Barbara Johnson - The Best Devotions of Barbara Johnson

I strolled into the speakers room in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1996 for my debut with Women of Faith Conference and met a precious lady. My only previous connection to her was one of her books.

As we sat on the podium, she seemed quiet and undaunted by her surroundings. When she stood to speak, my ears perked up, my eyes widened, and the tears flowed. Her story was a modern day Job scenario. Why did all this happen to this lady? Who is this lady? What can I learn from her? Those questions were answered over the next five years.

Her husband, Bill, was in an accident that left him blind and convalescing for several years before God healed him. Five years apart to the day, Barbara identified the bodies of her oldest and second sons, who had both been killed tragically. Thats a lot of grief!

One Fathers Day weekend after his college graduation, her third son revealed his homosexuality. She reacted on horrified emotions that separated them for eleven years. Thats a lot of rejection.

In early 2001 Barbara was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The surgery was successful, but the treatments continue.

Why did this happen to Barbara?

I can only speculate through Barbaras own words, Everything that happens must go through Gods filter. Perhaps he allowed this because he knew he could trust her to carry these burdens with dignity, grace, and strength and help millions of others carry similar burdens. Just like God knew Job, he knows Barbara. Barbara proclaims with Job, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.

Who is this lady?

Barbara is calm.

When the doctor told her he had the most disturbing news of her life, she commented, He evidently doesnt know anything about my life. She calmly told me, I have a brain tumor, which they will operate on, then Ill get some treatments, and Ill be back speaking. There was absolutely no agony in her voice. She was as cool as a cucumber.

Barbara is contagious.

With her dry humor and subtle wink, she twirls her first finger in the air making gestures and hums a three syllable hum-hum-hum and the room hoops with laughter. She instructs the audience, Dont laugh: I dont have much more time. And besides, it wasnt good enough anyway, to which people laugh.

Barbara is a caretaker.

Shes available to millions of hurting people worldwide through her ministry, Spatula Ministries. To her family, friends, and colleagues, shes a guardian angel. Every December, as a birthday present to herself, Barbara telephones and comforts people whose children have died within that year. At the conferences, she makes sure Mary Graham, the president of Women of Faith, eats properly by giving her lunches. And she makes sure I have all the big, decorative clip-on earrings I need to wear with my stuff adorned clothes.

Barbara Johnson is courageous!

It takes courage that only comes from a deep trust in God to pick up your husband from the road and watch a once happy and healthy man instantly become a near vegetable, to identify two sons in coffins, to survive a broken relationship with another son, and to hear you have a brain tumor. Through all of this, she maintains a bubble of joy in her heart. What courage!

What have I learned from Barbara?

With Barb, What you see is what you get. Her complete disclosure of how she thinks, what she cares about, who she is, what her goals are, and what she says, leave no room to speculate about her realness. Ive learned that authenticity is the true virtue of identity.

She has also taught me to look beyond profits and see other peoples potential. But the greatest lesson Ive learned from Barbara is to totally yield your heart to God. Whatever, Lord is her prayer of relinquishment. If thats not yielding, I dont know what is. Shes telling God to have his way about everything in her life. For Barbara, this statement closed the portals of self-pity, loneliness, and depression, and she gained spiritual strength to become what she is to me and a bazillion of people everywhere.

Read the following pages and see if you dont agree about why, who, and what Ive learned from Barbara Johnson. Better still, gather splashes of joy from the information, inspiration, and encouragement found in the practical life stories of the legendary and loving Barbara Johnson, the most applauded female Christian author on the planet.