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March 2002 Table of Contents
From My Heart To Yours
God Of The Crisis... And The Tan Thread
By Jackie Evans
 Most of the time when we see friends the first question asked is, "How are you?" and the answer is usually, "I'm great, how are you?" Well, we're not always 'great' but we put on our 'happy face' and hide whatever hurts we have behind this mask. Well, I'm going to pull my mask down and share with you a very difficult situation we found ourselves in about this time last year. I want you to know it is a difficult thing to do. I also want to emphasize that this is not to evoke any type of sympathetic feelings for J & J; quite the contrary. I just want to convey to you what a great and awesome, all-powering God we serve.
About June of last year, we began to realize that J & J was in serious financial trouble; more serious than I can ever remember in the history of the company. Unless we could obtain quite a bit of cash, we did not have much hope of surviving. Jerry called our banker, met with him, told him the amount we thought we needed and his response was that he felt he could do even better than the figure for which we had asked. We were elated since that is not the usual reply from a bank concerning lending money and we began to think this was going to be much easier than we had anticipated; a 'piece of cake'.
Conferences began in June and ran through July and the bank meetings also began. As we were trying to run the conferences, Jerry was in constant contact with the bank several times a week with no relief from them. Each committee that met had to send it to a higher committee it seemed. Kirk was experiencing at least three serious migraines a week trying to keep the office running with relatively little operating funds and Jerry and I were trying to keep the conferences going on a shoestring budget. Needless to say, 'the mask' was plastered tightly on our faces. We felt an obligation to all of you to do the best we could but inside we were quietly dying. Most days we felt as if we were treading water as fast as we could to keep our nose just enough above the water to keep us from drowning.
Finally, after about 6 or 8 weeks, our answer came from the bank... we were too high a risk for them. Aren't banks wonderful? They will do anything for you and be your best friend as long as you don't really need them! (In truth, I couldn't be angry with our banker because I knew that, for whatever reason, this was also God's decision) We began to search other options, few though they were, and one was our house which was almost paid for. I had asked Jerry early on to just please protect our house. I think for a woman, or maybe just me, a house is security. Knowing that there is somewhere to come home to each night makes everything better and knowing that I may have to give that up really frightened me. Well, guess what? The house went on the line... big time! Jerry and I began to have serious discussions of what we would do if we had to close the doors on J &anp; J. This began to seem a real possibility. At 60 years of age, there just aren't many places beating the doors down for your services! And what about Kirk, who had left a good job and a great church in Brandon FL to bring Shanda and their two children to Mobile to join us? Then there are all of the great people who work with us that would immediately be without jobs. I just kept telling Jerry that I didn't think God would call us into this ministry to shut us down like this. I know we haven't done everything right but I can honestly say with a clear conscience that I think we have tried to honor Him with J & J.
A thought came to me about this time. Summer is always rough in our business but the fall picks up with the Christmas buying season and here we were. We had somehow made it to the end of summer. Did God plan for us to struggle through, day-by-day, and weather this death without immediate financial relief? Did He plan all along to bring us up from the pits of despair one day at a time and let us weather the worst of the storm without the bank's help so we would not have a tremendous amount of money to repay? It sure looked that way to me; simple minded that I am! I'm here to tell you that is just what happened. Through the days of summer when we thought every day that the next day would surely be the last day we could be operable, God allowed us to work out financial planning that kept us from going into a debt that we did not need.
I want you to know we are not out of the woods even a year later but, thanks be and all praise and glory to God, we are not out of business either! I never cease to be amazed and am very humbled that such a great God would look down on this earth, point his finger at J& J and say, "I see you and you are worth salvaging. I have more work for you to do for me."
Now about the tan thread. What I've just told you, I wouldn't wish on anyone... ever! But God is faithful and that's precisely what I wanted you to know. This was such a huge situation to us; the mountain that seemingly could not be moved. But God is also our God in things that are so small we almost miss them and that's where the tan thread comes in.
I can count on two fingers the times a year that I have to sew a button on for Jerry. It almost never happens but as we were packing for the Houston conference, he had two shirts that needed a button replaced. One had black buttons and the other had tan buttons. I picked up the tan thread to sew a button on that shirt first. When I finally found my needle, it already had quite a bit of black thread in it so I put the tan thread down and replaced the black buttons first. I hate to thread needles (could it be because I can't see well???) so I always use a longer than necessary thread when I do. I threaded enough tan thread to sew buttons on quite a few shirts and when I finished this one button on Jerry's shirt, I just wrapped the thread around the needle and put it in my travel bag. Little did I know at that time, but discovered the next Sunday, that the blouse I was to wear to church had every button hanging by a thread. All of them had to be re-sewn and can you guess what color the buttons were? You got it; TAN! I NEVER carry tan thread, only black. If something needs mending and it's not black, I look for the duck tape. I once hemmed an entire skirt with duck tape! So you see, God also takes care of even the smallest details in our lives.
The hymn, "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" has a renewed meaning to me since last summer. I love the words…"...ALL I have needed Thy hand hath provided... Great is Thy faithfulness... Lord unto ME!"
Grateful for His Faithfulness!
Jackie
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