Proof that God’s Love Doesn’t Fail

“Everything I knew about love was abandonment, rejection, and pain.” Jackie Turner grew up afraid. As a child, she was passed around from relatives to foster care and back again. She recalls, “I felt desperate as a kid, desperate to get out of bad situations, desperate to be loved. But love never seemed to come. Locked closets, beatings, starvations, and things like that told me I was worthless.”

The only stable place she knew was church. She says, “That was my one place of hope. I got to hear the songs of Jesus. And I got to hear about His love. I got to hear like just these songs that were so powerful to my soul, even as a child. And then I would hear about a God that showed up. It was just like, if you can set them free, at some point you're going to come for me too.”

Jackie prayed often for God to rescue her. By the time she reached her teens, she’d had enough of waiting. Jackie recalls, “I felt angry, and I felt confused. I didn't want to exist. And to get to that point, it's just like that feeling that nothing's ever going to change. No one's going to show up, not even Jesus. I decided I was either going to get out of it or I was going to end my life. And those were the only two choices I had.”

So, she started running away. When Jackie was 16, a bus station security guard gave her a movie ticket. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was playing, so Jackie decided to go. It wasn’t at all what she expected. She says, “There was something in me still wanting God more than anything. It was like, ‘Okay, I made it out, Jesus. Now, show up.’ I go into this movie theater to see The Passion of the Christ, and I actually ended out cussing out Jesus. I remember just thinking, like, ‘If you're not going to save yourself, how can you save me? If you're not going to take yourself down from that cross, how can you protect me?’" As Jackie stormed out of the theater, she says God spoke to her. Jackie recalls, “It was like He was speaking in every cell in my body. And He was just like, ‘Jackie, I want you to go and tell them about the love that comes through suffering.’ And that caused a full-on cuss-out to Jesus. I was like, ‘No more. Nope.’ That was like the day of pure rebellion, where I was like, ‘I'm done with you.’”

Jackie began running the streets, stealing, and hanging out with gang bangers, always holding people at arm’s length. At eighteen, she enlisted in the army but was arrested for robbery before she made it to basic training. She recalls, “I didn't care who was hurt. I didn't care about anyone's feelings or emotions. I was angry with God. I was pure angry with God because I was like, here I am finally free from the cage, but I was still in one.”

Jackie served 8 months in jail. After her release, she was homeless, and her anger turned inward. She began cutting and, later, attempted suicide. At twenty years old, Jackie was tired of life. She says, “Every single time I would try to make something better, it got worse. And I was just tired of feeling defeated. I just felt like pretty much invisible. If I was gonna be alive, I desperately wanted God to prove Himself. I needed Him to show me something different. I needed Him to build my trust up again. I needed him to show me that He does protect, and that He does keep His Word, and love doesn't fail.”

Looking for answers, Jackie found a Christian ministry that referred her to a Bible-based program for at-risk young people. There, she received the mentoring and spiritual understanding she needed. Jackie recalls, “That was probably the turning point of my life. I went in there feeling lost, terrified, and abandoned. I felt like it was the first time I felt my heartbeat again. I felt loved by people that didn't hurt me and actually showed me God's love, what God's love really was and is. And because of that, it melted the hardness around my own heart and caused me to trust that God really does have people out here that will show us a love that doesn't fail us. It was like these chains, like this heaviness just ripped off of me.” 

There, Jackie spent two weeks, immersing herself in the Bible and seeking God. One morning, as she walked around the lake, Jackie says she gave her life to Christ. She recalls, “I just remember, like, ‘God, here's my everything. You gotta show me something more. I need you to be like my father, and I need you to show up in some ways, and I need you – Jesus, I need you to come into my heart.’ I felt joy like I had never felt before. It's like the first time I took a breath. He took me from utter despair, anger, frustration, loneliness, depression, He took me from all of that and just led me to a place where I felt peace and hope, excitement about life instead of just frustration about life. He definitely led me to knowing what it is to be loved by Him as a father, and even comforted.”

Jackie put herself through community college and went on to earn her bachelor’s degree and then a master’s in pastoral ministry. Today, she’s an ordained minister, known as Jackie-the-street-preacher because she confidently shares the love of Christ with those who are hurting.

She says, “I used to view Him as one who wouldn't keep His promises. And now I'm living out every single day in His promises. Being His child, I have come to recognize that He shows up for me with comfort, with love, with rescue, with grace, with hope. And I know he can do it for you too.”