Jacqueline Jakes - Sister Wit: Devotions for Women

2002 by Jacqueline Jakes.

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Unless otherwise noted Scriptures are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

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Scriptures noted KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

First eBook Edition: April 2002

ISBN: 978-0-446-51048-6

Book Design by Charles Sutherland

Sister Wit

Devotions for Women

Jacqueline Jakes

Foreword by T. D. JAKES

This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Odith P. Jakes, without whom I would never have had a classical foundation.

And to my daughter, Kelly, who was my night-light during a decade of darkness. You are the love of my life. I adore you.

Lastly, this book is dedicated to all women who struggle with an illness or who battle any terror. I pray that God will wash you in miracles and give you total well-being for all your life.

There would be no Sister Wit without Bishop T. D. Jakes. It was he who asked me to share my testimony with others. From his embryonic idea developed the idea of a book to share with other womena devotional containing the wisdom of my unique experience and the challenges of this life. Thus Sister Wit was born. Thank you, my precious baby brotherthank you, my stellar Bishop.

Cheryl L. Thomas, had you not stood by with your spirit of excellence, organizing, typing, retyping, and saving this manuscript and simply doing whatever you were asked to do to help me get this book finished, I dont know what I would have done.

Rolf Zettersten, thank you for the incredible insight and direction for this book.

Leslie Peterson, your sharp editors pencil and your ability to identify with me uniquely made this a pleasurable experience. Thank you for being a delight to work with.

Kelly, your comments and applause helped to strengthen me and to keep me on track and to believe in myself. You are an exceptional daughter!

Marci Russell and Jane Darrisaw, thanks for every time you cheered with me throughout each step of the book publishing process. Thank you for believing in me.

Ernest Jakes Jr., Margaret, Sherry, Sister Mays, Laurena, Brenda, DeLaunda, and all the many people everywhere who prayed for me and cheered me along to completionthank you from my heart.

Tom Winters, you and Debby are the greatest. Thank you for everything.

And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the rivers brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

EXODUS 2:2-4 KJV

It has been a long watch from across the rooma watch of forty-plus years for my sister. I have gone to the palace and she has stood in the courts, watching from the gates and encouraging as she has done all of my life. It seems only yesterday that I sat on the steps of our very modest home dressed in short pants with the stinging whelps of Mommas switch still tartly staining my pride as I had once again managed to get myself in the incorrigible dilemmas of childhood pranks. My sisters bright eyes and deep penetrating gaze observed my punishment. She comforted my whimpers when the discipline was too much for me to bear.

I can only wonder what rush of wind has swept away the years between those long ago days to this present moment. All I know is that when the wind slowed its gusting my hair resembled the glistening snow-capped mountains of a West Virginia Christmas card. But to my surprise, after a lovely wife and five children of my own, my sister was still standing by me, watching me sail down the muddy rivers of life covered in bull rushes and relentlessly pursuing my dreams. These were the dreams that could only be completed if she watched like a spotter in a gym to make sure that the weight of lifes pressure did not dement the magnitude of Gods calling on my life.

Well, it has certainly been a fast-paced, eventful, and sometimes breath-taking trip. Many things have changedexcept the woman gazing across the room at me. My sister is filled with wit and wisdom. Her thought-provoking perspectives on life, love, and the many pitfalls in between are filled with a tremendous legacy passed to us from our parents, who before expiring hurled us into the wind of life with the force of champions. Their strength still resounds in all of their children. Even if nothing but an accounting of my sisters observations while watching over me, this book would still be inspirational enough to prepare the hearts of the thoughtful women who mentor, marry, minister, or muster courage in the midst of storms.

My sister far excels a voyeur whose only claim is to have recorded the trappings of thought that are threaded throughout this book. No. She on her own rights has had quite an experience in the courts of life: raising a child, surviving perils, fighting the brain tumor that finally gave way to her relentless determination to live. She has, like a little girl collecting seashells, gathered pearls of wisdom.

Now she is ready to be presented her pearls. Her tiara is the thorny crown that is reserved only for those who have suffered hardships, endured storms, and survived predicaments too horrendous to be articulated. Her soul, like those of all who have had a real adventure, has become the rose that brightens the lives of us all. Her thorny path may usher tears to stream down our face. But her resiliency will motivate the disadvantaged to rise from the ashes of mediocrity and fulfill their dreams.

I cannot give her to you. She is too precious to be given away. But for the next few days I will allow you to gaze at the wisdom that has been the fodder we have used to survive the vicissitudes of life. Today she has been garlanded with grace and seasoned with prayer. She now emerges from her shadowed posture, where in times past she has avoided the glaring light of notoriety, to unveil the wit that has tailored her soul and balanced my judgment all of these years we have spent together here in the Egypt of life in the house of Pharaoh.

T. D. Jakes

Every woman has a story to tell. You, dear reader, are most likely not a Coretta Scott King, who has faced suffering and the loss of a spouse and who has lived a life on public display. And more than likely you are not a Helen Keller, who triumphed over her every limitation to become a household namea woman who overcame seemingly insurmountable odds. Instead, youre probably like myself, an ordinary woman who faced extraordinary circumstances and survived intact. Survived stronger and wiser. Survived to tell you that you too can come out of whatever circumstance you are facingbetter, not bitter.

No, you dont need to be famous to have some special claim on overcoming affliction. Simply passing through this earth seems to be enough. We live in a world fraught with the unexpected and laced with the unknown. What do we do when the gnarled fingers of terrifying experiences knock at our door? Facing challenges with peace, love, and even joy is the order of the day. And depending on God.