New books by Canadian Authors

Going Big: Lessons on Success in Business, Life and Faith

By Richard Magnussen

Publisher: Colleen McCubbin

From a furniture factory in a chicken coop to business deals in China, from humble beginnings in Ontario to headquarters in North Carolina and warehouses in Vietnam and California, this a Canadian good-news story about a family-owned business built on a foundation of faith will inspire and entertain you, encourage and challenge you.

About the author: Richard Magnussen, retired CEO of Magnussen Home, joined the family-owned company in 1970. He built one of the most aggressive global residential furniture companies, selling to more than 20 countries and finding homes for more than 150,000 pieces of furniture a month. Richard’s focus on growth and expansion has driven Magnussen Home to become Canada’s largest supplier, with headquarters in North Carolina, a corporate office in Ontario, and key distribution centres in California and HCMC Vietnam. Richard was the first Canadian chairman of the American Home Furnishings Association (AHFA) and chairman of the board for Life Action Ministries USA. Richard resides in Waterloo, Ontario, and winters in Naples, Florida, with Marilyn, his best friend and wife of 53 years. He is proud of his three children and their spouses and is a champion of his ten energetic grandchildren.

What’s My Point?: Solving My Life Points Puzzle

By Dr. Richard J. Goosen

Ask yourself, “What’s my point?” If you can’t answer that question in 50 words or less, you’re probably living your life below its potential. This book provides a framework in which to ponder your own lived experience and how to make sense of it. It’s a tool to help you discover your meaning. Do you think of your skills, gifts and experiences as disconnected, nothing more than a disjointed tangle of life-long happenstances? That’s not true. In fact, there’s a cord that runs through everything you’ve done and experienced, a continuity that’s shaped the unique purpose of your life. It’s something only you—and you alone—can pursue and achieve. If you’re wrestling with the big questions, whatever your age or stage of life, this book will give you the means of getting answers through guided self-reflection. The Life Points Puzzle provides you with a clear approach that you can apply to your life, to help you realize true fulfillment and meaning.

About the author: Dr. Richard (Rick) J. Goossen is a meaning-driven entrepreneurial leader who serves an extensive network of entrepreneurs and family/business owners built over decades of client contributions, collaboration, research, public speaking, and volunteering, impacting approximately 100,000 leaders annually. Rick is Chairman of the ELO Group, which has grown since 2005 to provide comprehensive resources for meaning-driven entrepreneurial leaders: family business / strategic planning consulting; Forums (i.e., conferences), peer advisory group network & a week-long leadership program at the University of Oxford. Rick is a sought-after strategic counsel and chair/advisory board member working with a range of clients in terms of size (from small specialized consultancies to billion dollar enterprises) and industry (manufacturing, retail, hi tech, etc.). 

Navigating Through Your Trauma – Processing Emotional Wounding the Genesis Way  

by Dr Anna Dos Santos 

WestBow Press

Trauma is knitted into the fabric of our human existence and Christians are not exempt from it. This book is meant for Bible-believing people who have experienced trauma and want to understand more about the chaos it leaves in its wake. More than that, they also want to address their emotional pain in a biblically sound and responsible way. 

The book is also for counsellors and pastors who must help believers who have suffered trauma. 

Research has shown that reflective artmaking is one of the most effective ways to process trauma. 

In the last chapters of the book, readers will get the opportunity to process their trauma wounding with creative artmaking reflections, derived from principles taken from the story of Creation. The same story God told Job after he suffered severe loss and trauma.

About the author: Dr Anna Dos Santos is a clinical supervisor, counsellor and also an art therapist who specialises in trauma work. She has been in practice for more than twenty years and knows that authentic caring, professional and holistic clinical interventions to walk alongside people when they are hurting, is paramount if they want to grow beyond seasons of pain and confusion towards clarity and destiny. Anna facilitates online group art therapy support for people who benefit from creative artmaking and need more support that individual counselling alone.
Who are my clients? People who desire a life filled with wonderment, beauty and purpose where your relationships are healthy and strong. Sometimes this might feel out of your reach. But it might not be. Finding a therapist to walk alongside you when you are ready to explore and connect the dots to embrace life and relationships with hope and creativity again, requires commitment, self-compassion, work, and yes, a sense of humor added to the mix. You can expect this treatment when we work together during our therapeutic conversations. You can expect to engage with work that will require self-compassion, self-reflection, and a willingness to learn new life skills.

Eschatology: A Biblical View

By Michael Scantlebury

Word Alive

Imagine you are a time traveler who has traveled back to the 1800s. You meet Abraham Lincoln and reveal to him that you have arrived from the 21st century. He might ask you how people send messages in the 21st century; you could try to explain how the email system works. How would you describe it? You’re trying to communicate how “fast” an email really is delivered; but you’re trying to do it in a way that wouldn’t totally blow his mind. Would you use imagery with which he’s familiar? Perhaps you would tell him it’s like a postman riding his horse at 500 miles per hour, or you might liken it to delivering a message by train from New York to LA in less than one day.

That’s the conundrum we face when trying to understand difficult verses in the Bible, especially on themes like eschatology. The prophetic writers of Scripture were limited to conveying God’s mysteries in language their readers would understand. Two to three thousand years later as we read these prophetic Scriptures through a 21st century lens, it is possible to come up with strange, speculative interpretations. This especially happens when we don’t understand what those Scriptures would have meant to a first century Believer, or to a Jew living in the time of the Old Testament Prophets.

About the Author: Michael Scantlebury is the Founder and Senior Elder of Dominion-Life International Ministries, as well as Apostle and Founder Emeritus of the Kingdom-impact International Network. He travels and ministers a strong Kingdom message out of a burning desire to see the Church come to full maturity for greater function on Earth. He lives with his wife, Sandra, and their three adult children in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is the author of over twenty-four books.

Every Day with You Lord, Prayer Journal: The Faithfulness of God Revealed

By Kelly Simmons

Word Alive

Do you desire a deeper relationship with God? Every Day with You Lord, Prayer Journal will lead you on a very special journey that will forever settle in your heart God’s faithfulness toward you.

• Strengthen your prayer life.
• Enhance your daily quiet time with the Lord.
• Be reminded of and encouraged by God’s goodness towards you.

At the end of your journaling journey, you will have your very own ready reference of answered prayer and God’s personal words to you, all in one convenient, easily accessible place. You will have tasted and seen that the Lord is good and experienced the faithfulness of God revealed!

About the Author: Author and speaker Kelly Simmons heart is to see women of all walks of life healed of past hurts and inner wounds and be strengthened to fulfill their God-given destiny. She speaks on these and other topics at women’s conferences, workshops, and weekend retreats. In her first book, The Day of Deliverance, she gives a Biblically based approach for married women to effectively address common marital difficulties and come through on the other side with victory. And soon to be released, Hope Arise, 30 Day Devotional with daily inspirations from God’s Word to help overcome the roadblocks, and setbacks of life, build your faith, overcome discouragement, and be strengthened with new hope to be all God has called you to be. Look for Kelly’s books online and in bookstores near you.

He Walks with Me through the Mists of Time: His Love Inspiring My Heart to Rhyme

By Bob McCluskey

Word Alive

The Poetry of Bob McCluskey, Book Two

Since my beautiful salvation experience at fifty years of age, I commenced the Christian part of my career in the province of my birth, Ontario, Canada, where I enjoyed a five-year stint with 100 Huntley Street as head of the Security Counselling Department and where I was also blessed to attend and sit on the board of an Elim Fellowship Church, Faith Temple in downtown Toronto. Faith Temple was pastored by an outstanding man of God, Dr. Winston Nunes, who over his long career with The Assemblies of God and with The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and finally with Elim Fellowship became very well-known and respected as both an evangelist and as an outstanding Bible teacher. Some of my poetry is based on teachings in his only published book, Driven by The Spirit. Allow me here to share a testimony to God’s faithful guidance and direction when we commit our lives to Him. When God wonderfully rescued me from my lost condition, I was almost fifty years of age and about to lose my marriage of twenty-one years. Thankfully, God restored my marriage, which lasted until my first wife’s death thirty-two years later in 2008. My association with Dr. Nunes followed, and as a church we released him annually on a speaking tour of churches all through western Canada and the United States. On a speaking engagement in 1978 at a Vancouver church called Glad Tidings, a very happily married fifty-three-year-old English mother of six was catapulted to the altar in response to Dr. Nunes invitation for salvation. To sum up, Dr. Nunes, my pastor in Toronto, Ont., was the instrument God used when he preached in Vancouver, B.C., to wonderfully save the woman who, forty years later and widowed, would become my wife, Mrs. Agnes Mary McCluskey. Is God good or what! These dates and times are closely approximate, my age and all that eh!

About the Author: Bob McCluskey was born in Toronto, Ontario and spent his childhood growing up in the depression years. Bob moved to British Columbia with his first wife, Margaret, to be closer to their two married daughters and their families. Margaret and Bob were married for fifty-four years, and she passed away in 2008. Bob met his new bride, Agnes Mary, in 2010 and his poetry has manifested itself since that time!

No One Brings You a Casserole When Your Husband Goes to Rehab

By Leah Grey

Word Alive

Leah Grey was still in her twenties when her life fell apart. She couldn’t decide what was more depressing – the state of her marriage, or the fact that she lived in Jersey City instead of Manhattan.

Until meeting her husband, she’d lived the most cliché life. She’d come from a small town in Canada that smelled like fish or manure, depending on the season. She’d fallen in love with the boy down the road, and she had a dog. Her life had been unbearably predictable—until one snowy New Year’s Eve, a tall, dark, and handsome stranger from New York City walked into her life.

Her debut book, No One Brings You a Casserole When Your Husband Goes to Rehab, is a poignant coming-of-age story about curly-haired boys and the dark side of having your dreams come true. From poofy dresses and a whirlwind romance to considering when it was time to jump into the Hudson River, Leah candidly tells of her personal transformation through her husband’s struggle with addiction. Her story offers hope to every girl who has felt like she needed to run away from her dreams because they didn’t come true.

About the Author: Leah Grey is an award-winning author, blogger, and the founder of Grey Ministries. Her debut book, No One Brings You a Casserole When Your Husband Goes to Rehab, made the Amazon #1 best-seller list in it’s first week of release. Leah’s online courses on boundaries and addiction blogs have reached over 500,000 women since its start in 2015. Leah created an online support group, Habit, that supports partners of people who struggle with addiction by providing faith-based advice, courses on boundaries, and builds sustaining, long-lasting friendships and lifelines through a global family. Leah lives in Port Dover, ON with her three children.