Publishing a book had always been on Jody Vondra’s bucket list, but she did not know when she would write it or what the subject would be. After a perfect storm of grief, sickness, injury and work stressors tore through her life over just a few years, her subject matter was clear: overcoming life obstacles by living through Christ.
Vondra of the Milford and Crete area was struggling with being a workaholic and worked at Cabela’s in Lincoln, which was going through a merger and acquisition leading up to the pandemic. Then, at the beginning of 2021, her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died just two and a half weeks later.
Two weeks after that, her daughter, who has now fully recovered, was in a serious car accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury and several broken bones. Vondra took six weeks off of work to help care for her.
“Through those journeys and that experience, it really brought me to a place of humility and really at a place where God met me and picked me up and showed me some things that I don’t think you learn any other way than walking through the valley,” she said. “I decided that, coming out on the other side, there might be other people that I could encourage and help who are going through different transitions and trials and things like that through the country road perspective.”
Vondra chronicled several years of her professional life in her 13-chapter book, “The Country Road Perspective: Finding Purpose in the Journey,” and wove her family’s story with sickness into it. Her sister was diagnosed with cancer at age 30, and the whole family has the BRCA gene, which is linked to an increased risk of cancer.
“There aren’t a lot of secrets about my life once you read the book,” she said. “It’s a little scary to put all of it out there and be vulnerable and raw with people. But, it’s been very well received, and it’s been humbling to see how different people have connected with different parts of my story.”
Growing up on a Southeast Nebraska farm, a young Vondra used to go for a run on a country road whenever she needed to clear her head.
“It always seemed like I would have such clarity of thought in those moments, and just can kind of leave the world behind,” she said. “Whenever I had big decisions to make, that’s where I would go. I would go out to the country road.”
After her daughter’s accident, she decided to go on one of her country road walks. She said she was typically more focused on the destination and her pace than the journey, but something was different that day.
“God took my hand and he said, ‘I want to show you some stuff,’” she said. “And all of a sudden my eyes were just like, opened up to all of these things that I had been racing past hundreds of times.”
For example, she noticed the wild sunflowers, which must always face the sun. If they do not, they buckle under their own weight. She connected this with the way humans must face the Son of God or they will buckle under the weight of the world. Since that moment, she has used her walks as time to look at things differently and see what God has to show her.
Vondra, who now has her own leadership development and marketing consulting company, wrote “The Country Road Perspective: Finding Purpose in the Journey” so it could be read cover to cover or sporadically by chapter. Each chapter highlights a different Bible character and follows his or her country road journey.
“It kind of gives the reader permission to experience it in a different way, if that’s what they would like to do,” she said. “There’s time for introspection and reflection. Each chapter kind of stands on its own, but it also works together to make a story flow.”
She released it on July 24, 2024. She said it took her about 18 months to write, six months to get edited and published but her whole life up to this point to generate the content. It is available at the Barnes & Noble at Southpointe in Lincoln, on Amazon or JodyVondra.com.
Janice Johns of Crete read the book and said it touched her in many ways. As someone who has also lost her father, the rawness with which Vondra described the feelings she battled when her dad died brought tears to her eyes and took her breath away. She said she also resonated with the feeling of hopelessness Vondra described when her daughter was in the hospital because she and her husband have grieved two of their children.
“When I had finished it one afternoon and my husband came in the house and I said, ‘That is the most dynamic Christian book I’ve ever read,’ because she so rawly shared the events throughout her life and then she successfully brought in the Word of God to make it all fall together.”
Vondra did a book signing at Barnes & Noble in Lincoln on Sept. 14. She will hold a book signing and meet and greet at Ace Hardware in Crete on Sunday, Oct. 6 at the Pumpkin Festival and a meet the author event at Ana Patricia Boutique from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26.
Vondra said she hopes readers will find peace and encouragement through her words and God will use her story for His glory.
“The whole theme of the book is that storms aren’t meant to sink us, but to sanctify us,” she said. “We are all on a journey, and if we can look and see how God is using those moments, that’s how we can find purpose in each day.”
