INTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNEY

The Unforced Rhythms of Grace

From the Publisher

The Journey is a magazine about the spiritual journeys of people from our High Country region. They are meant to inspire and encourage each reader with the knowledge that there is a God who loves you and He longs for us to experience the kind of relationship with Him that will enable us to:

find hope in the midst of our trials strength in our weakness light to penetrate our darkness purpose in our pain and love to keep our hearts from getting hardened The stories you will read in these pages are not about perfect people who completely have their acts together. But they are about people who have found a way to access the grace of God which enables them to be forces for good and positive change in a world that so desperately needs hope and help and healing. The way they have found to do this is through Jesus Christ, who was a man that changed the course of history through the truth He taught, the example He set, the death He died, and the life He still lives because Love conquered death and triumphed over Hate. Jesus came to this earth and experienced the same temptations, injustices and hardships that we all do. He came to show us what God is like and how we can

relate to God as One who will help us navigate through the difficulties of living in a fallen world with broken people who sometimes act in incredibly inhumane ways to each other. With that in mind, I invite you to consider these words from one of Jesus’ teachings as found in Matthew 11:28-30 and rephrased in contemporary English by The Message Bible. Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me ---- watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. Steve and Phyllis Goss, Rob and Julie Getty, Alice and Robert Denton, Kim and Ken Furches, Hannah and Joey Arnette, and I tell our stories in these pages. We come from different denominational backgrounds, different age brackets, and different parts of the High Country, but have one thing in common. We have learned and are learning the unforced rhythms of grace. We know we need the love, mercy, wisdom, guidance, peace, protection and provision that God longs to impart to us if we’ll just humble ourselves and acknowledge our need. One of the things that makes the High Country great is the humility and authenticity of many of its people, whether they are people of faith or not. Though we may not agree with each other on everything, most of us have managed to find ways to disagree without being disagreeable; to make judgments about important matters without being judgmental, and to foster a spirit of cooperation among ourselves to make our part of the world a better place to be. I emphasize this because I fear that if we don’t fully realize how precious this is and work hard to find ways to protect and foster that sense of interdependence and respect we have for one another, we will regret it. Furthermore in a nation that seems to be increasingly polarized because we have lost the ability to listen to each other, and instead, shout at each other through social media, political rallies and other public forums, we must resist the trend and model a better way. Many people in every arena of life are losing the ability to reason with each other in constructive ways. Therefore, we must be vigilant to not fall prey to the same insanity. It is with those things in mind that I acknowledge my gratitude to the High Country businesses who choose to promote their services through this magazine. Without their involvement, the reading of the inspirational stories found here would not be possible. Because they have made it possible, I believe that love has found a way to express itself in these pages which enables us to see what Jesus was talking about when He encouraged us to learn the unforced rhythms of grace. ... “…most of us have managed to find ways to disagree without being disagreeable; to make judgments about important matters without being judgmental, and to foster a spirit of cooperation among ourselves to make our part of the world a better place to be.”