Mackenzie Allen Phillips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back...

A stillborn baby ends Max and Zoe's marriage. Max leaves Zoe and turns to drinking. Zoe falls in love with a female school counselor, Vanessa. Max finds help for his drinking problem through his brother's church. Vanessa and Zoe get married. Vanessa offers to carry one of Zoe and Max's fertilized embryos. Zoe goes to Max to get permission to release the embryos to her but Max's new found religious fervor leads him to sue Zoe for custody.

Having pursued intellectual matters all of his life, Father Tim discovers the joys of working with his hands when he discovers a worn-out nativity scene and begins to restore it.

As her family breaks away from their church district, Nellie is torn between her family and her beloved Caleb, who is staunch in his Old Order beliefs, but if Nellie waits too long to choose, she surely lose him to another.

Jack Cornwall has lost everything he's ever fought for and loved--his home, the Confederacy, and his nephew Chipper--and tries to start a new life, settling in a town called Hope, to be near feisty, red-haired Caitrin Murphy.

Longing to marry Caleb Yoder even though Caleb's father has forbidden him to court her, Nellie Fisher struggles with her feelings as she continues to cope with the death of her sister, Suzy.

As the world's thousands of believers gather in Jerusalem for a stadium rally, the Tribulation Force struggles with their own personal crises. Newspaper reporter Buck Williams and his wife, Chloe, question whether or not they should have a child when the future of the world is so uncertain. Meanwhile, Rayford Steele discovers the shocking truth about his wife, Amanda. Nicolae Carpathia continues his rise to power, forcing believers underground. But...