Jackie's Journey "Age is Just a Number"

Age is just a number, until its NOT!  I have currently lived 29,200 days; 4,160 weeks and 960 months! Probably 20 years of that was sleeping; 30 years of work; 17 years of screens/pixels; 3 years getting ready in the morning; 2 years doing laundry and 79 days of brushing my teeth!  With eternity in full view, the brevity of life glaring me in the face (and everywhere else), time needs to be treasured and there is no stopping the clock…

 I ask myself, “Is what I am doing worth dying for?”

 If not, it is not worth living for?

 We are called to live a “supernatural life”.  We do NOT have the power in ourselves to live it!  We need divine power.  That gift of power is given when we exchange it in unconditional surrender. My life purpose is not seeking a ministry but anticipating the fruit of a disciplined life.  In my early Christian life, I was introduced to the “terms of discipleship” and it changed everything.  A mortal (body) life will end, but an eternal life lives forever.

 We are to be stewards of the mysteries of God and each “man’s work will become evident and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor”. (I Cor. 3: 5-16) What opportunities has God recently given me to serve Him?  What earthly things take the majority of my mental energy in this season of life? Keeping eternity in view and our responsibility for an obedient life makes us wise and ready…

 Where do you see yourself in the scheme of age and mortality?

The edge of eternity is closer than you think…

“…For what is your life, it is a vapor, that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”

 Is what I am giving my time and attention to, given with eternity in full view?  Are my priorities temporal or eternal-focused?  Sacrificing the permanent on the altar of the immediate will end in a futile life span. 

 Being wise with HIS time and numbering our days, will give us a future and hope…

both now and in the time to come…

Let’s make this New Year 2023 the best one yet!

Ralph and I…New Years Eve 2022

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "ARACHNIDS...Scared but not Defeated!"

Washday in the jungle was an event, not just a necessity!  It required a trip to the river with two little ones under three years of age in tow, a washtub (like great-grandma used) full of clothes, diapers, sheets, etc., a bar of soap and a washboard.  Finding a rock that wasn’t already being used was the next challenge, after descending the 12’ bank to reach the river’s edge!  The swirling river was the agitator and the most difficult part of the whole exercise was wringing the dripping clothes tight enough, so they would dry after being hung.

The Kuna women would laugh at me, while their little ones entertained mine by chasing, splashing, and diving around us.  Those were the “good old days”.  One blessing, and there were many, was that my girls learned to swim like little fish very early, against the raging current!

 If it was dry season, the wash would dry in 2 hours.  During rainy season we might hang the clothes two times, or more, in one day. Most garments were mildewed and never really dried completely until dry season returned!

 One spring day, my clothes carried in an unwanted visitor inside the house.  We had open wooden shelves and as I lifted the last folded clean sheet, I caught something moving in my peripheral vision.  Now…let me be understood…I will take a snake, any size, over a spider…any day.

 This particular arachnid was a creature of undeniable presence!! I screamed so loud that half the village came streaming through my front door.  One look at the intruder and my husband and Arturo, our neighbor, told us all to get out! Apparently, this venomous feral spider was dangerous!  I could not understand their hesitation in just eliminating it!  I wanted that trespasser DEAD…I did not want him alive for an encore another day…

Earlier that month, our cat found a huge, and I mean huge, scorpion under our bed.  I picked up Ralph’s size 14 army boot, stretched under the bed with one hand and squashed its 12” body dead, in one fell swoop, as our 8-month-old daughter came rapidly crawling into the room!  Now…“hear me roar” …I’m not kidding…I REALLY wanted that spider DEAD!

 Fear is our friend…it is an emotion induced by a threat, which causes a change in brain and organ function and ultimately…a change in behavior.  My husband, Ralph, used to tell me, “Courage is being scared to death…and still walking through the door of fear to victory”. 

 In the book “Hinds Feet in High Places” I would clearly be “little “Much Afraid”.  Shortly after being challenged to carry the name of Christ to unreached tribal people, I read in Luke 10: 19 where Jesus sent out the seventy-two with the promise, “I have given you authority to trample snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you”! 

That verse came pounding into my consciousness and I claimed that promise, given to those who take the gospel into uncharted territories.  As jungle living became my daily experience, I would often return to those precious words that brought peace that day, and over and over again during those years of the unforeseen and unexpected…I would claim its truth when I was tempted to yield to fear and panic.

 Not too much has changed over the years.

These days, in this asphalt jungle, events seem to fall into

the same category of unforeseen and unexpected events.

We can fret and panic in defeat or

we can claim the promises and maintain our peace…

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Christmas Surrender!"

Christmas is a wonderful time to put our busy lives back into Scriptural perspective.  We celebrate the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ…the One who gives us everything we need to live a godly life. (II Peter 1: 3) This year 2022 is closing down…how did you do in your surrender to Him this year?

 Genuine Christianity is an unconditional surrender to His Lordship.

 While attending the University of Arizona, I was invited to join Kappa Alpha Theta, a national sorority.  I had a sense of acceptance and grew to love the girls and the accountability.  After a semester of pledging, we had a night of mild hazing that culminated in stepping, individually, behind a veil for the final step of becoming a Theta.  As the “pledge of loyalty” was read and the words were spoken to me…I was asked to repeat them…

 A few months earlier, over Thanksgiving holiday, I had attended a church service and heard for the first time in my life that I could know God in a personal way through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Now, standing behind that veiled curtain in the Theta House, listening to the call to Theta loyalty, I was profoundly struck and realized I had already given my total allegiance to the Savior that we celebrate next week!  When He walked into my life, everything changed…I had no more allegiance to give.

 Time has tested on life’s stage that unconditional surrender

I made to my loving Savior and Sovereign Lord, in those college days.

 What is your present commitment?

 Commitment was the turning point in my life when I seized the moment and converted it into an opportunity to alter my destiny. When we talk about total surrendering of our lives to the Lordship of Christ, we are talking about yielding all our rights and expectations! 

 What…?

 Wait a Minute!

 Don’t we run from the people and circumstances that call us into total commitment?  It is much easier to go with the flow as the secular, ungodly world dictates to us woke, relativity, independence and “I have MY rights!”  The world’s motto: “Strength only, show no weakness!”  The human struggle wants HIS POWER TO DO OUR WILL…no humility here.

 Is humility a position of strength or weakness, in your opinion?

 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses,

so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake,

I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.

 For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (II Cor. 12: 9-10)

 Humility is me…seeing the contrast between my spiritual condition (a sinner) and HIS holiness and then receiving His grace to live Christ-like, not Jackie-like!  Grace flows in our weakness. Grace is doing HIS WILL WITH HIS POWER! (Phil. 2: 13)   It is acknowledging His presence and His power to live the Christian life.  Victory is living in that truth!

 Have you surrendered your life to His Lordship?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "My Shadow Princess!"

Our Kuna neighbors…Anita and her family

 As the plane left the landing strip and soared into the morning sky, I caught a glimpse of the entire village waving farewell.  There waws one girl who stood in front of the crowd, crying.  I would miss her most of all!

 That young girl was the daughter of my nearest neighbor and she quickly became my shadow.  When two-month-old Kim would cry, she would abruptly run to get her and bring her to me.  I did not understand her kind action, but I always thanked her and stopped whatever I was doing to receive Kim into my arms.

 Later I would learn what an immensely special gift I was receiving.  The Kuna’s were very accommodating and took turns caring for each other’s babies, freeing mothers to leave the village and go into the jungle to tend to their fields for hours.  When the baby cried, the first to reach the distressed child would nurse that baby!

 In our village, some of the mother’s had tuberculosis and “My Shadow” had dutifully protected Kim for those early months after entering Kuna land.  Our permission to live in Pucuro was granted by the Kuna elders, specifically to bring medicine to the women who were losing their babies during childbirth and to care for the sick.  In those early days, we were oblivious to much of their culture, yet silently, God met my “unknown need” through the loving heart of a beautiful Indian princess named Anita.

 Like Jacob of old in the ‘barren and howling waste of the desert’, “He (God) shielded us and cared for us, He guarded us as the apple of His eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them on its pinions.” (Deut. 32: 10-11)  The eye of an eagle can detect a rabbit or fish from over a mile away!  How much more is the protective eye of God on those who walk with Him.

 What is your understanding and disposition of God’s protective hand?

Did you know it comes with a condition?

 “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from Him anything we ask, because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him.” (I John 3: 21) Promises given in scripture are generally followed by a condition.  Living under the divine protection of the Almighty God is a promise guaranteed, if we choose to walk by His standards and not our own.

 Knowing He is invisibly working on our behalf when we are totally unaware of our need is a magnificent reality to comprehend when finally revealed in the light!  And it is a daily reminder to “walk our talk”, so our heart does not condemn us.

 “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him;

And the Lord will cover him all day long…” (Deut. 33: 12)

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "The Fourth Quarter!"

The frantic frog fighting for his life, as is the heron!

 It’s fall and Football season is here again. In most sports, there is a “fourth” quarter which determines the outcome of the game.  Some of us are approaching, or in, that fourth quarter, in terms of our remaining productive years.  Should we continue vocationally active into our seventies and eighties, we had roughly twenty-five to thirty years to make our personal mark on what is here, and on those who pick up our life-work and values. 

 As a young person, I remember visiting my grandparents and thinking they were years away from me because I was only in the first quarter.  The fourth quarter was sooo far away that I could not even visualize what it must be like.

 Yet, here it is…

 My husband has always said, “We are going to just burn out serving, Jackie.”  He will be sharing Christ on his death bed…I just know it!  When the Beatles sang “when I’m sixty-four,” we could scarcely imagine such a thing (that was really old!), but now, it’s in sight or we have already passed it!  So…what have we done in the first three quarters?? Did we make the world a better place or life better?  The final count is out…

In spiritual terms, we will reap what we have sown. (Gal. 6: 7) We will each be held accountable for our deeds here on earth. (Rev. 22: 12) If there was ever a need for followers of Christ (especially, fourth quarter believers!) to persevere, be resolute in purpose, uncompromising for truth, persistent in faith, unyielding in hope, constant in love, and unstoppable in advancing the kingdom…it is NOW!

 Just reaching the last quarter of life is a gift…a life-span “may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures.” (Psa.90: 10) Often, there are health and financial challenges. Or failure to see the divine purpose in aging.  Many reach this milestone and sense the inevitable invisibility by the people and culture around them.  They sit back and just resolve to wait out the remaining time…while sacrificing what could be the best years of their lives!

 In reality, we are all living in the last quarter because we are not guaranteed even another day. We are told to “number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psa. 90: 13) Hence, the need to focus in and live as if every day might be our last.

 Any regrets?

 What legacy will be left?

 Is there a plan to finish the course and its God- given purpose?

 We are the “never give up” generation…

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Tactics and Strategies!"

Who’s the Target??

 When you look around, what do you see?  When you listen to the news, what do you hear? When you have opportunity, what do you share? It is nearly impossible to find a person living today that is not confused, disappointed, disallutioned, and seeking a reasonable answer to all the chaos in our world today.  Everyone has a complaint, an opinion, a proposed resolution or a persuasive argument.   There are tactics and strategies galore, but most miss the mark of the core issue.

 There is a line of attack aimed at a deliberate target.  The tactics have always been the same.  It is a direct assault on our mind, body, will, heart and conscience.  The strategy is lies, suffering, accusation and pride.  Its purpose: to energize the human race toward sin and lives that are lived independent of God.  It makes us ignorant of God’s will through pride and suffering, not to forget, Satan’s pacing “to and FRO” talking to God about us with the intent of bringing an indictment.

We are the target!

 Though the Devil roars and flexes his muscle among the nations, it is encouraging to remember the truth that he is a created being, not equal with God, and that he has already been defeated by the Lord Jesus Christ!  When Jesus died on the cross, was buried, then rose again, Satan’s power over believing men was broken once and for all. “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” Col. 2:15 

 Do you want victory over the devil’s strategy?  Satan’s tactics have always been the same.  Both Satan and God speak to us with soundless “thought bombs”.  We call them temptations.  Everyone gets them.  One is for destruction and one is for blessing to benefit others.  Satan will tempt us in the areas we have opened up to him. “Lust of the eye, lust of the flesh and the pride of life.”  He’s been busy! Does this look like his work, when you look around at the world today?  When you listen to world solutions to complex, upside-down problems?  When you see violation of biblical principles on every side and in every arena? Where each man’s opinion and lie are openly received by his own standard of truth?

 If we learn that each temptation can be matched with a specific person’s need and we turn it into a prayer of salvation for that person, we will kill the power of that temptation and Satan will run for fear that “the prayer given will avail much” and that person will come to faith.  Satan’s has one strategy: he has come to steal your life, kill your soul and destroy your relationships. (Jn. 8:44)  He cannot be a willing part of building your prayer life!

 We are victors in HIM!

 Let’s learn to use Satan for God’s glory!

Learn to fight or be defeated…

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Cultural Suicide!"

There is a godly man in the Old Testament called “The Weeping Prophet” because of the immense sorrow he felt over the destruction of the nation of his people.  His name was Jeremiah. I am feeling like Jeremiah this morning!  As much as, I would like to blame big government for the current confusion and distress in our country, we are a nation that has “followed the stubborn inclination of our own hearts!”   We have become stiff-necked and deaf to the God-given promise that is ours, IF we would but return to His management and direction and “obey His commands (clearly written in His Word) and walk in obedience to His leadership and …(wait for it)…ALL WOULD GO WELL WITH US!” 

 Our nation has not listened to the God, who by-the-way, created and owns this universe; but instead, has adopted and accepted detestable practices, contrary and in violation to God’s teaching…sexual immorality (adultery and fornication), impurity(slander), lust (pornography), evil desires (perverted life-styles and child-trafficking), woke ideology and self-indulgence…all of which, God calls idolatry!  This list only mentions a few of the deceptions that have led us astray.  Let’s not forget the current appetite for abortion, drugs, alcohol, and witchcraft…  You fill in the blank…it’s exhaustive!   

 Truth has vanished.  Lies and deception prevail.

 Has the Lord rejected and abandoned this generation?  Our culture has idols on every level…everywhere!   The cry of Jeremiah was “but my people do not know the requirement of the Lord”.  Contrarily, we have no excuse because we are warned in Colossians, “See to it that no one takes you captive with hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world (Satanic), rather than on Christ (who is Head over every power and authority, including Satan!).  Disarming the worlds power and authority (Satan), triumphing over them by the cross.” (Col. 2: 15)

 The wounds of this nation and its people are being addressed today, as though they are not serious; but instead, culturally acceptable and carry no consequence!  There is little shame, not even a blush, for the perversion of a nation once founded on Godly principles.

 “Why is there no healing for the wounds of my people?”

cried Jeremiah in his day. (Jeremiah 8)

 The answer is easy…” For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me in repentance and I will listen to you.  You will seek me with all your heart and I will be found by you…”   Jeremiah 29:11-12               

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Ever Feel Like This?"

Do you ever just wish for more?

 Some things just have to go…once you start growing up, that is.  If you are not careful you can wish your life away!  Just suppose you had a chance for just one wish.  The most important wish in your life.

What would that wish be?

 In life we have things we hope for, things we desire and dream about, things we crave…  Even kings and queens have wishes like we do.  Wouldn’t you think that a king could have anything…just by taking it?  Look at King Saul, King David, King Solomon, Queen of Sheba…they all wished for things they couldn’t just take. Each of these “wished for” good things, bad things, irrational things, not to mention impossible and unreasonable things that were all unfulfilled desires.

 t seems to be programmed into our DNA.  We see it with Eve in the Garden of Eden! Some of us wish we were taller, shorter, healthier, stronger, thinner, smarter, wittier, richer, younger, more sparkling and vivacious…  The wish sometimes comes with lust for power and position. We have been told that “If you wish it, it will happen!” (Disney-Pinocchio-a real boy! The song, “When You Wish upon a Star…”)   Of course, we know this is untrue!  It is great in animation, but unrealistic in real life.

 Sometimes we wish we could “fudge on the truth” and get away with it.  We can’t!  Sometimes we wish ill on someone when we are mistreated.  The usual result is a case of guilt!  With all the self-help books available, it is clearly evident that we all have a built in “wisher”, full of personal desires.

 Contentment is realizing that God has provided everything thing that I need for my present happiness. (I Tim. 6: 8)   Our desires determine the choices we make.  We are controlled by them. “The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.” (George Eliot)  Paul said, “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, to be content.” (Phil. 4: 11)  “Genuine contentment is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it.”  (G.K.Chesterton)  

Most people are about as content as they make up their mind to be!

 How do you find yourself today?

 Content?  In harmony with His desires?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Dimmed Vision"

As women, we face daily the threat of being derailed from our calling and designed purpose. As moms, we face the same fate of a dimmed vision and a protracted destiny.  We fight to maintain our goal and the priorities it takes to reach our intentional target and we carry the responsibility of those “little feet” energetically following us.

“You may never abuse your children,  or turn them out on the street or fail to feed and clothe them, but the viewpoint of the current generation may have left its mark on your mothering with loss of vision, absence of conviction, compromise, self-centeredness, lack of commitment,  self-pity, laziness, frequent parental absence or pre-occupation with your own interests, activities and concerns…”

 Here are five non-exhaustive questions that will keep the vision for our heritage alive:

 1.     Will my child look back at life and say, “my mother was a godly woman who walked in the light”, obedient to and living by scriptural truth?” II Pet. 1:3

2.      Did she read and study me “like a book” and purpose to build godly character in me? “We are known and read by all men”.  II Cor. 2: 2

3.     Did she enable me to see my purpose in life by learning to hear the voice of God and encouraging me to walk in it?

4.     Did she teach me to redeem the time and use it wisely…because time is short?

5.     Did she train me to walk with biblical conviction, accepting rejection from peers and the world as standard?

 These five basic questions will reveal your current effectiveness as a mom. Your dedication to the preparation of your heritage and the equipping of them to enter a tumultuous world is key.  I watched my two daughters grow and marry and give me grandchildren.  I am currently watching those seven grandchildren graduate from college, get married and fly away!  I am held responsible until the third or fourth generation…

 Are we keeping the vision connected to our calling

(as a Mom, Grand-mom , Aunt…) or has our vision dimmed?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "The Silent Cry"

     “…and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power to grasp

           how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love

           surpasses knowledge…”  Ephesians 3: 18

If you are struggling this morning in some way

that you do not understand…this blog is for you…

 Recently, a stranger placed in my hand a small book written by Amy Carmichael (a missionary to India 1867-1951).  Immediately, upon hearing her name, a vivid memory came knocking at the door of my heart.    

 While we were in Boot Camp in Fredonia (make that "Freeze-don't ya"), Wisconsin!), preparing for missionary service I became so sick that I wasn't sure we would be able to finish the course.  Yet, my husband and I knew God had brought us this far.  There was a tribe, deep in the rain forest of Panama that had never heard the name of Jesus Christ and they were waiting for someone to come and bring His Name to them.

 We had been seeking local medical help for over two months.  I was in my first trimester with our first child.  My physical symptoms were severe, I had lost six weeks of missionary training and I was lost in my understanding of it all when diagnosed with an unyielding case of pneumonia!  The infection was suffocating my compromised lung and I would have to take a drug that could adversely affect my unborn child!  The choice was my recovering or possibly both of us not going full term!  I was confused and consumed by fear.  

 Have you ever been there?

Faced with impossible decisions and lost in your imaginations?

 At this juncture of my journey, someone gave me a quote of Amy Carmichael that stopped me in my tracks and I realized I had the concept of my Father's love and means of communication to me all wrong!   

 “If I cannot catch the ‘sound of the rain’ long before the rain falls, and going to some hilltop of the spirit, as near to my God as I can, have not faith to wait there with my face between my knees, though six times or sixty times I am told ‘there is nothing’ till at last ‘there arises a little cloud out of the sea’ then I know nothing of Calvary love!"

   I Kings 18: 41 says, “And Elijah said to Ahab, ‘Go, eat and drink, for there

Is the sound of heavy rain’.  So, Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah

climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face

between his knees.  “Go and look toward the sea”, he told his servant.

And he went up and looked.  “There is nothing there’, he said.  Seven times

Elijah said, ‘Go back!’  The seventh time the servant reported, ‘A cloud as

  small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea’…The sky grew black with

clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain came…’”

 I felt a little like Elijah may have felt when he was in danger for his life. Why didn’t I understand?  I should, shouldn’t I?  I was a missionary candidate (soon to be deployed!), I had spent a year at the University of Arizona, 4 years of Bible School, 2 yrs. of Boot Camp and Language School...I was completely committed to God with everything I knew, in all the light I had …But God always has much to teach me about Himself. I waited for Him at the front door of my heart and He silently entered through the back door and shattered my concept of Him and His promises!  He came with new light, new peace and new understanding of His divine nature. I re-focused, solely, on the author and finisher of my faith…

 “There are times when something comes into our lives which is charged with love in such a way that it seems to open the Eternal to us for a moment...it may be a small and intimate touch, as the touch of the dawn wind or it may be the pain experienced in the storm of life along the way... But we know it is our Lord.  And then perhaps the room where we are, with its books and furniture and flowers, seem less ‘present’ than His presence, and the heart is drawn into His sweetness… Can we ever cease to wonder at the love of our companion?  And then suddenly we recognize our Lord holding us in a new way?  Dimness seems to be more wholesome for us here...not understood by us.  After all, how little we see!    Confounded and abased, we continue to hold fast to the Rock and hide in the dust, before the glory of the Majesty of love--the love whose symbol is the Cross.  

And the piercing question then:  What do I know of Calvary love?”

 I am praying for you, this morning, for your sensing the whisper of His Presence in that "cloud out of the sea" in a new way and for the power of His healing.

 Have a great week!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.