“From Blunder to Blessing” by Jan D. Thomas is now available for purchase
“I didn’t quite understand the prayer and I wasn’t sure I wanted the Lord or anyone else to take my soul while I slept. But it was a prayer my mother wanted me to pray, so I did.”
– an excerpt from the book
AR Press is honored to publish “From Blunder to Blessing” by Jan D. Thomas. The book is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the ARPress website.
Born at the edge of an open-pit copper mine in New Mexico, Jan Thomas comes from a background of working-class people, cultural Christians, but not committed believers. Growing up, he had influences and experiences causing doubts about himself and his ability to become more than his environment would have predicted.
Influenced by teachers, Air Force buddies, and others, he began to trust God to do in him what he could not do for himself. As a youngster, he thought he had no academic ability but got BA and MDiv degrees.
As a pastor, he felt like a failure and began a career working in prisons. Struggling with life, he continued to try to serve. He married Fern, a widow with two children, and they had another child together. He became an administrator after only a few years, but his codependent nature, the desire to fit in, and to be liked at any cost nearly cost him his life.
An old alcohol issue came back at a time when he was involved in two of the most amazing ministries of the twenty-first century, Celebrate Recovery and Kairos. Retired in 1997, he began using CR in the prison he retired from. He was asked to help get the program into jails and prisons and became the first national director of Celebrate Recovery Inside. Celebrate Recovery Inside stretches across the United States and Canada as well as in many nations elsewhere.
His own struggles have helped him become dedicated to the purpose God intended for him from the beginning. His ministry was not as a pastor but to those, like him, who struggled with life’s issues. When he stopped teaching and started the healing process for himself, God helped him to stop blundering and begin to see more of God’s blessing.
He also used material from a course he taught at the New Mexico Corrections Academy to develop a curriculum for Christian communication to be used in the program called How to Say What You Mean: Without Being Mean. His life has been one of service to people who struggle and find real help and meaning from a relationship with Jesus Christ. His autobiography is called From Blunder to Blessing.
This is an encouraging story that shares accounts of amazing travel experiences undertaken in the hopes of inspiring others in their healing. Like everyone else, the author has made many blunders in life. It is wonderful to see how Christ has set him on a new mission and redeemed his mistakes.
“From Blunder to Blessing” by Jan D. Thomas is now available for purchase via ARPress Bookstore: https://authorreputationpress.com/bookstore/from-blunder-to-blessing/.