McCutcheon releases first book, ‘Beyond Embrace,’ a spiritual devotion
By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV
Folks across the Greenbrier Valley rely on Jim McCutcheon for insurance advice. As the owner of Health Insurance Services of WV, he spends most of his days guiding customers through the various options available to them for their own health care.
For decades, he’s built a reputation as an expert folks can trust. Now, he’s expanding his health and wellness guidance to the spiritual realm.
Jim’s first book is entitled Beyond Embrace: Thirty Days to Intimacy with the Holy Spirit. It’s a faith-based devotional with daily reflections, prayers, and thoughts for readers to interactively enjoy.
“As a businessman, husband, father, and friend, I found that true peace and guidance came not from external success but from leaning deeper into my relationship with The Father, through Jesus Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,” McCutcheon says. “This book is the result of years of personal wrestling, reflection, and experiencing the moments when His grace became the highlight of my day.”
One of the biggest challenges Jim faced to writing the book was logistical–finding time in the day.
“Spiritually, the process was more about listening than writing,” he notes. “I carved out early mornings, before emails and meetings, and late nights when the noise died down, to sit still, pray, journal, and reflect. I treated this book the way I would any important project: I blocked time on my calendar, protected that time fiercely, and chipped away at it consistently. But more importantly, I made it a spiritual discipline — it wasn’t just writing; it was worship, reflection, and surrender.”
The product is a book that operates like a daily devotion.
“Faith isn’t a sprint — it’s more like a marathon,” he says of the book’s structure. “I didn’t want readers to treat this book like just another race to the finish line. Each chapter is meant to be a pause, a breath, an invitation to sit with something deeper. By savoring one chapter a day, readers allow space for the Holy Spirit to do the work within them, not just in their heads, but in their hearts and actions.”
McCutcheon knows how hard it can be to carve out time for your spiritual life. It’s a balance he tries to strike on a daily basis, and he offers this advice to his readers.
“Start small, but start. Make space,” he notes. “Be willing to be interrupted, corrected, and comforted. The Spirit meets us where we are, but we have to show up.”
Beyond Embrace is available at Amazon for $12.95. McCutcheon says hopefully it’s the beginning of additional spiritual conversations. “Beyond Embrace opened the door for me to share what I’ve learned, but I know there are more conversations to have, more lessons to share, and more ways to help people walk with the Holy Spirit in their daily lives.”
