Dr. John Trent is president of StrongFamilies.com and founder of The Institute for the Blessing at Barclay College. John is a sought-after speaker and an award-winning author of more than twenty books, including six books for children. He has been a featured guest on numerous radio and television programs across the country and leads The Blessing Challenge, a joint partnership with Focus on the Family and StrongFamilies.com. John and his wife, Cindy, have been married for more than thirty years and have two grown daughters, Kari and Laura.
Annette Smith is a novelist, nurse, and a master storyteller. Her first book of short stories, The Whispers of Angels, sold more than 100,000 copies. Annette has written four additional volumes of original short stories, two parenting books, and five novels, all set in small towns. Her fourth novel, A Bigger Life, was named by Library Journal as one of the best novels of 2007 and was a finalist in the American Christian Fiction Book Awards.
A life-long Texan, Annette lives in Tyler, Texas with Randy, her husband of thirty-one years, and an affectionate, shaggy mutt named Wally. Annette has worked as a registered nurse in a variety of settings. Her current home-hospice position gives her a unique position in the lives of relative strangers, and she often finds herself bearing solitary witness to intimate, behind-the-scenes situations full of grace and meaning.