Patrick Gray - Imprints: The Evidence Our Lives Leave Behind

Filled with lessons of love and compassion, Imprints is a beautiful reminder of the life God calls us to live each day.

Bob Goff, New York Times bestselling author of Love Does and Everybody, Always

Our lives are filled with choices. Every moment is an opportunity for us to bring light or darkness into the world. Patrick and Justin remind us how simple it is to choose light.

Jeremy Cowart, artist and founder of The Purpose Hotel

Its impossible to engage with Patrick and Justin and not walk away inspired, curious, and ready to be the person you are meant to be in the world. Imprints is a moving reminder of finding strength in the small thingsgestures of kindness and connectionand of how the culmination of these acts fills our own lives and communities with authentic purpose. A must-read reminder that its the small steps of love that leave imprints along this path of life.

Jessica Honegger, founder and co-CEO of Noonday Collection

Justin and Patrick are compelling forces for good. Their latest book, Imprints, is a must-read, one of those rare books that invites and guides you to step into brave new places with your one and only life. Their words will surely help you live the kind of life that demands an explanation.

Steve Carter, pastor and author of This Invitational Life

If we knew that our actions and choices could be the bread crumbs that others could follow into a better life, would we live better? I think so. This book is the encouragement we need to live more intentionally, leaving a trail of hope and love to those around us.

Dean Nelson, award-winning author and journalist

Visit Tyndale online at www.tyndale.com.

Visit Compassion online at www.compassion.com.

Visit Patrick and Justin online at www.pushinc.us.

TYNDALE and Tyndales quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Compassion and Compassion International are registered trademarks of Compassion International, Inc.

Imprints: The Evidence Our Lives Leave Behind

Copyright 2019 by Justin Skeesuck and Patrick Gray. All rights reserved.

Part opener icons by Payungkead from flaticon.com. All rights reserved.

Designed by Justin Skeesuck

Published in association with the Christopher Ferebee Agency. www.christopherferebee.com.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLV are taken from the H OLY B IBLE, N EW L IFE V ERSION . Copyright 19692003 by Christian Literature International, P. O. Box 777, Canby, OR 97013. Used by permission.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at , or call 1-800-323-9400.

ISBN 978-1-4964-4189-8

Build: 2021-04-21 15:21:43 EPUB 3.0

To our wivesthank you for the constant love and support as we pursue the next adventure, whatever it may be.

To our childrenyou have taught us so much. Our prayer for each of you is that others will know love because of who you are.

by Seth Haines, author of Coming Clean

A NN C URTIS WAS A SLIGHT WOMAN who stood somewhere near average height, if you included her silver beehive hairdo. She was a woman of few words, at least as far as I knew, but still, her life spoke plenty. It was well known that Mrs. Curtis took the morning shift in our church prayer room. In fact, it was rumored Mrs. Curtis took two morning shifts and would sometimes cover a third on account of the fact that said hour was claimed by a traveling salesman whose morning calls and morning prayers were sometimes at odds.

Mrs. Curtis lived across the street from the prayer room, a convenience for the slow-going woman, because she spent the majority of her day there. Her husband had passed some years before (how many I couldnt say), and instead of becoming some kind of assisted-living hermitess, she committed to spend what days she had left serving the church in prayer.

Every morning Mrs. Curtis walked to the church, sometimes stopping by the bakery afterwards to grab a loaf of bread, a pastry, or a pint of milk. She did a great deal of walking, I remember, and I think this was because she had some kind of difficulty driving. In my young estimation, the trouble with driving was brought on by neither old age nor senility; instead, it was the sort of trouble brought on by a hairdo that didnt much cooperate with being mashed against the ceiling liner of her old Buick. So Mrs. Curtis walked just about everywhere, lips moving all the while in prayer.

When I was fifteen, our church youth group held one of those Dont-Have-Sex-Till-Youre-Married retreats made popular by the Evangelical 1990s. At the closing ceremony of the retreat, the pastor invited us to sign pledge cards vowing to wait till marriage to taste the sweet fruits of monogamous marital bliss. I signed my card, walked to the front of the church, and placed it on the platform. The pastor then invited the congregants to make their own pledge.

Come to the front and take a card, he said. Pledge to pray for the person whose name you draw until that person is married.

Even then, I questioned whether such a commitment was feasible, but as fate, fortune, and the Holy Ghost would have it, Mrs. Curtis drew my name. She never told me that she had come into possession of my pledge card, though. She never broached the subject of purity or lust with me, which is good, because the awkwardness quotient of any such conversation would have been rivaled only by the time Sister Sarto had the sex talk with my class of sixth-grade boys in Catholic school. Instead, if Mrs. Curtis ever exchanged words with me at all (a fact I do not recall all these years later), it wasnt much more than simple pleasantries.

I went on to college, and as young men tend to do, tried my best to leave my hometown behind. I didnt think much about my old church or the faithful men and women whod attended for so many years, Mrs. Curtis included. And so, seven years and two children into marriage, you can imagine my surprise when someone called to tell me Mrs. Curtis had passed away.

Im sorry. But why are you calling to tell me? I asked.

I want you to know, the calling minister said, that Mrs. Curtis kept your pledge card in her Bible till the day she died. I happen to know that she never missed a day of praying for you, even after you were married.

For over a decade, shed prayed for me. For over a decade, those prayers had been a sort of guide, even if I hadnt known it. For over a decade, shed given time to me. And as I stood gape-mouthed on the other end of the phone, I knew her prayers had left their mark. Ann Curtis had left her imprint on my life.