Posted on 07.18.2024
Miss Betty: A Life Well Lived - Soapbox Jr.
On the morning of July 18, 2024, I returned to World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro for the first funeral since Dad’s on July 10, 2020.
I have attended WOC many times since Dad’s funeral, but this was the first funeral there since 2020, so there was a lot of emotion for Mom and me, but that’s not what this soapbox is about, it’s about a very special lady who touched literally thousands of lives.
On July 16, 2024, Miss Betty Jackson went home to be with the Lord after eighty-eight years on earth, or to put it in the words of my friend Bill Wolfenbarger, she “changed addresses.” She is survived by her husband of sixty-eight years, George, their three sons, Allen, Phillip, and Doyle and their wives, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Betty was a dear friend of the Daniels family, and her son, Allen, is the senior pastor of World Outreach, where we attend. He and his wife, Kathy are also dear friends of ours.
I probably met Betty when Dad performed at WOC’s Easter services at MTSU’s Murphy Center, but I didn’t truly meet her until the time we traveled to Israel in 2008.
But again, this is not my story, or even Dad’s story, this is about Betty and the Jackson family.
In 1965, at the age of twenty-nine, Betty and George received devastating news after she gave birth to her youngest son, she had cancer, and doctors gave her six months to live.
Their world was turned upside down, it was no doubt a frightening time for the Jacksons. Not satisfied with the death sentence she has been handed, they sought the help of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and Betty was scheduled for pretty radical surgery in the mid-1960s.
Betty and George were churchgoers, but not true Christ followers - as Pastor Allen is known to say, “Sitting in church doesn’t make you a Christ follower anymore than standing in a garage makes you an automobile. But on the flight heading to the Mayo Clinic, in desperation, Betty prayed a simple prayer for knowledge.
She prayed that if there was a God to let her know the truth before she died so that she could relay that knowledge to her children so that they would know the right path to walk.
They arrived at Mayo and she underwent more tests and scans. Late that evening, a doctor came to her hospital room, and asked where her husband was staying in Rochester, and she didn’t know yet, but Betty, being a remarkably strong-willed woman, insisted on knowing what he was going to tell George.
They gave her the news that they couldn’t find the masses, the tumors and the lumps that were on the X-rays she brought with her to Mayo. Follow-up tests were performed by five different departments, and the doctors didn’t have an explanation, other than she was one of the “lucky ones” and told her to go home, raise her babies and live her life.
It was a miracle, pure and simple. Hallelujah!
So, everything was okay now, life goes on, right?
Well, not exactly.
A little while later, Betty heard a voice, whether audible, or internal that said, “You wanted to know the truth, I am the way, the truth and the life.” And she knew it was Jesus. She and George soon both yielded their lives to Him and went to the house of their Sunday school teacher, knelt and accepted Christ right there in his living room, and not long after that, they were baptized in the Holy Spirit.
They moved to Rutherford County, TN and George opened a veterinary clinic for horses and the family settled into a farm in Murfreesboro.
Their newfound passion for Jesus led the Jacksons to open their home for a Bible study which in 1980 became the seeds of World Outreach Church, a rather grandiose name for a church meeting in a hotel with less than thirty people, however, the Jacksons prayed, and the Lord blessed them and the tiny church grew, and continues to grow to this day.
In 1981, the church purchased some land for a future building that they would eventually outgrow and in 1988, Allen moved into the senior pastor role, so they added on two more sanctuaries in 2001, followed by another in 2009 and now a fifth -an outdoor facility – is in the works today to accommodate the over 15,000 who regularly attend services there.
George and Betty didn’t just sit back and pat themselves on the back for what they helped accomplish, for many years, they spent roughly six months a year in Jerusalem helping translate Christian writings to Hebrew.
By virtue of the prayers that led her and her family to Christ, Miss Betty continued to be a formidable prayer warrior throughout her life. She wanted to hear your testimony, she wanted to pray with you, she genuinely cared.
It’s almost a cliché to say that the Lord works in mysterious ways, but had it not been for a devastating diagnosis, Betty and George would have most likely lived a quiet life, raised their sons the best they could, and made little impact on other people’s lives, but instead, her cancer diagnosis has helped lead thousands of souls to Jesus because they yielded to Jesus, and wanted to live as He lived, being a humble servant.
God will upend the path you think you’re better off walking. To quote a song by Donnie and Johnny Van Zant, “If you wanna hear God laugh, tell him your plans.”
His plans are always better than ours, we just have to step out of control and let Him take over.
Betty Jackson’s faith changed lives and continues to do so. Two of her sons are full-time pastors, so they are continuing what George and Betty started in a humble Bible study.
Rest in paradise, Miss Betty. We will do our best to follow your example of prayer and faith until we see you again.
What do you think?
Let’s all make the day count!
Pray for our troops, our police, the Peace of Jerusalem and our nation.
God Bless America!
#SonyReleaseHonkyTonkAve
#BenghaziAintGoingAway #End22
“There’s some things in this world you just can’t explain.” – Charlie Daniels 1980
What do you think?
Let’s all make the day count!
Pray for our troops, our police, the Peace of Jerusalem and our nation.
God Bless America!
#SonyReleaseHonkyTonkAve
#BenghaziAintGoingAway #End22
- Charlie Daniels Jr.
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