Guideposts and Guideposts Foundation are blessed in many ways. Of these blessings are the people who work for the Guideposts organization. Their dedication to the mission of Guideposts, and to Grandma and Grandpa Peale’s vision set into place 70 years ago, is palpable.
Each day online, each month in the magazines, each moment when a booklet is read or shared, every minute when prayers are heard and responded to, lives around the world are impacted. The Peale family has the deepest appreciation and admiration for those who make these experiences happen for others.
This past weekend 33 of us gathered in Nashville, Tennessee, for our Peale family reunion, which includes the Peale Foundation’s annual meeting. The highlight of this weekend is being together as a family and making memories just as Grandma and Grandpa so often gave us the opportunity to do.
Randy Elliott, a major gifts officer for the Guideposts Foundation and a Nashville resident, spoke at our meeting Saturday morning. Randy spends his weeks on the road visiting with Guideposts Foundation donors.
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He expresses gratitude to each individual who supports the mission and programs of the Guideposts Foundation. He listens to their stories of faith and hope and learns about why they are committed to the Foundation’s outreach programs.
Randy shared with our family some amazingly powerful stories. The woman who has been giving to Guideposts her entire adult life as she believes Guideposts materials and booklets are what got her through her abusive marriage and brought her to a much better place. The trucking company that has been distributing The Power of Positive Thinking to its 11,000 employees for three generations. The executive, once admittedly critical and mean to his employees, who was given a Guideposts booklets that completely changed his way of relating to others and running his business.
Randy’s stories showed us the power and impact of the work of Guideposts and Guideposts Foundation. Through Guideposts’ written materials others can learn how to think about faith in new ways; how to face personal problems, fear and challenges; and how attitude and mindset can be our greatest tools in living full, gratifying and giving lives.
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“Sometimes God redeems your story by surrounding you with people who need to hear your past so it doesn’t become their future,” author Jon Acuff wrote. Stories like the ones Randy told our family on Saturday, like the ones in the materials Guideposts publishes, like the ones shared through its outreach programs can change, refocus, redirect and renew lives.
It is through the hard work and dedication of those who work for Guideposts and Guideposts Foundation, the generous donations of those who support the mission and work of Guideposts Foundation, and those who give of their time and talent to the Guidepost Foundation outreach programs that lives are positively changed, just as Grandma and Grandpa Peale hoped when they founded Guideposts 70 years ago.
