In The Girl on the Bathroom Floor (Oct. 14, 2025, W Publishing/Thomas Nelson), Amber Smith—wife of former country music star Granger Smith—opens her heart with unflinching honesty about unimaginable loss, raw grief, and unexpected hope. After the tragic death of their 3-year-old son, River, and a painful miscarriage, Amber wrestled with guilt, shame, and questions of faith while under the scrutiny of the public eye.
When we think of the first Christmas, we often focus on the wide-eyed young mother and her faithful fiancé, on tattered shepherds and singing angels and road-weary wise men. But the Holy Spirit was there--and just as He hovered over the waters in the beginning, He hovers over every page of the Christmas story. This Advent, join acclaimed author Cynthia Ruchti for a faith-building, eye-opening walk with the Holy Spirit.
The Ditmars' life was forever changed when their middle child, ten-year-old Chris, was diagnosed with leukemia. For four years, the family rode the roller coaster of remission and relapse, and juggling life with their two other children, marital strain, and financial loss. During that time, Maribeth began to rely more and more upon alcohol as she and Rob prayed daily for Chris to survive. Their faith was rocked when they were told to take Chris home to die.
We often end up living an “unexpected” life. Yet through it, glimmers of hope, faith, love and peace find their way through.
After being married for forty years and serving the Catholic Church as a deacon for the last five years, leaving the diaconate was the last thing on my mind.
Never did I expect to be a suicide survivor. Grieving the loss of my wife was difficult enough, but with suicide, the grieving was much more intense. Being a deacon in the Catholic Church intensified that grieving even more.
As much as Christians or believers of God would like to believe that, just because we acknowledge God in our lives, we should never have any sorrow. That is untrue. Just believing this makes us commit sin because then we are not humble, but haughty. We will all have challenges, disappointments, and unfair situations arise in our lives, but as believers of God, we are to handle ourselves so that unbelievers will want to become like us. We are to TRUST, HAVE FAITH, and BELIEVE that GOD has our back and will keep us lifted above, fight our battles, and always cause us to Triumph!
This book was a long time coming. God had to take me through a lifetime of learning to prepare me for writing this book. There are three areas that He impressed upon me to write about.
The first was to write about the life lessons that He has taught me. Things like how to be a better, more loving husband, how to take control of my life by planning for and accomplishing things, and how to use the gifts He has given me.
Book of Proverbs – Wisdom vs. Wilderness delves into the necessity of obtaining wisdom. The primary purpose of the Book of Proverbs is to teach wisdom to everyone. The Book of Proverbs provides intellectual depth and insights and exceptional wisdom on how to live a fortunate and tranquil life, by honoring and respecting God as omnipotent. God wants us to live a life like Christ and to do that we need to aspire to have wisdom. King Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived. God gifted him with unsurpassed wisdom.
