Jesus, He Is My Everything

By Jacqueline Filer

Have you ever wondered why bad things happen to good people? From the time we began our ministry, we served with one purpose: to love people as God did. This is the story of our journey, from humble beginnings and pastoring small churches in our quest to pour the love of Jesus in sometimes unlovable people. Follow us on our journey through the struggles, triumphs, and the personal tragedy of losing our only child. In all these things, we found power far greater to hold on to through the storms of life and witnessed countless miracles and the faithfulness of God. We once heard a minister friend in one of his sermons share, "The church is the only place we kill our wounded." As you read our story, it is our sincere prayer that you too will discover that God is a good God and wants only good things for you. You have a divine destiny, a faith walk God has chosen just for you. Over and over again, God showed himself to be our source of strength, comfort, refuge, and provider. That's why we say "Jesus, He is our everything!"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641141192

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Jesus, He Is My Everything

by Jacqueline Filer

ISBN 978-1-64114-118-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64114-119-2 (digital)

Copyright © 2017 by Jacqueline Filer

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to all our friends and family that made this journey with us. Your encouragement through the years has given us the will to push harder and keep going through the good and bad times. Just two young people who set out to do something for God, who allowed Him to put us on the potter’s wheel as supple clay in his hands. We never dreamed where this call would take us and the life of faith we would walk. I thank God for the wonderful man who showed me at the tender age of 17 how to love God with my whole heart, and encouraged me to take his hand and walk the journey with him. My first love and my best friend.

What an amazing journey it has been. This book is dedicated to my soul mate, William Keith Filer, and our beautiful daughter, Bethany Reneé Filer.

What awesome friends, Jackie and Keith Filer! We first met at a revival in Wilmington, Illinois, where they were in their second pastorate in Joliet. Later as I got to know them better through numerous revivals and camp meetings, they became some of my closest and dearest friends. Actually, we became family!

As you journey with the Filers through their life story of following Christ, you will red of their passionate love for Jesus and for each other. As they share with you their dreams, heartaches, and triumphs, I guarantee you will be encouraged, blessed, and challenged.

Thank you Jackie, for sharing yours and Keith’s journey with us. Thanks for all the memories and those to come.

Your friend,

Rex Carroll

Evangelist-Missionary, Pastor

I first met Keith several years ago when he came by our church and introduced himself, informing us that he was building a retirement home in our area. He was returning to Illinois but would be back to stay. Several months later, he called my home and told me they had moved to Tennessee. I visited him and his wife Jackie in their new home and instantly we established a warm and loving relationship. From the beginning, they have become endearing friends. Getting two preacher’s together is somewhat like two fishermen, we each had huge stories that were possibly a bit embellished.

Jackie and Keith are a tremendous pastoral team. God has given Jackie the gift of music to sing her way into the hearts of people, preparing the way for the Holy Spirit from Keith’s preaching. After moving to Tennessee, they would often provide the music for our church, Jackie singing and Keith accompanying her at the piano.

God has not only given Jackie the gift of music, He has given her the gift of writing, as you will see while reading this book. It is the story of a couple who has surrendered their lives totally to Jesus and serving Him in a ministry of love. You will read of the joys and the sorrows, the trials and the challenges they faced together in their pastoral ministry to several churches in Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

You will be inspired just as I was following Keith and Jackie in a lifetime of service to God and His people.

J. Wayne Coulter

High School Teacher, Evangelist

President over 3 Conferences; Mt. View, Chesapeake, & Illinois for SDA Denomination & Pastor

(Rev. Coulter passed before seeing book published; 1936-2013)

Christian women in today’s society face many devastating life experiences. Many of these women give up on their journey with the Lord, grow increasingly bitter, and lose the true love that God has placed in their heart. Throughout this book, you will learn about a wife who sacrificed all that she had for her husband. It’s about a mother who was blessed with a beautiful daughter whose life ended tragically, a grandmother taking on the role of a mother, and a pastor’s wife who truly sought after God’s will even though the adversary tried his best to defeat her. Yet through all the test and trials, she truly stood the test of time.

Mrs. Jackie Filer is a hero in so many different ways. She has truly committed her life to the Lord. She has proven time and time again that she has a tried and true faithfulness. Mrs. Jackie is a saint who is truly seeking God’s will and God’s own heart. She selflessly gives of herself to serve the Lord and others. She displays an extraordinary lifestyle of a highest Christian value. These qualities are evident in her daily life, her family, her community, her church, and her friendship! In this book, she discusses peace to cover all your pain, love that endures all things, and grace that God gives for your every need.

Over the years, I have stood in awe of Mrs. Jackie’s strength and brilliance. She has been an encourager and support system in my life. After facing the trial of a father stricken with cancer, she prayed for me and my family. After experiencing a failed marriage, she gave me scripture and the hope that God could still use my life for His glory. When I needed someone to listen, God always sent her to me. I have always been astonished at God’s ability to use women like Mrs. Jackie to help other struggling sisters in Christ along their journey. It is my prayer to become as sincere and humble as Mrs. Jackie someday.

In this book, you will learn strategies to turn your trials into blessings. You will discover God’s omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscient will for your life. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will learn at the same time. This beautiful memoir will leave you desiring a sequel!

Love and Prayers,

Ms. Monica Ward

Kindergarten Teacher

Sinner Saved by God’s Grace

Section 1

The Early Years

Our family’s trees

Mark the past of yours and mine.

They brought us together and have endured through the test of time.

My Early Childhood

I was born the second child of ten children. My parents were married in 1950. My mom was sixteen, and my dad was twenty-four. Growing up had it challenges, but it was also a lot of fun. My mom didn’t work outside the home until later in life, but occasionally she would take a cleaning job or work at the local A&W Drive Inn as a cook. Times were, looking back now, probably difficult for them as all young couples go, through the growing pains of life and the financial hardships of raising a family.

My father was the baby of nine children. When he was just four years old, his mother died from complications of surgery. Dad always loved kids and told my mother in their early dating days he wanted a large family. My mother, when later asked what drew her to Dad, would close her eyes and, with a smile on her face, say, I fell in love with your daddy when I saw how he was around kids, and I knew he would make a good father.

Dad sold his car to purchase the marriage license and had another couple drive them to the little town of Waterloo, Illinois, to become Mr. and Mrs. Charles Stutts. My dad was a hard worker, and no job was too little for him to take to feed his growing young family. With only a fifth grade education, he would walk the streets to find work to support his family, often talking directly to the foremen because of his inability to understand how to fill out applications. He was a hard worker and taught us the value of honest wages for an honest day’s work.

Along with their growing family, they cared for his aging father and my mother’s mother, Maimie. The two were opposite as day and night. My grandmother was a clean freak, and my grandfather, we lovingly called him GaGa, was just a typical crotchety old man that would do things just to get a rise out of my grandmother. They loved to tattle on each other, Grandmother Maimie to my mother and GaGa to Dad just as soon as he came through the front door from work.

My father had a love for music and played the guitar. Some of his brothers played the guitar, and when Dad would ask them to show him how, they would make excuses why they couldn’t, but basically they didn’t have time for Dad, him being the baby, but that didn’t stop Dad. He would go to the downtown theater and watch the Saturday morning matinee, which featured the old singing cowboys. As he watched Roy Rogers and Gene Autry sing and play the guitar, he would come home and teach himself the chords till he got it just right. He soon became very good and got several singing jobs in the local taverns on the weekends. He would sing the old country western tunes of his heroes, Ernest Tubb, and Hank Williams. Dad was never raised in church, and so he found his joy in his family and music. The extra cash he made helped to pay a bill or two. My mom wasn’t too fond of his playing and being gone so much, leaving her with the little ones a lot. A few of the times when she was able to join him for an evening out, Dad would make sure no good-looking men asked her to dance by paying this old-timer to make sure Mom had a dance partner if she wanted to dance. Of course, Mom would tell you he was the worst dancer there.

Some of my fondest memories as a child are when we would push back all the furniture in the living room and put a record on the phonograph and see Dad take Mom’s hand and polka or waltz around the room with her in his arms. They were so light on their feet and good together. Of course, we would all want to dance with Mom and Dad, and one by one, they would whirl us around the room among peals of laughter. I can close my eyes and see Mom standing at the back door calling us in for supper. I can hear her as she called us all by name, and wherever we were playing in the neighborhood, we could hear her voice call us home. When I got a little older, I remember standing on a milk crate helping her prepare supper for all of us, as family recipes were passed down to the next generation. Those were innocent happy times as a child that are forever etched in my mind. We were a very close family, and the lessons learned have stayed with me all my life.

My mother didn’t have a happy childhood. The only memory she has of her father was him climbing up in a tree to catch a look at this little girl with long dark curls when she was about five. Her mother, upon seeing him in the tree, took a clothesline pole and knocked him out of the tree.

My mother was raised by her beloved polish grandparents, the Lozas. They owned and operated a little neighborhood comer store called Loza’s Market. Upon their untimely deaths, my mother went to live with her mother, who decided she couldn’t take care of her child and eventually placed her in an orphanage home in Maryville, Illinois. She would often reflect upon those days and said they were some of her happiest days after losing Grandma and Grandpa Loza. The orphanage home where my mother was sent was purchased and established by the Assemblies of God in 1948, and my mother was accepted at the home on October 27, 1948. It was there she learned about Jesus’s love.

When she was fifteen, after being in the orphanage home for only ten months, her mother begged them to let her come live with her again to help take care of her. It was with a heavy heart that she left the loving and stable surroundings to go back into the unhealthy environment of her mother’s home to take care of her. My mother often said she felt like she was the mother and Grandmother Maimie was the child. One of the stories from her days after leaving the orphanage was when she had to help my grandmother deliver a stillborn child, burying it in a little shoebox in the backyard and saying prayers over this tiny little infant.

One day while visiting her aunt who happened to be married to my dad’s uncle, she met my father, who was over visiting. My dad would later recall seeing this little girl, about nine years old, with long black hair, playing with his nieces and nephews. As Dad was pushing them on the swings that day, he told his uncle, I’m going to marry Lucy one of these days.

My mom would later recall about my dad, how he would pull on her braids and make her smile. It didn’t take long for Charlie to see the now grown-up Lucille at fifteen, and they soon began dating, and on September 8, 1950, they were wed.

Growing Up in a Large Family

Times were very tough and difficult, and then Mom was invited to a little church within walking distance of where we lived. Mom became a Christian, and everything changed. She