What Cannot Be Taken

What if everything you've been taught about Mary and Martha is only part of the story?
What if faith isn't measured by how much you finish, fix, or endure?

For generations, Mary and Martha have often been reduced to a simple contrast: one sister worked while the other chose the "better part."

But their story didn't end in that room.

Martha welcomed Jesus, received His correction, stood before Him in grief, and declared her faith in Him before Lazarus ever walked from the tomb. Mary listened at His feet, mourned beside Him, and later offered a costly gift that others questioned but the Savior defended.

Together, their stories reveal a richer vision of discipleship, one that has room for work, sorrow, uncertainty, correction, service, receiving, and grace.

What Cannot Be Taken explores what it means to follow Jesus Christ when life refuses to resolve itself neatly.

What happens when the work still isn't finished?

When the prayer hasn't been answered the way you hoped?

When someone you love is suffering and you can't make it right?

When your capacity changes, your contribution goes unnoticed, or another person misunderstands the love you tried to offer?

Drawing from Luke 10, John 11, John 12, restored gospel teachings, and the realities of modern life, Scott Hicks invites readers to look beyond productivity, outward success, and spiritual comparison.

The Savior does not ask us to become impressive enough to deserve His attention. He asks us to receive Him, trust Him, and offer the life we actually have. What_Cannot_Be_Taken_6x9 (1)

Inside, readers will explore:

• Mary and Martha as complete disciples, not competing stereotypes
• Faith when answers are delayed, uncertain, or painful
• Caregiving, exhaustion, changing capacity, and the courage to receive help
• The difference between repentance and unnecessary self-condemnation
• How to serve without making approval the measure of an offering
• Grief, resurrection, and hope that doesn't require pretending everything is fine
• Discipleship in a world where technology can assist our work but cannot live our faith for us

This isn't a book about escaping responsibility or finding a formula for a quieter life.

It is a book about finding Jesus Christ in the unfinished one.

For readers who have ever felt overwhelmed, overlooked, disappointed, uncertain, or simply tired of measuring their faith by what they can accomplish, What Cannot Be Taken offers a compassionate invitation to return to the Savior.

Because much in mortality can be lost.

But the hope found in Jesus Christ reaches beyond what the world can measure and beyond what mortality can take away.