Fear strangles even the faithful sometimes. Despite every attempt to be brave, fear has defined Olivia Stanford's life: with each new foster home, when her adopted parents died leaving her all alone again, trusting and marrying her husband, Frank, and coping with his football injuries and career loss. Without faith, fear only grows in the face of adversity. When Frank becomes abusive, Olivia enters a terror-filled life in her upscale Southern California home. Common sense demands she dig deep for the courage to confront him—to demand change. Fear and confusion push back. And just as courage finally blooms within her comes the terrifying diagnosis: breast cancer. Some say courage is found at the intersection of faith and grit. How will Olivia manage to summon either in the midst of this new battle?

Life crushes us with its weight sometimes. Fiona’s father abandoned her when she was twelve. So when she learns that he’s the groom’s father in the wedding she’s been assigned to manage, all the old hurts resurface. Maybe if he’d just explain himself and ask forgiveness, she’d get over the pain he left her with—pain she obviously hadn’t left behind after all. When Nason discovered he wasn’t Fiona’s biological father, and when her mother tried to sabotage his marriage, he felt like he had no other option but to leave and never look back. Running into her again—awkward to say the least. And he can’t understand why she feels betrayed—why she expects him to seek forgiveness. As if life weren’t complicated enough, Fiona meets Trevor, which sparks a possible romance. New faith, an overdose, and revelations combine with Trevor’s discipleship and shows her how forgiveness really works. What will it take for Nason to swallow his pride and see how his actions hurt an innocent child? The Fragrance of Violets—as Mark Twain once said, “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

Courage has many faces—whether it’s dealing with a terminal diagnosis, trying to find enough money in the budget to pay the bills, or just dealing with that unlovable neighbor who thinks differently from you. We all need courage regardless of the size of our problems. In this Faces of Courage flash fiction devotional, author Susan K. Beatty shares stories of characters who need courage in everyday life situations—situations that may look like what you or someone you know is going through. Each flash fiction devotion takes you on a journey from the brink of problems, to digging deep into Scripture to bolster your faith, to summoning all the grit you can muster until you reach that perfect intersection called courage. Twelve of the entries were originally published in Susan’s Faces of Courage newsletter and compiled for this edition, but, as they say, wait, that’s not all. There’s more! BONUS CONTENT includes the addition of a prayer to each entry and four new devotionals written specifically for this edition. Helping you find courage at the intersection of faith and grit.