Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - My Father's Journey of Faith [Featuring George Jackson]

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

After years of wrestling with identity, purpose, and personal trials, it became clear that God was writing a narrative for George Jackson (Pastor Allen's father) far beyond human understanding. While he was pursuing a career as a veterinarian, God’s voice grew louder, directing their family toward the church, people, and service. Time and time again, it was God who made a way—whether through miraculous healing, financial breakthrough, or the strength to endure personal loss and disappointment. This podcast contains not just a story—but an example of God's faithfulness and His power to transform an ordinary life into something extraordinary.More Information:An Extraordinary Life: https://store.allenjackson.com/purchase/bk130228__ It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

Welcome to culture and Christianity. You know the goal by now. How do we take our faith outside of a worship service and a church building and actually give expression to that in the midst of our culture? If you haven't noticed, there is a great need for that. The biblical worldview seems to be evaporating from the fabric that has held us together as a people. If that process continues, we'll lose our freedom. We're already losing freedom of speech. We're losing what we need in our educational systems. We've got to bring that biblical world. of you back, thus this podcast. Father's Day is just around the corner, and I had the privilege for this one of sitting down with my dad. My mom went to heaven last summer, so every time I get to

have a visit with my dad, it seems more precious to me than it ever has. And he was willing to let me ask him questions about his journey. I think you'll find it helpful, hopefully encouraging. But I think in the context of where we're living, it's a critical component. One of the greatest needs right now I think we face is for godly men, godly husbands, and godly fathers. And the voices coming at us make that extraordinarily confusing. You know, the Tony Awards just recently taken place, and they celebrated someone who received their award in drag, and there's a thunderous ovation. and it's confusing. Riley Gaines, as we're doing this, is in the news, in the debate with an Olympic gymnast

over the appropriateness of Riley's attitudes towards transgender sports. I mean, we have lost our balance. It's like we are morally, we are dizzy and we are staggering. And it's because we have taken our biblical worldview and put it away. You know, I've quoted it before, but Solzhenitsyn several years ago, now in a very public lecture series made the statement that the reason Russia came upon all of the hard time and the millions of deaths that came as a result of communism and linen and Stalin, and those who followed them came to him from an old Russian grandmother.

She said, we have forgotten God. And we're at a crossroads right now. And I'm not talking about our secular culture or our politicians. I mean, those of us that go to churches. will we return God to a preeminent place in our lives, in our marriages, in our families, in our homes? If we will do that, God will write us a new future, and I'm confident he will bless America again. If we continue to relegate God to some secondary or tertiary place in our lives, our children will live under the cruelty of authoritarianism. And this isn't some long-term, folks.

it is upon us. And the good news is I think the outcome really rises and falls in the hands of the church. So I'm excited today that you get to listen to me, talk to my dad. I learned some things. I was amazed at his candor, and he's agreed for part two. So if enough of you will watch this and share it and like it and we get enough views, I'll get permission to do volume two. It's Father's Day just around the corner.

If you're not in the habit, pause and thank God for your father. Dads aren't perfect. Kids don't come with an instruction manual, and if they did, the men wouldn't read it. You know that. So there aren't any perfect dads. But we all needed a dad in order to be a part of this story. And whether yours was good or bad, whether you think he was great or awful, if you'll thank God for that person that God chose for your father,

it will bring the blessing of God to your life. So I think you'll enjoy the discussion with my dad, and I'll be back with Volume 2. Well, you know, this is a treat for me. I have my father, and I have cameras rolling and microphones on, and I get to ask the questions. I'm not sure in all my years I've had this opportunity, so welcome to the podcast. Well, we may cancel it right now. That would be in keeping. You know, a lot of people know you from around the church, or maybe they read your book at Extraordinary Life,

but there's a lot of the story that's not in the book, and that they don't have time for in the greetings that would come with the normal interaction at church. So I want to see if we can tell a little bit of the story. You're not a beginner. No, I've been at this a while. I don't know if you want the full disclosure or not, but I've been at it many, many years. 80 passed me a long time ago.

And it's been a journey with a lot of different chapters to it, you know. I've been a part of the story from where than 60 years. And I know those chapters. And I think to me, one of the part that is the most extraordinary is the way God has given different segments to your life. Yeah, I can look back now, and I was talking to someone the other day, and I can see now, which you couldn't see when it was happening, people that were our friends at the time were getting to know us, and that influenced decisions they made later on in their life, 20 years, 25 years later in our life. As they got to know us through the years, they changed the way they saw us and where they were

willing to trust us and use our lives to their benefit. I'm going to excavate a little bit more than that. You were in the funeral business. Oh, yeah. Right, funeral director, got an embalmer's license. I have a Missouri funeral director embalmers license, yes. Actually, my grandfather was, and then he sent my dad to school. He was.

My biological mother had a funeral director's license, and so really my great grandfather wasn't licensed, but he owned part of a funeral home in a little town in Missouri. Okay. So there was a time in your life, including professional training, where you fully expected to spend your professional life in the funeral business. Right. Well, when I came out of high school, I didn't know what to do, and I just went to a junior college, played basketball,

not knowing what to do, and all was left that I knew was to go to embalming school. so I did it following junior college. And then there's a whole other chapter of your life that opened when you decided you were interested in veterinary medicine. That really came about because of your mother, Betty. That's who my mom. Good, okay.

Yeah, well, we found out about that. She was, I was working in the funeral business, and she had a job working, and her brother, was going to the Missouri University to be a veterinarian, and all they had was the GI Bill. And she would go up sometimes on the weekend and both help them in their home and help them financially. And then in the process, I became aware of what he was doing. And when I would go up to visit, it set a flame off in me. Coincidentally. Yeah. Yeah, well, I wasn't planning

thinking about what he was doing, but when I went and saw what he was learning, what he was doing, I saw what was inside of me brought together the significant areas in my life. Well, you know, in retrospect, I'm so much smarter in hindsight, but you can see the hand of God

writing you a different future. Yeah. Because there's people listening, and the future isn't as clear as you want it to be. But there is a certain amount of confidence, faith that you expressed in the Lord, because your faith was marginal at that point. You went to the church on the weekends, but it wasn't a particularly vibrant part of your life. So you go to vet school in Columbia.

Yeah. I was 24 years old when we went back, and you were a two-year-old. Yeah, I can start to remember some of that. Yeah. And there was the spiritual life was where it had always been dead. I tried it 14 one time to go forward at a camp and get something that the man had talked about. But there was no one there to give me directions or anything. So I went another 15 years before there was someone.

But you can see, like you say, We followed a path that we weren't smart enough to do on our own. Right. But there's a, there's a, I've done enough of these conversations with people now. Every life has, there's a theme that comes through and that people have to overcome. It's just not easy. It's not as simple as you would like it to be for anybody. And a part of your story, an important part of your story was your mom, your biological mom.

You mentioned that earlier. She died when you were very young. I was just born. She died before I was two weeks old. And they didn't understand it at the time, but I think somebody will be interested in what happened to her and how she contracted it. Well, yeah, that is part of a story, I guess, when you look at it,

my mom was a school teacher before she was married and after she was married. And then she was at a store one day and there was a little boy with a puppy in his hand. and she went over to pet the puppy, talk to the boy. And this was way back in ages before antibiotics. And he had an infection, what they called scarlet fever. It was a coxie infection.

And from that, then 10 days later, she had the disease, and she also had a little boy. And so I was never really able to be held by my mother. or anything because she had the disease fulminate in her life at the time I was born. So you were about two weeks old when she passed away? That's what I was. So her parents, your grandparents, had a real significant role in your life? Well, my father soon, after my mother had passed away, he'd grown up with no father. His father died and he was seven.

He grew up as a foster child, so he really had no background as to how to be a father. And with the pressure of where he was, he left Missouri, where I was born, and went to Portland, Oregon, where his family was. And so my grandparents raised me to Las Fast, too. So they functioned and gave me those basic things. I happened to be looking through some old pictures yesterday, and I can show you something when I was three months old, and they took good care of me. Well, again, I think, though, there's one of the themes, and as I look back on it, is the faithfulness of God. No question.

There was somebody there. Your mother passed away, but there was somebody to step into the breach in that two-year window that's as critical as any two-year window, who loved you well. Well, it was my grandparents that gave me a, even though they had a position in the town, and he was the funeral director, and he always had a little farm. And that's where I got the background that helped me get accepted into vet school when they knew my background, because he always had a cow or two. And from the time I was six, he rented a post school. when I was six years old to see if I would like it.

I always had a pony. Well, I wanted to tell that story because I think it's critical. We mentioned when you made the transition from the funeral business, which was a family business, and you had some emotional connections to that, to your grandparents, and you made the decision to go to vet school. In that window of transition, right in there is when, your grandfather passed away. Well, yeah, my grandmother first.

And in fact, the day, while we're talking with people real life, the day she passed away, you spent most the day laying on a couch by her. Yeah, I remember that day. He died six weeks later. So I was in vet school, and you and mom, stayed and took care of getting the state ready for us to settle it up a year later. So it was a lot of activity. And again, you know, the comment we made a few moments ago was it was another one of those

coincidences how you got exposed to veterinary medicine and got opened that door. Right. But it was also a season where there was a lot to overcome. Oh, yeah. With the loss of your grandparents, you were in a way orphaned. They were more parents and grandparents. Because your dad remarried. You had a step-mom.

You had two half-brothers. But your grandparents were always an anchor for you. Right. I spent the summers there usually two months out of the summer. And I would spend Thanksgiving, Christmas. I would spend there and clear up to the... I'd always spend my free time there. I had two lives.

But before you were 30 years. years of age, you've got several chapters in the story of your life, the loss of a mother, living with your grandparents, being taken out of that setting back into a setting with a stepmom. Right. Then you start a career, and then you change careers. You lose your grandparents pretty early in their life and yours. And yet in the midst of all that, from this vantage point, we can see God's fingerprints on it all. Yeah, it was, there were so many little junctures that looked in my life

where I would try and find some spiritual reality, but it never came through on a personal basis until after I'd become a veterinarian, we moved to Florida. Don't get ahead of me. Okay. But we, I just, different times, just, I remember my grandparents when they went back to church, and I would see my grandfather serving communion,

just little things that were spiritual motivators in my life, not to give up. And in the midst of that, you went to a, when you were a teenager, you mentioned it a minute ago. You had an experience with the Lord. Well, yeah, like I said, different times I would try and make a step forward. And I always attended the youth functions at the particular church we went to, but there never came a significant spiritual change. And that time when I was down Fayetteville, Arkansas, and at a summer camp,

I was on a Friday night. I was sitting at the back with a bunch of young people my age. Hooligans. Yeah. Well, there were a lot of good-looking girls back there, and so I thought I'd try and keep them safe. And so the man said something that I arose and went clear to the front, and whatever he said, by that time in my life,

I was making all of my spending money, and I emptied my pocket on the altar, whatever you want to call it, the front of the church. I wanted to give all that I had, whatever he'd said. But there was no adult there to communicate anything with me, to complete whatever he'd said. So I got up off my knees and went to the back of the church and went back home.

The pastor recognized something happened or someone told him because we left camp then on a Saturday morning, went back home, and on Sunday after the service, he asked two or three of the young people that had been at camp to come down to the front of the church. But once again, looking back now, all those years, the people file by. shook my hand. And I mean, no one communicated anything meaningful to me. And I think that may be an effect in my life now where I'm a little forward, maybe sometimes with people, but I communicate with them. I communicate with them.

But I think that's the traditional approach to our faith. It's almost like you've joined a club. Right. Civic club. You've decided to be a good person. But in the midst of that God still walks you forward, we got all the way to Columbia and back to vet school. Right. You started that process with a little boy, I was two.

By the time you graduated five years. Five years later. You had to do an undergraduate year before you did vet school. Right. So five years later, now you've got three boys. Right. And as a part of graduating from vet school, you've got to wrap that up by taking the board, state boards, national boards. Right, took the National Award there.

And mom's going to give birth to the youngest of the three boys. And that's where the cancer diagnosis emerged. Correct. Which it would be a significantly different diagnosis in 1965 than it is today. Right. I mean, they really had, there was no consideration of therapy of any kind. It was surgery, and that was all there was. So the surgery was more dramatic than we're accustomed to today.

Right. There wasn't, you didn't do radiation, there was no chemotherapy, there was no immune therapy, all the things today that were part of the dialogue, weren't issues on the table. So you had two little boys at home, a brand new baby boy. You're finishing vet school trying to sit for national exams. Already scheduled and planned to move 1,200 miles to Miami, Florida. You had a job lined up. Had a job.

And a cancer diagnosis emerges. It's significant to me in this larger story, the death of your mom, the trauma that comes from who's going to raise the child to stepmom, from the funeral business to veterinary school, you're about to get across the finish line in vet school, and mom's diagnosed with cancer. Right. With a diagnosis of six months' probability is what they told her. Right.

And cancer really wasn't going to resolve that. It was just going to delay it if we tell the whole truth. Yeah. Now, I've made fun of you on platforms around the world. The doctors in Columbia, Missouri, where you were, wanted to do surgery the next. She had a C-section, and they wanted to do surgery. the next day? Yeah, they were going to a C-section on the day

the Dole's birth was scheduled, and the next morning they would do a bilateral mastectory. Same time. So that's an enormous amount of surgery in a 48-hour window. Yeah. There was a reason for it. The hormonal changes that come at birth would make the cancer spread more rapidly.

And so, I mean, at that time, it was the best standard procedure, perhaps. Right. But your response is the one I've made fun of. You said, I hope you said it. I've said it all over the world. I did it. I said it to your mother.

That's the part that took some courage. What was your response? Well, I want to tell something. Well, I'll tell that. When the doctors, I had two doctors come and stand at the door of her room. One was her OBGYN, and the other one was the general surgeon who would do the mass. psychotomy following the C-section. And they stood in the door and they rehearsed the things you and I have talked about,

the seriousness of it, the immediacy of it, the prognosis with it. And they stood there and there was a lot of pressure on me with where I was because actually I had sat for the national boards and finished. finished them and then came over to the hospital to see mom that evening before the C-section the next morning. And then I had these two doctors grill me like they did. And when I got through with listening to them, I said, I've made a decision. She'll have the C-section, but she won't have the mastectomy. We'll take time to see about that. And when they left, I was I told, Mom, I said, I wouldn't do that to an old cow.

It was too much trauma. It was the best I knew. But before I came to the hospital, the thing I do want to, where you keep saying how God worked in my life when I was ignorant, I'd gone by after the doctors talked to me, I went back, which vet school was out, two and a half blocks from the hospital. I walked back to the hospital, and I went in to see Dr. Ebert, who was like a grandfather to you. He was one of your professors in his school. Yeah, he was the head of the clinics.

And I sat down in his office, told him this story. And Dr. Ebert was a fairly quiet man anyway. And he swiveled around in his chair, looked out the window, pointed his finger, and he said, George, there's someone bigger than us. It's all he said to me. He didn't say, do it or don't do it. But I knew what to do. So when I walked two and a half blocks back to the hospital, I made my decision.

I knew. But you and Mom were in agreement on that. It wasn't some dictatorial. No, I wasn't putting pressure. She was wide open and wanted my input. She was in a desperate place. Very desperate. So the C-section was okay.

Yeah, went fine. Healthy baby boy, number three. We couldn't help what he looked like. He happens to be here today for this, so I'm going to be careful. He's in the room. And then you scheduled a trip to Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Yeah, well, actually, what happened? We went home.

They let us out of the hospital. Back then, they kept you for a full... seven, eight days because little boys, they went by the Jewish law, and at the end of the eighth day, they did the circumcision. And so they kept you in the hospital until the eighth day, did the circumcision, sent you home. We went home that day from the hospital. My mother, my stepmother, called Betty to see about her. Well, when she talked to her on the phone, Mom said, Betty, you don't sound like yourself.

What is it? And Betty told her what the doctors had said. And Mom immediately hung up. She said, I'll call you back. She immediately hung up, which Mom didn't think anything about it. And my stepmother called Mayo Clinic. My dad had been there with heart conditions up in Rochester. At that time, there was only Rochester Mayos.

And they made an appointment for us to go to Mayo Clinic for an examination and a prognosis and everything then. And I don't remember what day, but I know we got on an airplane within 48 hours and flew to Rochester. And you stayed with my grandparents, I think, is where we scattered the three boys around. You spread us around. And you went to Rochester, and it was on that plane ride where mom said that prayer that's been repeated so often. Yeah. I was reading lamenesses and horses. That's where I was.

Right. And she prayed the prayer, if there is a God, let me know the truth before I die. Because at that point in time, we had a six-month window to figure out how to handle everything. we were all confused about how to handle. Three boys moving, starting into practice. But I think it's noteworth. That didn't come from a, that wasn't a prayer informed by faith or scripture or experience. We couldn't have found a Bible probably if you gave us five minutes to go find a Bible in the house.

But you were the youth leaders in the church were you attended? Yes, yes, we were. For all fairness. You went every week because you made me go. Right. And I couldn't find a way to keep from going. You would insist. I tried.

Yeah, that's what we didn't. So, and I think it's noteworthy, too, that she didn't even pray to be healed. She just asked to know the truth. We didn't imagine that healing. Healing wasn't like a... It wasn't in our vocabulary at all. Wasn't in our background of teaching. We had no scriptural teaching or anything.

Ours was totally dependent upon what the medical profession told us. and we would try and cooperate. So you got the Mayo Clinic, and she checks in, and they start the workup. Now, she went first to find where I was going to go sleep, and we found a house across the street in the hospital in a little basement room where I could spend the night. Airbnbs aren't new folks. There was a time when people stayed in people's homes,

and you paid for a room. Yeah. It's just now we use the Internet to do it. And I did the best thing that I knew as a husband. I took her downtown to the nicest hotel, and we had a meal. I had a meal by myself. I bought her a meal, but all she did was stir the stuff around. She was so emotionally stressed.

She ate nothing. And we finished playing that game, and we went back to the hospital. I checked her in, and I went across the street. And they did a full workup. She went through all the department. She had a complete physical. But really, before we had the physical, she was in the hospital that first night. And we're telling this story.

And I've been to Mayo Clinic in the 60 years that passed that, I'll see, 50 years, 55. And Mayo Clinic works from 8 in the morning until 5 in the evening. I've been there many times. And that evening, about 9 o'clock, a man in a white lab coat came in and asked her to get out of the bed, and she was so busy with life. And when we left home, she didn't even bring a housecoat. And the lady in the adjoining bed loaned her her housecoat.

And she went down the hallway with this, man in the white coat, and he discussed her condition, did just a general physical exam, and he said to her, would it be all right if I called your husband? She said, I don't know how to get a hold of him. We didn't have cell phones. I was going to say, you didn't have your cell phone with you? Not in 1965. And so she said, could you tell me?

and he said, yes, I find no disease in your body. Well, she couldn't get a hold of me that night, and so she started a process of two full days going through, I think, five departments to verify her physical condition, like you would any time at Mayo Clinic. I've been there, and when one department, finishes, they send you to the next one. And when she finished the second day going through the five departments,

and at that time they called me, and the doctors, I think there was two or three there, said to her, we find no disease in your body, go home, take care of your babies. Because she was still healing from a C-section. and at the time we were grateful that she was well. We didn't understand healing or know what happened. And actually, it took us probably 40 years at the shortest to 50 years before we realized what had happened. Not the healing, but the man in the white coat. I've been to Mayo Clinic.

Number one, they're not going to see you at night, and they don't approach it the way that man did. We've believed in angels ever since we understood what happened. God meets you when you aren't even ready for what he's doing. He sent an angel and brought healing. She lived to be 88. She was 20. I see that was your daughter was born in May, so she was still 29.

Leav to be 88. So they missed that diagnosis a little bit. Thank God. Well, yeah. Leading with our faith is often not easy. You know, you're in a business setting. How do you start a conversation? Or you're with family and maybe it's awkward to bring faith forward?

Or maybe it's children and you're not sure how to get to it on their level. We've got a tool that we think will help you. They're conversation cards. They're designed to help you lead with your faith in those different settings. Whether you share them with somebody else or you use them as fuel for your own imagination, I believe with those cards and the help of the Holy Spirit, we can all lead with our faith more effectively. I'm excited about the outcomes.

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It was something, I mean, enormous stress. And God intervened in a way where you didn't even know how to ask. So, and I've got memories for all this now. We were like the Beverly Hillbillies. we loaded up the car. I had a 6-12 trailer with everything we had in. Three boys, a dog. And we head from Columbia, Missouri to Miami, Florida.

Then we weren't Christians yet. We were churched, but we weren't Christians yet. Right. No, no, not at all. So there's a lot of room in that journey for opportunities. So we moved to Miami for you to go to work with an equine practitioner or on the thoroughbred tracks. Right.

You wanted to treat horses. Lamedesses and horses was your specialty. Best place in the world, if that's what you want to do. He was one of, I considered the top five in the nation when I looked over places to work when I got out of school. And, of course, there's something about being in Miami that you reject New York City. So, and it worked out with him. I was able to acquire a position.

But there was more stress when you got there because it was a partnership. Right. And he and his partner decided after many years, they've been partners for 20 years. 20 years. And they decide to dissolve the partnership and your job goes away. Yeah. Three boys, a wife who has some emotional trauma, and your job evaporated. Well, but he found a position that for, I think, two or three months, I worked at

which now it's a big school. Florida Atlantic was just beginning. And I worked there and did some research on a particular disease in horses, equine infection anemia, which now it's all solved and vaccinines. But it was another upset in this schedule because I changed locations with Dr. Tegelin and all of it. I remember the conversations. I was a kid. Okay.

I didn't understand the emotion. I just knew there was a lot of it. Okay, there was. So you get your job sorted out, and because you go to the Methodist Church come hell or high water. That was George. You're back in church every weekend. But just another coincidence, you happened to coincidentally have a Sunday school teacher that you thought was a little different in a good way. line pilot. Well, and I think

in looking at that long story, Bud recognized in us something that in his class on Sunday mornings that there was a hunger for something we didn't have because he told us that. When he talked to us later, he said, I saw there was a hunger in you that, and so he invited

us, we thought it was, you. just a cordial, kind invitation. He invited us to come by his home after we finished church. And so we did. He lived up in Hollywood Hills. He happened to live on Jackson Street. And we went by his home. And I'd like to let you tell the story there because you had a lot of emphasis that I didn't notice. Yeah. Well, you and Mom went in the man's house. This is in Miami. Right, Hollywood Hill. Uh-huh. And you left three boys, seven and younger, in the car.

If I'd had a cell phone, I'd have turned you in for that. Well, we didn't have them. We survived. But that's when you accepted the Lord. Right. Bud sat down in his living room, and his wife, Dot, came in, and he began to tell us his testimony, how, at the time, the time his dad lived up in Jacksonville and his dad was having a serious heart condition.

And Bud had realized that he might not have his dad very long. And he said he went out to his pickup and he sat down in the car in his truck. And he told the Lord, he said, I want to give you my life. I'll give you everything. and Bud, since he was a little boy, had been fascinated with airplanes. And so he had become not just a pilot, but he was the Czech pilot for national airlines at the time. And he said, I even give you my airplanes. And with that, he came to know the Lord in a way that dramatically transformed his life and his family's life,

which you knew his children too. And so when he'd finished giving us this story of his testimony and what had happened in his life, and of course we had known him for a few weeks just as a Sunday school teacher, and he also had started a Bible study on Monday nights in his home. There was that much change in him. He was going beyond what his denomination had him teaching.

He was teaching on Monday nights. And he said, would you like to do that? Well, mom and I, we were sitting on a couch right by a coffee table, and we both dropped her knees right by the coffee table and said we would. He led us in an audible prayer, acknowledging and confessing Jesus and put him in a rightful place in our lives. And your testimony is better than mine, that I went from what I was to what I became.

Well, there's some noteworthy things about that, I think. You weren't in a church. No. You were in somebody's home. Right. Because when I look, again, from where we stand today, we didn't have the imagination that you had to be in a worship service for spiritual formation to take place.

God was personal. Now, you brought real change to your life. I remember that, things I don't usually talk about. The part I tell is that the temperature and the home changed. But you were working 14, 16-hour days regularly. Even after we went to church on Sunday, as you remember, because I could take you boys with me, I made calls all Sunday afternoon. Or Christmas Day, we'd open packages, and you'd have to go to the track.

If the horses were running, you had to go to work. So in my memory, you were working these long hours. mom was at home with three little boys in a community where we didn't have any family support. We didn't know anybody there. That's a environment for some stress because there wasn't a lot of family support because of the circumstances we've already unpacked. And when you became Christians, the tone in the home changed dramatically. The temperature came down.

You coming home at the end of the day wasn't intimidating anymore. and just a lot of components around that. And then your patterns changed. You were going to a Bible study any place you could find one. I got to know babysitters a lot better. Well, and we saw our babysitters change. Yeah, and then they'd get saved and we'd lose babysitters. So you stayed, we were in Miami about two years.

We were full. We're not going to tell this whole story. Okay. Can I get you to come back for a follow-up? Well, if you can afford it. Yeah. I'll work on that. But we stayed there and you made the decision.

You and Mom made the decision not to stay in South Florida, which is another one of these chapters. No, that's incorrect. Mom and I together didn't make that decision. I made the decision. And she reluctantly applied her life and her will to it because she wasn't wanting to leave Hollywood, Florida, with all the convenience and the lifestyle that she had to go to Middle Tennessee, where it would totally dramatically change. But without Jesus, you'd have never left Miami. Oh, no, I would have become a clone of Dr. Taglunds.

I mean, he was like the fifth or sixth president of the American Equine Association. I had everything going for me to become a leader in that association and work on the tracks the rest of my life. I mean, there were fellows that were high school boys working in the clinic when I was there that later become partners in his practice. I've got it on his memorial to sheet telling about him. I knew them all when they were young guys. So in this unfolding narrative, it's the hand of God again. True. You know, at the time, it didn't feel like that.

No. You know, you and mom came to Tennessee. and brought Philip and Doyle, my two brothers, left me in Florida with the cobs. Oh, yeah? When you came to look for a place to live? Oh, that was when I came to buy the house. Okay. Yeah, you took me with you when you moved.

You didn't leave me there permanently. I was going to south over there all three up here. That's why you did so well. We left in the sunshine. And we moved to Murphysville because of the Tennessee walking horses. Yeah, just there was a horse population, and that's what I was trained to do at the time. And you liked the more rural? I wanted three boys to grow up so they could learn to work.

And the beach didn't seem to afford much of that. No. But it also took you away from your support community because by that time, you had a Christian support community. There was a group of you that had become Christians together. At least 30 couples of us that were in communication, and we interacted as families. You knew some of their kids that you still have interaction with.

We do. This many years later, we had a wonderful Christian support another reason not to leave. But I felt it was the thing for us to do. So we moved to Murfreesboro. You started a veterinary practice out of your home. Correct. I've told those stories too. Out of your bedroom.

My bedroom was a drug room. That's right. That is true. And you've always had a tender space in your heart. towards animals, so you would bring home everything people didn't want to pay to treat. Yeah. Is that relatively accurate? One of the aroma characters was the time I brought Jim Messengers, German Shepherd home,

that I was treating horses, but I brought a dog home that had mange, and that was... And not just mange. It was so chronic. The only way to get it better was for you to take it under your person. personal care. And where did you put that dog? Were you confess with the cameras running? Well, it wasn't, we didn't have any place outside in the barn, so we had to use our house. So you put that dog in the bathroom in your bedroom. That's right. And the odor was such that the whole house smelled like a mainstream German shepherd. Yeah, but we helped him.

We did. And somehow everybody stayed intact. And while we're talking about odors, one of the things you brought home one time was a skunk. Yeah. You had dissented? Right. When I was at Horse Barn down in Shelbyville, they had found where a mother skunk had been killed, and there were three little ones. And so I descended three skunks one day, gave two to the grooms that worked there, and I brought one home.

Because once they're descended, they're a wonderful little pet. Well, for a while, we had a pet skunk in the house. Right. And it really had the personality a lot like a cat. Right. I mean, they're pretty reclusive. But it was a lot of fun if you had friends come over and you could have a skunk come walking through the living room. Yeah.

And nobody was anxious about it. You brought home a blind lamb in a big box one day. Yeah. We came home with a brood mare, a horse that was blind. Yeah, I traded for, I was a great horse trainer. I traded a good, healthy, healthy horse. horse for a blind one. So we had like Dr. Doolittle's leftovers.

Yeah, but she had good papers. Yeah. And then you started, you came to faith, and your lives changed around a home Bible study. Right. So it wasn't long after we came to Murphersboro that you opened your home for a Bible study. Yeah. Actually, one of the Bible teachers that we met in Bud's house for the first time,

It was the day before the six-day war in Israel, and Derek and Lydia Prince came to Bud's house and spoke one night, and before he left, he said, it looks like there's a possibility that Israel will be in war soon. Well, actually, it was the next day the war broke out, and at that time, we'd moved up to Hollywood Hills, and our neighbors all around were Jewish. I mean, the one on the corner across the street, and they were greatly distressed, and that's a whole another story to go into that, but how we interacted with our neighbors and saw that war end in a short time. That was the six-day war.

Six-day, right. Yeah, that changed the history of the Middle East. But you opened your home for the Bible study, and for a dozen years you had a Bible study that we met that night. Later, when we moved to Tennessee, I invited him to stop and see us when they were going from Chicago to Florida to teach. And when they stopped here,

they arranged later to do a three-day teaching in the church we were in. St. Mark's Methodist. Yeah. And before they left, after we went to see them at the hotel, of a morning before they were leaving to drive on to Florida. And we were about to leave.

And Lydia said, Derek, I think you forgot to tell them something. And, oh, yes, he said, I did. He'd had breakfast with our pastor, and he told the pastor that George and Betty were starting a Bible study that Thursday night, and he wanted him to know about it. And so he began to tell me at that point in time, we were starting a Bible study on Thursday night. So we did, and that continued for 12 years.

Is it safe to say you didn't consider yourself a Bible teacher? That's probably pretty safe. I knew how to play a cassette tape player. I was high-tech. But you really opened your home to the people in the community. When we moved to this community, the schools were still segregated. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was a very, it was very, very,

much a small southern community. And you opened your home to people from different nationalities, different races. And people that their churches weren't meeting the spiritual need they had in their lives because, I mean, we would have pastors' wives come to our back door and say, I understand you pray for the sick. And I'm a school teacher. Well, yes, we did. And we got to know her. And, and did personal ministry, but she came to tell us then, but my husband pastors the church here in town, and we made an impact in his life. We would share what we'd shared. And so we would, people that weren't fitting into the local community because of ethnicity or they had great needs in their life spiritually, we would begin to be their friend.

I mean, you grew up in it. You knew one man came to the back door one night with a 45 and a fifth of whiskey. And he just beat. And you let him sleep on the sofa. Yeah. He's just beating the fire on his wife. For the record. We woke up in the morning and there's a gun and a fifth.

Well, I put the whiskey underneath the sink. I didn't leave it out. But, yeah, we took people in. I mean, we could tell stories that we'd run out of time. Yeah. But we saw people changed that were not being helped by the community, the spiritual community. They were outside the bounds. I mean, you can tell them about Kim Bellamy who was rejected because she was Vietnamese

and the Arabic family that became very close friends for many years with us, but they didn't fit. The nomination supported them when they were in Israel and were pastors, but when they came to Murphersboro, they didn't fit. That's true, but up to this point, you had zero imagination of a church. Oh, that wasn't any objective. You became a Christian. You were convinced that Jesus was real.

No question. And you were just telling, you were willing to share that narrative with other people. Well, we spent her life, which involved you and your brothers, in secular businessmen organizations. We weren't looking for a church to be the answer. We were looking for just businessmen and other people who were like us, businessmen that Jesus had become a reality. And this is who we aligned her life with. I mean, we traveled to see it happen a lot of times, a lot of places.

I mean. From the vantage point today that it's a bit more unique because you're still practicing veterinary medicine, started a new business, working 60 hours a week, driving 50,000 miles around Middle Tennessee to treat horses because you wanted only an equine practice. Right. So you basically worked for free. Yeah. Well, yeah.

Back in those days that the economy, I'd drive down to David Mason's barn two or three miles away, give a horse some antibiotics and make a diagnosis and charge him $8. Different day. Different time and place. And your faith was just as an expression of what had captured your heart. Right. So is that accurate? We cared about people because you've got people in your congregation today that were horse-tron.

trainers. Their dads were horse trainers. And because I took care of their horses, they're in church today. They know Jesus today. They know the Holy Spirit today. That's where we focused our life, even though we made our living as a family, as veterinarians, and it took us all from bailing hay to feeding horses to cleaning stalls. But our real focus of was helping people. And they knew it. I mean... Right.

Well, you had a reputation. It was a small town, and it didn't take very long to have a reputation. You were kind of those crazy religious people. Right. But you were a veterinarian, and that gave you a place in the community. You led with the excellence in how you practice medicine.

Right. And then you cared about people. Yeah. Father's Day. They knew what... what extreme I was. One veterinarian was in the hospital, and I went to see him and to encourage him, I'll say.

But, I mean, they knew who I was, another veterinarian that I practiced with here for many years. I was the officiant at his funeral. I mean, they knew who I was and what I stood for, but we were still friends. But there was a marked difference between when you were a church detender. Oh, yeah. And when you came to a personal faith, it occupied your life.

Right. Is that accurate? Exactly. I mean, that was the focus. I mean, we were learning to read our Bibles, study our Bibles, listen to cassette tapes to get teaching from areas beyond where we were. And it was the center of our life. Okay.

Well, Father's Days are around the corner. Before we go, I'm going to ask you to pray. Okay. Not just for the, we want to pray. for the fathers, but we all have one, and we want to pray for the people listening. Because, you know, at this point, you're maybe 32, 33, if we give a couple of years to Murphysboro. Yeah.

And you've been through the loss of a mother. The grandparents, who were difference makers in your life, were lost. You've had major career changes. Your wife was diagnosed with a terminal disease and given no hope. You find a meaningful faith in the living room of an airline pilot. You uproot your family and drag them to Middle Tennessee, where you bring home mangy dogs and put them in the bathroom. And in the midst of all of that, from the vantage point today,

God's fingerprints are all over it. And I'm going to give the spoiler alert. You're going to pray, but when we get to come do volume two, you're going to practice veterinary medicine for 30 years. 35. But then God's going to take you around the world. You're going to travel around Africa. You can't talk about this today.

You'll have to talk about it next time. I'll be quite. I mean, from Congo to Kenya, he's going to locate you in Israel for more than a decade to translate literature into Hebrew for the believers in that land or those who want to be. You'll plant a church that's making an impact in our community and beyond today. And at the point we're ending this part of the story, none of that's, there was no idea

of any of that. Not even a thought of it. And none of that emerged because your circumstances had been easy or simple or without trauma. But it really is a testimony to the faithfulness of God if we'll just keep saying yes to him. And I don't mean it disrespectfully. You're my father. but none of that seemed probable to those of us who were making the journey together. We were just trying to hold it together day at a time, week at a time.

I mean, God sent a man from England. I remember that, who called the house and we'd just gotten to Tennessee because it was bumpy. And he said, God sent me here to help you. And he came and stayed with us for a while in the house. Stayed a week. So for the people who's listening and they've had to overcome things or there's pain today or problems today. You can say with some confidence that God is faithful.

Oh, yeah. That's why we can see people helped, changed, and life dramatically different. Not hoping it'll be different, it will be different. We know the answers. So if they want some of the story we didn't put into this, they could read the book, you and Mom did, An Extraordinary Life? It's in our bookstore at some exorbitant price. Yeah.

It only covers 10 years. though. I've been here a long time. Okay. I gave you a warning. You got a prayer already? I will. And I want to pray for the families. But as I've had the experience over the past several years, I don't mean two years, five years, I mean 20 years. Our homes need fathers who are willing to do whatever it takes to be. godly fathers and you're not equipped

percentage-wise most of you are not equipped to do that but all you need to do is say I'm willing to become that because our culture has been very difficult for the last 40 years on men and becoming godly men so Lord we come in the name of Jesus and because it is Father's Day we'll pray specifically

for the fathers because there to be the leaders of the whole household that the wives can not choose to respect them and honor them but Lord they have a husband they can honor and respect

one that will be something that only the kingdom of God can appreciate because of what he's willing to do so Lord open the doors as as they can't see them, but Lord, may they walk through the openings that are before them,

that they'll be willing to change in the ways that you make available to them, Lord. May they develop an interest. The word hunger is too spiritual. Just interest. Give them an interest in things that are of the kingdom of God. Let them meet men, Lord, who can encourage them.

and teach them practical things, Lord. How to be practical in the way they are as a husband and as a father. Things that will allow them to change spiritually. Lord, without good, strong spiritual change, there's no lasting change. So make the way clear to them. Direct them, Lord. Put them in totally new circumstances where they can find what you have for them. Lord, there is a plan and a pathway that we can't see.

But if we're willing to follow you, Lord, may they be willing to follow the Spirit of God. May they not think of things as they can understand them. But, Lord, may they see we live in a spiritual realm. Ever since the beginning, it's been a spiritual realm. May they be willing to acknowledge and become a part of the spiritual world that God created, that man could thrive in, and have a pleasant, joyful life knowing that God is. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you for sitting down. Okay. And thank you for your faith. Your faith in your choices changed my life. And we're still walking that journey out.

Yeah, we're at 88 I'm just beginning. We'll be back for volume two, God willing. Okay. Thank you. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic, too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.