Lucy Come Home - A Yada Yada Journey of Hope

Sometimes the person you most need is the one least like you.

Kathryn Davies is a bright young woman from a prominent Phoenix family. But after making a leap of faith at a Christian music fest, dropping out of med school, and moving to inner city Chicago, her family all but disowns her.

When Kat discovers SouledOut Community Church, she longs to become a part of the multicultural church family. But her tendency to immediately say whatever she’s thinking steps on the toes of nearly everyone she meets—especially Avis Douglass.

Avis has a strong faith, is the principal of one of Chicago’s highest performing elementary schools, and is a founding member of SouledOut. But the country’s economic downturn has thrown both her and her husband’s jobs in question. And Avis hasn’t heard from her youngest daughter in months—an estrangement that gnaws at her every day. Where is God in this?

Kat’s flamboyant zeal for living a “radical” Christian life is a stark contrast to Avis’s more reserved faith. But in God’s timing, the two women discover they need each other in ways neither of them expected.

Kat Davies is suddenly wondering if her good deed was a bad idea.

Kat may be new in her faith, but she’s embraced the more radical implications of Christianity with reckless abandon. She invited Rochelle—a homeless mother—and her son to move in the apartment she shares with two other housemates. And she’s finally found a practical way to channel her passion for healthy eating by starting a food pantry at the church.

Her feelings for Nick are getting harder to ignore. The fact that he’s the interning pastor at SouledOut Community Church and one of her housemates makes it complicated enough. But with Rochelle showing interest in Nick as a father-figure for her son, their apartment is feeling way too small.

But not everyone thinks the food pantry is a good idea. When the woman she thought would be her biggest supporter just wants to “pray about it,” Kat is forced to look deeper at her own motives. Only when she begins to look past the surface does she see people who are hungry and thirsty for more than just food and drink and realizes the deeper significance of inviting them to “come to the table.”

“. . . the plot and characters remain fresh and vibrant, shining spiritual truth from each page.” —Romantic Times TOP PICK for Stand by Me

Sometimes you find hope in the last place you look.

Gabrielle Fairbanks has nearly lost touch with the carefree, spirited young woman she was shen she married her husband sixteen years ago. But when the couple moves to Chicago to accommodate Philip's ambition, Gabby longs for the chance to find real purpose in her own life.

A chance encounter with a homeless woman suddenly opens a dooor she never expected. The women of Manna House Women's Shelter need a Program Director--and she has the right credentials. Gabby's in her element, feeling God's call on her life at last, even though Philip doesn't like the changes he sees in her. But she never anticipated his ultimatum: quit your job at the shelter or risk divorce and losing custody of our sons.

In this moment, Gabby's entire foundation shifts. She must find refuge, as in the song they sing at Sunday worship: "Where do I go when there's no one else to turn to . . . I go to the Rock I know that's able, I go to the Rock."

For everyone who loves the best-selling Yada Yada Prayer Group novels comes a brand new series sprinkled with familiar faces and places from the Yada Yada world. It's the perfect novel to start with--or to meet friends from past Yada stories.

For the Yada Yadas, gettin' caught up in troubles isn't the problem; it's how to get free.

Only weeks ago, we Yadas toughened our prayer knees when one of our own was the victim of a vicious racial attack. Now it seems each household is being thrown into even bigger and badder circumstances. It especially worries me, Jodi Baxter, because I'm a fixer by nature, and the prayer list is getting out of control . . .

Ruth and Ben are caught up in an unplanned pregnancy--in their fifties! Chanda is deluded by the glitter of her lottery dream come true. Florida wants to move her family, hoping to leave trouble behind, but it looks like it may catch up to her anyway. And I'm finding that even good things like prayer group can consume me in no time flat.

If there is an upside, it's that all this trouble is revealing the subtle lies we Yadas believe about God, ourselves, each other, and life. Maybe our best hope is to catch on to what God's doing--and catch on quick!--before the enemy can take any prisoners. That'd be a freedom worth celebrating. And celebrating is what my spiritual sisters and I do best.

Gabby knows God is the God of second chances.

But can she give one to the man who betrayed her?

When she was thrown out of the penthouse she shared with her husband and their sons, Gabby didn’t know if she’d ever find a soft place to land. But after seeking refuge at the shelter where she works, extraordinary things happen as she is reintroduced to God.

From the ashes of her marriage comes the House of Hope—a safe haven for homeless moms and their children.

But now those ashes of her destroyed marriage are being stirred again. When her long-gone husband’s life hits rock bottom, he reappears and asks for one more chance. And Gabby faces what feels like an impossible choice. Take him back. Or keep moving forward without him. Toward someone new who hasn’t betrayed her.

Is God redeeming what Gabby thought was gone forever? Or is He leading her down a different path and giving her something—and someone—new?

You can only walk forward when you learn how to lean.

Just months after her husband threw her out of their penthouse and sent their two sons away, Gabrielle Fairbanks is finally getting back on her feet. She has a job she loves at the homeless shelter, an apartment for her and the boys, caring friends, and even a new love interest. Best of all, an unexpected windfall has given her a brand-new dream--a House of Hope for homeless mothers and their children.

Piece by piece, Gabby's new life is coming together--but the old one keeps dragging her back. First her husband Philip hints at a reconciliation...then hits her up for a loan to pay his gambling debts. And when Gabby tells him no, he makes a desperate move that puts them all in harm's way. How can she even think of embarking on a new venture when so much is up in the air?

Gabby is realizing that she needs something far greater than her own strength or even that of her friends. That to move forward, she must first lean on the only One who knows what the future holds.

This 3-in-1 eBook bundle includes the first three books from the Yada Yada Prayer Group series by Neta Jackson: The Yada Yada Prayer Group, The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down, The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real.

This series tells the stories of twelve diverse women, assigned to a prayer group at a women's conference. These women become the best of friends as they support each other through the challenges and crises in their lives.

The Yada Yada Prayer Group focuses on the group’s beginnings and the impact it has in the lives of its members. When Jodi Baxter faces the biggest crisis of her life, God uses her newfound Sisters to show her what it means to be just a sinner saved by grace.

In The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down, the Yadas gather again to praise and pray, but an intruder breaks in, brandishing a knife and demanding money. Can the Yadas recover as a group after this terrifying experience? Then a well-meaning gesture among the friends goes badly, forcing them to confront age-old pain and distrust—and stretching their friendships to the limit.

The story of the Yadas continues in The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real as God leads them on a crash-course to an even deeper level of understanding and practicing forgiveness. Jodi discovers that with eleven Yada Yada sisters as diverse as a bag of Jelly Bellies, life will always be unpredictable. The longer they pray together, the more "real" things get, not only among their group, but also with God.

The Yada Yadas got tight in the past year, but they're about to learn the real meaning of togetherness.

We'd done it: we'd taken a mismatched, diverse group of women and cobbled together a prayer group that really worked for all of us. Now that spring was here, we were celebrating our one-year anniversary--and a wedding, an early parole, and two baptisms in the lake! Everything was feeling pretty great.

But it's when we're in our comfort zone that we're most likely to let our guard down. Without warning, lots of little things seemed to become big problems. With a white supremacy hate group targeting a local university, our very diversity almost became a liability. It took a vicious attack on Nony's husband to make us see that we had to get tough--and fight back together.

A devastating fire wakes up the Yadas to a new reality: God is on the move.

What I'd like to know is, why does God keep rearranging my comfort zone? It could have something to do with my Yada Yada prayer sisters, who aren't afraid to get in each other's faces and tend to expect big things from God.

But to move forward, sometimes we have to let go of what's behind. In spite of the loss of two dear friends. In spite of the breakup of a teenage love. In spite of the curse of HIV. In spite of prison time hanging over the head of a beloved child. In spite of fire consuming the hopes of those who have nothing.

Yet out of the ashes, God is doing a new thing! It's time for the Yadas to press on, pray on, and get rolling!