Leslie Leyland Fields - Crossing the Waters: Following Jesus Through the Storms, the Fish, the Doubt, and the Seas

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The Water Under Fish (poetry)

I have friends whose nearly every thought is filtered through their academic life, and others for whom the world of sports shapes most of their conversations. With Leslie Leyland Fields, like Jesus, we encounter someone whose life floats into memoir through the world of water, wind, and waves as well as fish, boats, and storms. In the hands of Leslies very able pen, a life of family fishing in Alaska slides into a sacrament that opens up the life of Jesus, the Gospels, and the life of Jesus disciples. Jesus, with an insiders wink, would like her stories.

SCOT M C KNIGHT

Author of A Fellowship of Differents, Kingdom Conspiracy, and Sermon on the Mount

Leslie Leyland Fields invites us into what at first glance is a life most of us will never experience. However, her experience couldnt be more relatable to readers as she navigates the transition of midlife, the bittersweet ache of an emptying nest, and her questions about what it means to follow Jesus here and now. Crossing the Waters carries us across time and culture, netting fresh insight into the disciples journey.

MICHELLE VAN LOON

Author of Moments & Days: How Our Holy Celebrations Shape Our Faith

This book is a rare gift. It pulses with story and theology, with lived suffering and quiet joy, with vast mysteries and a strong Savior. The question is not whether you can put it down because that will be hard but whether you have the good sense first to pick it up, and read.

MARK GALLI

Editor in chief, Christianity Today

In Crossing the Waters, Leslie Leyland Fields takes us on a spiritual journey that leads us across the world from the island in Alaska she calls home to the Holy Land, where she sails the Sea of Galilee and across time, where we fish alongside the earliest followers of Jesus. Through it all, she paints a vivid portrait of faithful endurance.

TREVIN WAX

Managing editor of The Gospel Project, author of Clear Winter Nights: A Journey into Truth, Doubt, and What Comes After and Counterfeit Gospels

The disciples could often be found battling rough seas, storms, and empty nets. As an Alaskan fisherman for nearly four decades, Leslie Leyland Fields brings unique insight to the disciples experiences with Jesus and how we, too, can learn to trust and follow the Savior.

JIM DALY

President of Focus on the Family

Before reading Crossing the Waters, I didnt yet realize that the guide I most needed to steer me through turbulent waters was one whose hands smell of finger kelp. With insight, wisdom, and a deep connection to the maritime world from which Jesus plucked his first followers, Leslie Leyland Fields blesses readers who want to see the Word, and see Jesus, with fresh eyes.

MARGOT STARBUCK

Speaker and author of The Girl in the Orange Dress

Like the seas she and her family fish in, Leslie Leyland Fieldss Crossing the Waters is challenging, changing, crisp, bracing, beautiful, sometimes dangerous, and teeming with life. A wonderful storyteller, she invites us into her life and in so doing brings Bible characters to life as real flesh and blood, sweat and stink, spirit and grace people called to follow Jesus. This book is a gift!

J. BRENT BILL

Minister, photographer, retreat leader, and author of Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality and Life Lessons from a Bad Quaker

What can a group of first-century Middle Eastern fishermen teach a twenty-first century Alaskan fisherwoman? Just about everything that really matters. Recasting her own enchanting but gritty life in the commercial fishing industry alongside those fishers of men, Leslie Leyland Fields shows us how each of our life stories is best understood in light of the good story, the gospel.

KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR

Author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me and Fierce Convictions The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More: Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist

Set in the stormy waters of Alaska and on the Sea of Galilee, this beautiful, challenging, uplifting book by Leslie Leyland Fields gives us context for the teachings of Jesus. Fieldss life has not been easy, and she does not pretend that any of us will sail smoothly through our own experiences. Instead, she opens her life as a mother, daughter, spouse, and friend, and exposes her personal challenges as she applies the teachings of Jesus. As she hikes through Israel, Fields uses her knowledge of fishing in Alaska to put Scripture into context. An inspiring book for personal or group study, Crossing the Waters offers unique insight and inspiration.

DALE HANSON BOURKE

Speaker and author of Embracing Your Second Calling and The Skeptics Guide series

NavPress is the publishing ministry of The Navigators, an international Christian organization and leader in personal spiritual development. NavPress is committed to helping people grow spiritually and enjoy lives of meaning and hope through personal and group resources that are biblically rooted, culturally relevant, and highly practical.

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Crossing the Waters: Following Jesus through the Storms, the Fish, the Doubt, and the Seas

Copyright 2016 by Leslie Leyland Fields. All rights reserved.

A NavPress resource published in alliance with Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

NAVPRESS and the NAVPRESS logo are registered trademarks of NavPress, The Navigators, Colorado Springs, CO. TYNDALE is a registered trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Absence of in connection with marks of NavPress or other parties does not indicate an absence of registration of those marks.

The Team:

Don Pape, Publisher

Caitlyn Carlson, Acquisitions Editor

Mark Anthony Lane II, Designer

Cover photograph copyright Kevin Carden/Lightstock. All rights reserved.

The author is represented by the literary agency of WordServe Literary, www.wordserveliterary.com.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked CEV are taken from the Contemporary English Version, copyright 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked BSB are taken from The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible, BSB, copyright 2016 by Bible Hub. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from