Revolt of a Well-Intentioned Life: The Backroads Adventure that Changed Everything

On the eve of her employer’s billion-dollar merger, mid-level executive Verla Wallace's boss quit and she was named Acting Director of her department. When merger talks stalled and other managers jumped ship in anticipation of layoffs, the accelerated workload with a sharply reduced staff caused her unexpected physical collapse. Warned by her physician to get her life under control or face an early death, she quit her job. This wasn’t the way her carefully planned life was supposed to play out.

Burned out and disillusioned, she had more questions than answers about how to reinvent her life. Did she really know herself and what she wanted? What was now to be the point of life? As a person whose faith mattered to her, she was suddenly uncertain what God expected of her. How would she live life differently going forward?

Her husband suggested an unconventional remedy: hit the road with no cell phone, laptop, GPS, or itinerary. Hang out with strangers and ask them about their own lives. Listen. Dig deeply into your own life and wrestle with God about all those unanswered questions? Come back when you figure it out.

Wallace's open-ended backroads journey of renewal and self-discovery is filled with humor and drama, heartache and breakthrough. Meet ordinary people like Duck Man, a washed-up machinist with a brain tumor, who found a new purpose for his life in the most unlikely of places. Meet the mysterious hiker, fresh off walking the Appalachian Trail, who forces Wallace to acknowledge her true calling. Meet the one-armed grocery clerk at a ramshackle grocery store deep in Appalachia and the teenage surfer in Myrtle Beach who felt in bondage to his parents’ expectations.

Whether it’s the invitation to a fancy wedding on Hilton Head Island or getting lost alone at night in a mountain canyon in Tennessee, the life-changing adventure delivers a wealth of wit and wisdom and an ending no one expected. Come along for the ride and gain a fresh take on your own life without ever leaving home.