For more than 20 years, Edward Grinnan and I have been colleagues at Guideposts magazine. One of our principle jobs as editors has been to help others tell their stories of hope and inspiration. Often that means asking them tough questions to get them to reveal the depths of their faith. But do we ever ask each other those tough questions? No, not really.
Then not long ago Edward started sending me chapters of a book he was writing, a work in progress. It had the intriguing title The Promise of Hope, and I assumed it would be full of the inspiring stories Edward has brought to the magazine over the years. In that respect I was not disappointed. He’s a great storyteller and revisits some fascinating stories, adding many unexpected details and stories behind the story.
What I didn’t expect was that the most compelling of all the stories in the book would be his own. This time he was asking himself the tough questions—a little like performing surgery on yourself without anesthesia, as he likes to say. I’d get out my blue pen to make some comments on a chapter and all I’d want to say was, “Wow…I never knew that…People will be so touched by this…Tears in the eyes of this reader.”
I have a running list of people who have made a big difference in my life. Some of them are family members, some are close friends. Some are people I know from church, some I’ve only met through the pages of a book. They’ve said memorable things or told me stories that have left me altered. It’s what we, people of faith, do to support each other. Who would have guessed that by something he wrote, a longtime colleague would be added to that list?
In the book he thanks me for my editorial help and guidance. Don’t you believe it. Like a good writer, he helped me. He shows how faith is a journey with many twists and turns to it, and good stories are…well, perfect guideposts in life. Edward just gave me a copy of the finished book. I emailed him immediately and thanked him for asking the tough questions and answering them in a great book, The Promise of Hope.
