Audiobooks Narrated by Amanda Held Opelt

Holy Unhappiness: God, Goodness, and the Myth of the Blessed Life

Discover what it means to be blessed and challenge the false beliefs many in the church hold about "the good life" and what it means to walk in communion with God. American Christians have developed a long list of expectations about what the life with God will feel like.  Many Christians rightly deny the prosperity gospel-the idea that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy- but instead embrace its more subtle spin-off, the emotional prosperity gospel, or the belief that happiness and spiritual euphoria will inevitably follow if you believe all the right things and make all the right choices. In this view, frustration is deemed unholy, fear is seen as a failure of faith, and sadness is a sign of God's disfavor.  In Holy Unhappiness, Amanda Held Opelt, author of A Hole in the World, grapples with her own experience of disillusionment when life with God didn't always feel the way she expected it to feel.  She examines some of the historic, religious, and cultural influences that led to the idolization of positive feelings and the marginalization of negative feelings.  Unpacking nine elements of life that have been tainted by the message of the emotional Prosperity Gospel - including work, marriage, parenting, calling, community, and church - she points to a new path forward, one that reimagines what the "blessed" life can be like if we release some of our expectations and seek God in places we never thought to look. This is a book that asks "what good is God?" when he doesn't always make sorrow go away or soothe every fear.  It is a book that explores our aversion to sadness and counts the costs of our unrelenting commitment to optimism. This is a book that insists there is holiness to be found even in our unhappiness.  

Amanda Held Opelt (Author), Amanda Held Opelt (Narrator)

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A Hole in the World: Finding Hope in Rituals of Grief and Healing

In a raw and inspiring reflection on grief, a mourning sister processes her personal story of loss by exploring the history of bereavement customs. When Amanda Held Opelt suffered a season of loss-including three miscarriages and the death of her grandmother and culminating in the unexpected death of her sister, New York Times bestselling writer Rachel Held Evans-she was confronted with sorrow she didn't know to how face. And through her career as an international aid worker, she traveled to some of the world's most troubled regions, devastated by war, natural disasters, and disease. In the wake of these losses and exposure to trauma, Opelt struggled to process her grief and accept the reality of her pain and the pain in the world. She also wrestled with some unexpectedly difficult questions: What does it mean to truly grieve and to grieve well? Why is it so hard to move on? Why didn't my faith prepare me for this kind of pain? Does the Bible really speak to the heart of sorrow? What am I supposed to do now? Her search for a way to process her grief led her to seek wisdom about how other people have made it through, and she found that generations past embraced rituals that served as vessels for pain and aided in the process of grieving and healing. Today, many of these traditions have been lost as religious practice declines, cultures amalgamate, death is sanitized, and pain is averted. In this raw and authentic memoir of bereavement, Opelt explores the history of human grief practices and how previous generations have journeyed through periods of suffering. She explores grief rituals and customs from various cultures, including: - • the Irish tradition of keening, or wailing in grief, which teaches her that healing can only begin when we dive headfirst into our grief - • the Victorian tradition of post-mortem photographs and how we struggle to recall a loved one as they were - • the Jewish tradition of sitting shiva, which reminds her to rest in the strength of her community even when God feels absent - • the tradition of mourning clothing, which set the bereaved apart in society for a time, allowing them space to honor their grief As Opelt explores each bereavement practice, it allows her to utilize these rituals as a framework for processing her own pain. She shares how, in spite of her doubt and anger, God met her in the midst of sorrow and grieved along with her. This book is a testament to the idea that when we carefully and honestly attend to our losses, we are able to expand our capacity for love, faith, and healing.

Amanda Held Opelt (Author), Amanda Held Opelt (Narrator)

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Wholehearted Faith

Discover the new collection of original writings by Rachel Held Evans, whose reflections on faith and life continue to encourage, challenge, and influence, lovingly performed by Daniel Jonce Evans, Jeff Chu, Jamie Wright, Sarah Bessey, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Kristen Howerton, Kaitlin Curtice, Amanda Held Opelt, Rev. Neichelle R. Guidry, Ph.D., Candice Marie Benbow, Kathy Khang, the Rev. Wil Gafney, Ph.D., and Amena Brown.   Rachel Held Evans is widely recognized for her theologically astute, profoundly honest, and beautifully personal books, which have guided, instructed, edified, and shaped Christians as they seek to live out a just and loving faith. At the time of her tragic death in 2019, Rachel was working on a new book about wholeheartedness. With the help of her close friend and author Jeff Chu, that work-in-progress has been woven together with some of her other unpublished writings into a rich collection of essays that ask candid questions about the stories we’ve been told—and the stories we tell—about our faith, our selves, and our world. This book is for the doubter and the dreamer, the seeker and the sojourner, those who long for a sense of spiritual wholeness as well as those who have been hurt by the Church but can’t seem to let go of the story of Jesus. Through theological reflection and personal recollection, Rachel wrestles with God’s grace and love, looks unsparingly at what the Church is and does, and explores universal human questions about becoming and belonging. An unforgettable, moving, and intimate book.

Jeff Chu, Rachel Held Evans (Author), Amanda Held Opelt, Amena Brown, Candice Marie Benbow, Daniel Jonce Evans, Jamie Wright, Jeff Chu, Kaitlin Curtice, Kathy Khang, Kristen Howerton, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Neichelle R. Guidry, Sarah Bessey, Wil Gafney (Narrator)

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