A while back I asked how you first came in contact with GUIDEPOSTS. Most of you said you were introduced through the magazine (though some of you first found us online), and many of you said you either received it as a gift or you grew up with the magazine in your home.
Whatever the case, it was clear you remembered quite specifically when GUIDEPOSTS came into your life—the way you remember how you met someone who would become a close friend—and I don’t think people normally have that sort of abiding connection to magazines or web sites.
That got me wondering what was going on in your lives when GUIDEPOSTS appeared. Were you at a crossroads or a crisis point and GUIDEPOSTS arrived at just the right time?
In a way, that’s what happened to me. I’d barely heard of GUIDEPOSTS when I came in for a job interview. But I needed a job—any job—badly. Life was not exactly working out for me the way I’d hoped. I was lost. Desperate would not be too strong a word, and not just for a paycheck.
A friend and advisor told me to find a job so I wouldn’t end up on the streets, something that would provide some structure in my life. “Nothing long-term,” he said. “Just something you can hang on to for a year. I’m pretty sure if you pray you’ll be guided to the right place.”
I wasn’t much more familiar with praying than I was with GUIDEPOSTS but I did as I was told (for once). GUIDEPOSTS offered me a low-level editorial job and I said yes without really thinking about it. It was only for a year, after all. I could swing that. I could show up. For a year.
Did I mention that was in the fall of 1986? The crisis passed and the job became a career that I love and am incredibly blessed to have. Without it I wouldn’t have gotten to know all of you.
So I’d love to know, how did you first encounter GUIDEPOSTS?
Edward Grinnan is Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of GUIDEPOSTS Publications.
