Inspiration for the curves ahead: A Divinely-inspired life story

“As a child, I did not have an easy life, but it was a learning one. My father was an alcoholic. There were nine living children in our family and three or four more who died at or before birth. I am looking forward to meeting those babies in heaven one day.

“Daddy would go off for days on drunken binges. Mama practically had to raise all nine children by herself. Churches and welfare helped us a lot when Daddy was gone. Sometimes, he would even be gone for months and just forget about his responsibilities.

“However, God was always with us.”

Thus begins the introduction for Margie Jones Johnson’s book “Unexpected Twists and Turns.”

It is a book nearly 55 years in the making. The writing began, she said, when she was in her 20s, a paragraph here, a paragraph there, a page here, a page there, a chapter here … Now 75 years of age: “It’s just taken me that long to put it all together.”

She added: “I’ve always believed writing’s a talent God gave me. I have not always used it for His glory, but as I got older and older, I felt more like He wanted me to write a book.”

This book in particular, although there have been plenty more she could have published long before now. There were poems – still are. There were plays. There were children’s books – two in particular – and on and on back to when she was around 10 years old.

“I remember when I was going to school,” she said. “The teacher would read a Bible story to the class and I would go home and write that story in the form of a poem and she would read that poem to the class the next day.”

“Unexpected Twists and Turns” is in great part her journal/testimony. It starts out with her at age 6 in her home of Rochelle – later to move to Warner Robins – and feeling like “nobody loved me” and progresses through one twist after another – first blessing then trial and/or test, or vice versa.

For instance, Chapter 10 begins where Chapter 9 leaves off, with a man named Bennie Lee. He had asked her to marry him, and she had said “yes.”

It’s already been mentioned that her father “would go off for days on drunken binges.” She later describes him as an “adulterer” and also shares with the reader times in which he was verbally and physically abusive to not only her but the rest of the family.

Chapter 10 is entitled: “Shattered Dreams – God’s Plan.” Two paragraphs into it the reader comes across: “Finally, Daddy came home. In horror, I began to cry as knots formed in my stomach. Daddy staggered into the living room drunk and mad. His eyes flashed with hatred and anger. He used a lot of curse words as he accused Bennie Lee and me of doing things we had not done.” Eventually, after the shock had worn off: “Bennie Lee just walked out without saying ‘good-bye.’”

And so it went. The title obviously was not some random choice.

“God gave it to me,” she said. “I prayed and prayed over it. I thought it would cause people to think about things that have happened in their life they did expect and maybe got them down and caused them to be in despair and stuff like that.”

The cover was the same. It shows a storm-filled sky with black tornado heading down a highway. She had asked for a car to be included down that highway, all of it in remembrance of the time lightning – this after she had gotten married – had struck in front of their car “threatening to split it in half,” she said. Her husband swerved (twist), but because the road was wet, lost control (turn) and hit another car.

Een compiling copy for the book provided another twist and turn.

“The hard part was the stories I had to leave out,” she said. “There were some worse ones I couldn’t put in there. I prayed about it and prayed about it and God told me to take them out.

“There was one story I really wanted in there. I thought it was a real good story, still do, but God said take it out, so I did. And one of the other stories I would never have dreamed putting in the book and God said put them in, so I put them in. So all of the stories in the book God has told me which ones to put in and which ones to take out.”

Overall, she said the book is meant to “glorify God and touch people’s lives and help them to see that God takes care of them in the best of times and the worst of times.”

Speaking of which.

Even as the book was going to press in late March, Johnson found herself in the hospital – another twist and turn no doubt – as she was en route to have open-heart surgery. In fact, the first copy was placed on her bedstead as she lay in ICU battling – and it was a battle – to recover.

“It was a hard time,” she said. After fighting her way out of that, some weeks later she also had to cancel her first book signing due to a bit of a relapse. “And I didn’t accept it to start with at first as God’s will. But whatever God does is always His will.

“He really doesn’t do anything really against us. We are His children. Sometimes He might chastise us and let bad things happen to us, but we are always His children.”

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Johnson’s book is available on Amazon.com (print and e-book). You can also purchase a signed copy – and personally hand-written bookmark – at Northside Baptist Church in Centerville on Saturday, April 5. She will be there from 9-11 a.m. Northside is located at 1013 Carl Vinson Blvd.

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