Wow, what a year, one of those years that seemed to last forever but was over before it started. Does that make sense? Not really. But that’s the way it feels.
Certainly it was a year I’ll never forget. Last April Guideposts published my first book, The Promise of Hope: How True Stories of Hope and Inspiration Saved My Life and How They Can Transform Yours (Plus the Nine Keys to Powerful Personal Change).
Writing the book had been a solitary experience. I had to go deep inside myself to explore feelings and experiences that I’d put far behind me. It was like an archeological dig into my own life, unearthing bits and pieces of myself, wiping away the dirt and looking at who I had been and how I had changed.
It required an unflinching honesty and a capacity for self-forgiveness I wasn’t sure I possessed. Yet in the process I saw a hand greater than my own guiding my life and the angels that saved me along the way.
Promoting the book was just the opposite. I spent many weeks on the road meeting and talking with people at book signings and appearances. That was a lot easier than writing, even if the travel was taxing. I love meeting Guideposts readers, and this was the opportunity of a lifetime.
So thanks to all of you who read the book, came out to my signings and were so kind and so open about your own lives.
I’ll never forget an older woman who came up to me in Indianapolis, put the book down on the signing table and said, “You told my story! I didn’t have the same problems as you but I had the same feelings. Thank you.”
Later in the year I had yet another amazing opportunity of a lifetime. I traveled with a group of 150 Guideposts readers on a cruise to the Holy Lands—Turkey, Greece and Israel. Ephesus, Corinth and Jerusalem.
I saw the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee, the Western Wall and Masada, the Mount of Beatitudes and the Garden of Gethsemane. I walked in the footsteps of Christ and the Apostles and I will never be the same.
So it’s been an unforgettable year. Thanks to all of you for helping to make it so.
