02/18/2026
Grace Leads Us Home
Feb 18, 2026
By Jim Minutelli
Grace Leads Us Home
Hello WV Conference!
This Lenten season, grace leads us home—not just to a place, but to a way of life shaped by Christ’s love.
In the West Virginia Conference, we live into the United Methodist vision by transforming Appalachia through God’s love—growing disciples, healing communities, and casting a future of hope rooted in Christ. This Lenten season, our laity devotionals invite you to walk the journey of transformation through our Lenten devotional theme “Grace Leads Us Home.”
When I was a kid, those curvy mountain roads on the way to my grandparents’ house in Jane Lew seemed to drag on and on, and always, to my mother’s dismay, made me car sick. The bends came quickly. The drop-offs felt steep, like riding a roller coaster. You couldn’t always see what was around the next turn. Sometimes you just wanted the ride to be over and to see your grandparents’ smiling faces.
Life can feel like that, too.
Lent is the season when we slow down enough to trust the grace that guides us — around blind curves, up and down through mountain passes, and along the curvy, winding roads of life. It also calls us to return to God, to those around us, and to the truth of who we are in Christ.
As we pray, reflect, and listen for God’s voice in these devotions, we remember that grace is not only what saves us, but what guides us, restores us, and sends us back into the world as messengers of love and hope.
It is a time of repentance, self-examination, prayer and fasting, simplicity, and works of mercy and justice, and it is both personal and connectional — not just “giving something up,” but making space for God and our neighbor.
Friends, may these devotions draw you closer to Christ, strengthen your discipleship, and renew your commitment to healing communities across Appalachia. Wherever you find yourself on the journey, may you discover again that God’s grace is already at work—leading you home.
In God’s and your service, I am
Jim Minutelli, CLM
WV Conference Lay Leader
And in service to West Buckhannon, Mt. Lebanon & Tennerton United Methodist Churches
[email protected]
304.629.9398
