A Story of Mercy and Grace

A SHORT REFLECTION FROM OUR FOUNDER

The inspiration for Jonah’s began with a church sermon in Gainesville, Florida. The preacher offered a scathing assessment of Jonah, but I found myself relating to his weakness and struggle. God had given him an extraordinary task: to preach to the people of Nineveh, enemies of his own people. Yet when Jonah ran, he found himself cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish, alone in the depths.

As I listened, Jonah’s story began to echo my own. I knew what it was like to carry pain, make poor choices, and run from what God was asking of me. Through losing my mother at three, surviving cancer at seventeen, and enduring the wounds of an abusive father, I had come to understand how deeply I needed God’s mercy and grace. Like Jonah, I had found myself in places I could not escape on my own—but God did not abandon me. His unfailing love pursued me in the depths and continued to call me back.

That same unfailing love reaches each of us, no matter how far we have run or how deeply we may think we have fallen. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s holiness, but He does not leave us without hope. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live the perfect life we could not live and to die on the cross in our place. Through His death, Jesus paid the penalty for our sin; through His resurrection, He conquered death and offers new life to all who believe.

— Caleb Brown, Founder

Jonah 1–4 • Romans 5:8 • John 3:16