The Road to Grace (The Walk)

Evans, Richard Paul

4.26

12,229 ratings by Goodreads

9781611733884: The Road to Grace (The Walk)

ISBN 10: 161173388X ISBN 13: 9781611733884

Publisher: Center Point Pub, 2012

From one of America's most beloved storytellers comes the inspiring third installment of the bestselling series, The Walk, the ongoing story of one man's unrelenting search for hope.

Alan Christoffersen's wife was thrown from a horse and paralyzed from the waist and in just a few weeks, dies of complications. In the meantime, his friend and business partner rounds up your clients and leaves to start his own advertising agency. In addition to losing the love of his life and his business, Alan now loses his house and other belongings. On her deathbed, he promised his wife he would live.

But how do you live when everything you love is taken from you. For Alan, he decides to set off on an extraordinary cross-country walk. Carrying only a backpack, he plans to walk to Key West, the farthest destination on his map.

Now nearly halfway through his trek, The Road to Grace takes him from South Dakota to Memphis, Tennessee. Alan covers more than 800 miles on foot, but it's the people he meets along the way who give the journey its true meaning.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Richard Paul Evans is the #1 bestselling author of The Christmas Box. Each of his more than thirty novels has been a New York Times bestseller. There are more than thirty million copies of his books in print worldwide, translated into more than twenty-four languages. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Mothers Book Award, the Romantic Times Best Women’s Novel of the Year Award, the German Audience Gold Award for Romance, two Religion Communicators Council Wilbur Awards, the Washington Times Humanitarian of the Century Award and the Volunteers of America National Empathy Award. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife, Keri, and their five children. You can learn more about Richard on Facebook at Facebook.com/RPEFans, or visit his website, RichardPaulEvans.com.

PROLOGUE
Note
The sun will rise again. The only uncertainty is whether or not we will rise to greet it.

Alan Christoffersen’s diary

Several months after I was mugged, stabbed, and left unconscious along the shoulder of Washington’s Highway 2, a friend asked me what being stabbed felt like. I told her it hurt.

Really, how do you describe pain? Sometimes doctors ask us to rate our pain on a scale from one to ten, as if that number had some reliable meaning. In my opinion there needs to be a more objective rating system, something comparative; like, would you trade what you’re feeling for a root canal or maybe half a childbirth?

And with what would we compare emotional pain—physical pain? Arguably, emotional pain is the greater of the two evils. Sometimes people will inflict physical pain on themselves to dull their emotional anguish. I understand. If I had the choice between being stabbed or losing my wife, McKale, again, the knife has the advantage—because if the knife kills me, I stop hurting. If it doesn’t kill me, the wound will heal. Either way the pain stops. But no matter what I do, my McKale is never coming back. And I can’t imagine that the pain in my heart will ever go away.

Still, there is hope—not to forget McKale, nor even to understand why I had to lose her—but to accept that I did and somehow go on. As a friend recently said to me, no matter what I do, McKale will always be a part of me. The question is, what part—a spring of gratitude, or a fountain of bitterness? Someday I’ll have to decide. Someday the sun will rise again. The only uncertainty is whether or not I will rise to greet it.

In the meantime, what I hope for most is hope. Walking helps. I wish I were walking again right now. I think I’d rather be anywhere right now than where I am.

� 2011 Richard Paul Evans

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.