Field Guide to God: A Seeker's Manual, she turns her engaging prose on a more practical matter how to discover God's presence in a world where we can't see, touch, or hear him. Courageously expressing her struggles with faith and doubt, Patty Kirk shows how to reencounter God in both conventional and unexpected ways. From new ways of reading the Bible and experiencing prayer to remembering how we've experienced God in our past and remaining open to indirect messages in everyday life, she helps readers bring more meaning and hope to the faith journey. In addition, each chapter concludes with simple, creative exercises that help you reach out to God. She encourages readers to step out of longing and passive seeking to take action and creatively pursue a God who is always there.

A Field Guide to God: A Seeker's Manual

Guideposts Kids

A child yearns as at no other time in the days leading up to Christmas. That yearning doesn't entirely go away as we grow older. It still lingers in the backs of our minds. We imagine that Christmas is mainly for children and our adult lives don't stop in the way that children's lives stop on Christmas morning, so we don't give ourselves time to notice the yearning. But it's there--hope mingled with anxiety about what lies ahead. In The Gospel of Christmas, Patty Kirk helps us get in touch with our muted hopes and fears and reminds us that they are met and given their resolution in the coming of Christ, which Christmas celebrates and Advent anticipates, and all our lives prepare us for.

The Gospel of Christmas: Reflections for Advent

"The trait that best typifies the students who break down in my office is their great unhappiness. They are believers. Of this I am sure. Certainly they are more diligent believers than I am, to judge from all the good things they are constantly doing. But they are miserable, every one of them. And, though they usually manage to get back on track . . . I know that, in their spiritual work lives, they have not changed much either. And it breaks my heart." Patty Kirk knows what it's like to try to impress God. It's like beating the air and bruising your soul. In The Easy Burden of Pleasing God she reminds us, through stories and reflections and careful meditation on the Scriptures, that despite what we may have heard or told ourselves, the yoke we take on as we follow Jesus is easy, and the burden of a loving God is light. To all of us who pursue perfection in vain and ache with the defeat that follows, The Easy Burden of Pleasing God will be truly good news.

The Easy Burden of Pleasing God

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kirk, Patty. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kirk, Patty

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kirk, Patty. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Confessions of an Amateur Believer

Starting from Scratch: Memoirs of a Wandering Cook

A Field Guide to God: A Seeker's Manual

The Gospel of Christmas: Reflections for Advent

The Easy Burden of Pleasing God

The Gospel of Christmas: Reflections for Advent