Nancy Head attended Penn State University when, as the single mom of five children, all under the age of 14, she sought to make a better life for herself and for what she labels “a broken family.” Her inspiring story led her church to help lift her out of poverty and get her on a path of self-sufficiency that later led her to help others as a missionary to Asia.
In her insightful book, Restoring the Shattered (Morgan James Publishing), she draws a parallel between how some individuals and families are broken just as the many church dominations fail to work together.
“We live in a broken and divided world,” says Nancy. “It’s time to pick up the pieces and restore these shattered fragments.”
She should know, having to overcome the challenges of divorce, single motherhood, and poverty. Nancy also sees how churches and societies are divided over politics, philosophies, and faiths. She saw firsthand how we can come together from different backgrounds, raised as she was by a Catholic dad and a Methodist mother.
“…far-reaching discussion of the differences between…two sides, emphasizing the tension between Catholics and evangelicals…[providing] admirably clear accounts of doctrinal debates regarding such issues as abortion, homelessness, divorces and poverty. In the case of the latter two issues, she draws deeply from personal experience.”
–Kirkus Reviews
Nancy shares an empowering message, discussing:
How one can confront harsh challenges in life.
Why houses of worship are better equipped than the government to help the poor.
How children of broken families can still live happy, successful lives – and remain together.
Why various churches need to work together and find more compassion, understanding, or even agreement on more issues in society, from divorce and abortion, to LGBTQ issues and the plight of the homeless.
What can be done to support and strengthen the sanctity of marriage.
Why we need to “do with” not just “do for” others in need — and how one can get help to move forward and not become dependent on such help.
“Like glass, people are durable yet fragile,” says Nancy. She’d like the see Christians come together – to restore the cracks in the stained glass windows that separate us.
“Today,” she says, “separation happens over different doctrines, different ways of viewing baptism, communion, and the saints – even as we agree about sin. Separation without moral imperative has weakened ministry. It has, kept us from seeing the beauty of each other’s traditions and how seeing that beauty can effect accord and bring about ministry.”
However, her message is not a call to discard our differences and become a melded Christianity devoid of doctrinal distinctions. It’s a call to respect each other and to work together.
“True believers from every denomination see themselves as divided when they are really merely separated,” says Nancy. “There is a crucial difference between separation and division.”
Written in an easy-to-understand, conversational style, Restoring the Shattered is an account of Nancy’s touching journey through single-motherhood and poverty that depicts a family’s passage from shattered to restored. The permanent divide between her and her husband led to a temporary shattering of their family as they settled into separate camps. The story begins when Nancy and her children have little to eat. Through a miraculous intervention and additional help and guidance from people of different denominations, she became whole again.
When one of Nancy’s grown children became Catholic, she became more aware of the ways her own evangelical tradition often dismisses Catholic believers and misinterprets many of their doctrines. While doctrines may differ, so many essential beliefs are the same and misunderstanding other’s faith languages feeds so much separation today.
It is only when we can come together that believers can stand beside each other to affirm their faith in an increasingly hostile world.