Nuggets of faith can be passed down as family heirlooms from parent to child, sibling to sibling, spouse to spouse. Book One Family Heirloom: Accepting God’s will A Proverbs 31 wife wonders, does “submissive” mean giving up having anything of her own? Thirty-seven-year-old Tamara Wolfe married her childhood sweetheart, Robert, right out of high school and proceeded to have a passel of children who fill her life to capacity. With the last of her children in preschool, Tamara decides to make a business out of her long-time love of creating designer gift baskets. She doesn’t expect Robert to be against it from her first word. Robert has always prided himself on giving Tamara the option of staying home to raise the children, just as his father did before him. Since birth, it’s been drilled into him that a man who doesn’t provide for his family is the worst kind of loser. What will happen if her business takes off? She won’t have time to take care of the family. Worse, maybe she won’t need him anymore. Although they’d agreed years before their family was complete, Robert considers that perhaps the cure for Tamara’s restlessness is another baby. Tamara prays for wisdom. All she wants is a small space of time for herself. Is she being selfish? Or is God leading her to continue being an outdated model of the Proverbs 31 wife—submissive, but never equal?

Joined before God and family out of a sense of responsibility? Or love? As a teenager, Justine Morris' escape from the pressures of caring for her dying father was stolen moments with Joshua Samuels. But their tender, desperate liaison found them facing teen pregnancy. Afraid of their Christian families' responses to the situation, they married quickly and built a life for their child. But now that their daughter is ready to fly the nest, Justine can no longer ignore the truth: She and Joshua haven't had a real marriage for a long time. Maybe they never had one at all. Joshua is only too aware that his busy, professional attorney wife is an independent woman who never really needed him. After nearly two decades of marriage, he's quit trying to get more than a piece of her at a time. Without their daughter holding them together, he knows the chasm between them will grow to epic proportions. Their empty nest looming, they face the hard questions. Had they married in love...or out of a hasty sense of responsibility? Was it God's will for them to be together? And now, is it worth the effort to learn to become one as the Lord intends for a man and a woman...or better to simply let go?

Peter Samuels had lost his beloved wife to a tumor just one year earlier. His grief continues to overwhelm him, especially now that he's the sole caretaker of their children and he's alone once more in the world. Kimberly Wolfe has always loved her boss Peter, but she's loved him from afar. For years, she'd endured his wife's misguided attempts to fix her up. She'd envied Peter and Lydia's love for one another, and, most recently, she'd consoled him in his grief over the loss of his wife and her close friend. But, for as long as she can remember, her domineering father has used the Bible to justify his God-given place as head of the household, destroying Kimberly's mother and her own ability to trust men. An innocent kiss on New Year's leads to a growing awareness between Peter and Kimberly. Can he ever see her as more than an employee and a shoulder to lean on? Can he accept her as a Christian woman who's nowhere near content to live out her life without the love of a man and a family of her own?

Dr. Marcus Samuels is a medical missionary in Japan, and his life has been God's work despite a severe anxiety disorder. After 12 years, he aches to start his own family life back in the States. Spurred into motion by his mother's sudden illness, he's caught off-guard when he realizes just how much he'll miss Keiko Oichi, a fellow pediatrician at the Children's Christian Mission Hospital. Keiko grew up in the United States as a foreign exchange student. Her conversion to Christ, as well as getting to know Marcus, have radically altered her emotionally-detached acceptance of her traditional Japanese future. When Marcus says he's leaving Japan for good, she feels lost at the prospect of losing him. When Keiko's parents learn of her conversion and feelings for a Christian man, the couple faces a crossroads in love and faith that will change both of their lives irrevocably.