Maureen Pratt, MTS, MFA is an award-winning Catholic author, popular speaker and retreat leader, and the Founder and Executive Director of The Peace in the Storm Project. Her books include Peace in the Storm: Meditations on Chronic Pain and Illness, Peace in the Storm for Caregivers, and the award-winning titles Salt and Light: Church, Disability, and the Blessing of Welcome for All and Don't Panic! How to Keep Going When the Going Gets Tough. Peace in the Storm: Meditations on Chronic Pain and Illness and Peace in the Storm for Caregivers are the only devotionals focused on chronic pain and illness and caregiving to be granted the imprimatur. After graduating from UCLA with her Master of Fine Arts in the School of Theater, Film, and Television, Maureen began to write scripts, and her plays won several awards. She fully expected to be working in the heart of Hollywood, but God had other plans. From childhood, she had suffered with serious illnesses and chronic pain, and as she began her career in Tinseltown, while working and conducting a gospel choir at a Catholic church in Los Angeles, a life-threatening, disabling diagnosis of lupus derailed her plans and became the catalyst to turn her life and her writing in an entirely different direction. She first penned two health-based books to assist other patients in coping with difficult diagnoses: Taking Charge of Lupus: How to Manage the Disease and Make the Most of Your Life (New American Library/Penguin Random House, co-authored with David Hallegua, MD and foreword by Daniel J. Wallace, MD) and The First Year: Hypothyroidism (First and Second editions, Perseus/Marlowe & Company/Hachette). Then, from her deep faith and reliance on God throughout her illness, Maureen began to write about the journey intertwined with illness, pain, and other challenges. These efforts resulted in Peace in the Storm: Meditations on Chronic Pain and Illness (first published with Image/Penguin Random House in 2005 and now published by Galilee Road Publishing); Peace in the Storm for Caregivers, and Beyond Pain: Job, Jesus, and Joy (the Revised Edition is now available from Galilee Road Publishing LLC). During the pandemic, while caregiving with her mother in the last years of her life, Maureen earned a Master of Theological Studies from the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. In 2021, immediately upon graduation, caregiving became, essentially, a full-time job, and there was no time for her to think of building The Peace in the Storm Project. However, the Holy Spirit was working - unbeknownst to her, a parish in New Canaan, CT, in the Diocese of Bridgeport, started a wellness ministry that used the book, Peace in the Storm..., as the basis for its reflections at group meetings. Shortly before her mother's passing, the leader of the group contacted Maureen and told her what the parish had been doing. After crying tears of joy, Maureen began to develop the additional resources that are now used in The Peace in the Storm Project faith fellowship groups and began to guild the organizational foundation for the ministry. Maureen is also a graduate of Georgetown University and a Graduate Gemologist (Gemological Institute of America), a Fellow, Gemmological Association of Great Britain (FGA), with Merit, and a Certified Member of the National Association of Jewelry Appraisers. She has presented workshops, retreats, and in-service seminars for medical professionals, religious education instructors, patients, businesses, parishes, and patient advocacy organizations throughout the United States and in Canada, in person and online. Although lupus and its effects are still a reality, Maureen continues to find much joy in her life and work and inspiration from others who are also living with serious challenges. Throughout all of her endeavors, Maureen's intent is simple: To encourage others that no matter how hard the crisis or sharp the pain, God loves each of us, we need not fear, and we should, most especially, never give up!