Rosie: I believe that one of the things that sexual abuse does is it robs you of your identity. It confuses you as to who you are and who God is. And I think that’s one of the ultimate goals, to not know who God is as a healer, as a father, as a friend, as an advocate, as a helper. I really had no idea who God was. I knew He existed and I knew He knew all things. But I didn’t know if He would receive me if He knew the whole story. 

God Knows Our Whole Story And Still Loves Us: Rosie Rivera and Jason Sautel – Episode #256

Narrator: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. Maybe you’ve heard someone say “Well, if you really knew me, you might not like me…” or maybe you’ve even said that to yourself. There can be much fear in being truly known—Will I still be loved, despite my mistakes, despite my desperate thoughts, despite that, I might not ever be enough on my own? The resounding answer to that question from God’s perspective is yes. God promises to love us with an everlasting love and is continually drawing us to Himself with loving-kindness, as we’re told in the scripture Jeremiah 31:3. 

Our guests this week hit lows in their lives they didn’t know if they’d recover from, and just when they lost hope, they turned to God only to find that He was there, loving them despite their mistakes, fear, and pain. We’re speaking with television personality Rosie Rivera, the CEO of Jenni Rivera enterprises, and firefighter-turned-evangelist Jason Sautel. 

We’ll begin with Rosie’s story. 

Rosie Rivera: Hello, my name is Rosie Rivera Flores, and I am a jack of all trades. Really, I see myself as a child of God, and my purpose is to be a voice for the voiceless, meaning I am a sexual assault advocate. I do that through preaching, through teaching the Word of God, but also anywhere, really, anyone that I speak to that I can just draw them closer to Jesus.

I had the best childhood. I mean, we had financial difficulties. There was some poverty. My mother picked fruit in the fields, and for a long time we worked at flea markets. But I didn’t even realize we lived in poverty. There was so much love. Because I’m the youngest, people would say I’m spoiled. I would say I am extra loved. 

The Pain of Secret Abuse

I was a very happy kid until sexual abuse started in my life around eight years old. The abuser was my sister’s first husband. And in my family, it’s not just an in-law, it’s family. And I saw him as a type of brother/uncle that I had to respect, and that was an adult that I trusted and had to obey. So when he told me that we were playing a love game, I knew love, but I didn’t know this new game. 

A year later, when I found out that it was sexual abuse, I was actually in my sex-ed class in fifth grade. It shocked me. I didn’t even know what was going on for about a year. When he tried to sexually abuse me again, I finally said no, and then he threatened to kill my sister. He knew my weakness. He knew that she was my everything. She was my best friend, my mentor. And he took away my voice. I didn’t know that then, but I know it now how much I changed. I became very quiet, isolated, confused, angry. And I took this all on my own. I thought I had to save my sister’s life and I had to save everyone else’s heart from being so hurt. So by the time I was thirteen, when I found out he was doing it to my niece, she confessed to me, she kind of saw it in me, my hatred towards him that I thought I was hiding very well. And we promised we’d never say anything. We didn’t want my brothers to kill him. 

I finally spoke up at sixteen. My parents still had no idea. They just saw me as a rebellious girl, an angry girl, and a regular teenager. And when I finally spoke up, I thank Jesus that my sister believed me immediately. My family believed me, we made a police report, and began the process of healing. They did everything they could to heal me with counseling, with a psychologist, and with just being on my side. He became a fugitive for nine years and I got lost in depression and drugs and alcohol, just trying to numb the pain that I still didn’t understand. 

Will God Accept Me at My Worst?

I grew up in church, thank God, my mother received Christ when I was nine years old. We were a Catholic family but didn’t really practice, it was more tradition, and my mother’s transformation transformed the whole family. We started to attend church and I really loved it at first. I loved the music. I loved the preaching. I’ve always been drawn to the Word of God. But by thirteen, when my niece told me that she was being sexually abused also, my self-hate really grew. I really, really loathed myself and I thought everyone else would, too, if they really knew me, and that somehow transferred into God. I knew He existed and I knew He knew all things. But I didn’t know if He would receive me if He knew the whole story.

“I really, really loathed myself and I thought everyone else would, too, if they really knew me and that somehow transferred into God.” – Rosie Rivera

So I thought, If I don’t tell Him, then He won’t know. And if He doesn’t know, then maybe He won’t reject me. My biggest fear in the whole world was to be rejected, because I rejected myself. And I just kind of stayed away from Him. That way, He can’t reject you. And in my mind, if I rejected God first, He wouldn’t have the time to reject me. I don’t think I could handle it if my Creator would reject me. I really, really thought that if God knew all the dirt that I had inside me from the sexual abuse, and then as I grew older, I had an abortion at sixteen and all the drinking and the promiscuity and I thought, Just don’t let Him know who you are. 

And then at twenty-five, I was suicidal for the third time in my life. I had tried two times before and thankfully wasn’t able to complete it. And at twenty-five I was in a very dysfunctional, abusive relationship. It was physically, emotionally, psychologically abusive. And he raped me and threw me out of the hotel room at 2:00 in the morning in nothing but a T-shirt. And I went to the front desk and the man thought I was a prostitute, and I just hit the lowest low. 

My father used to tell me I was a princess. My father used to tell me that I could achieve anything in the world, that if I wanted to be an astronaut, I could. And here I was at twenty-five, a single mother with a man that would abuse me and then literally throw me out. So I went to the front desk and when he called me a prostitute, I believed him. I took that label and I put it on my forehead as if it were true for no reason other than some stranger thought it. 

I wanted to commit suicide, and I tried. I took a lot of pills and a lot of alcohol. I started walking down the streets of Los Angeles and my brothers started looking for me. I didn’t know they even cared. I thought, They’re too busy. They’re making money, they’re famous. And I thought, They’ll probably miss me, but maybe the world would be better without me. I had a two-year-old daughter and I thought, She’ll be better without me, too. I really thought I was just toxic and would ruin everything that I touched. And that wasn’t true. They were looking for me, there was a whole search party at 2:00 in the morning looking for me, and when they found me, they were shocked. I was in shock. I couldn’t speak. I was freezing. The first thing my brother Juan told me was, “Please don’t ever do this again. I love you so much. And I don’t want anything to ever…I don’t want to lose you.”

That night I called my mom and I said, “Hey, Mom, what time does church start tomorrow?” 

And she said, “At 1 p.m., why are you asking?” 

I said, “I want to go.” 

And she said, “Don’t play with me, because if I’m late for choir, they won’t let me sing.” 

They didn’t care that she was the pastor’s mom. She had been inviting me every single day, every single Sunday she had invited me to church since I was about sixteen. 

And I would say whatever, “I don’t like your church. I don’t like your people. they’re all hypocrites to me. They’re all liars.” And that day was the first day that I had invited myself and I made sure to go, and that Sunday was the greatest day of my life, simply because I was a mess. And I told God I was a mess. I was still hung over. I still smelled like alcohol and everything. And I was just at the front of the altar crying my eyes out, letting Jesus know everything that He already knew, that I didn’t want to live anymore without Him, and that day I just realized what the cross was, like, it just hit me in such a beautiful way that He had died for me. He already knew everything, and that He loved me. And it can still fill me with love. 

His mercy and His grace are just the treasures of my life. And since that day, I decided, I’m not leaving you, no matter what. And that was about fourteen years ago. And I just thank Him for loving me despite it all.

“I told God I was a mess. I was still hung over. I still smelled like alcohol and everything. And I was just at the front of the altar crying my eyes out, letting Jesus know everything that He already knew, that I didn’t want to live anymore without Him, and that day I just realized what the cross was, like, it just hit me in such a beautiful way that He had died for me. He already knew everything, and that He loved me. And it can still fill me with love.” – Rosie Rivera

Losing My Sister, Losing Myself

I wanted to preach the Word of God, and I wanted my sister to do it with me. She and I would talk randomly, and I’d dream with her and she’d hear me out. And I’d say, “Hey, sister, one day you and I are going to preach the Word of God together. I’m going to preach and you’re going to sing,” and then maybe, “Hey, I’ll even try singing and you preach.” I honestly didn’t think I could do it without her. I wasn’t famous. I didn’t know how millions of people would know I existed, much less care about who I was. So I thought, Only with my sister will they care who I was. 

But when my sister started finding fame, she shared it with us in a beautiful way. She was so giving with the spotlight. She thought we were all superstars. She’s so beautiful. And I speak in the present of her because she reconciled with Christ a week before she died. And so I know that because Christ resurrected, and we will resurrect, and I’ll see her again. But she shared it with us. She never stopped telling me she loved me. Every single day would tell me she loved me and her fame spread out to everyone. 

The day that she died, my whole world changed. I lost all my life, I could no longer hold a nine to five because it would draw too much attention and I had to be her CEO, her trustee, the guardian of her children. Literally, my house was swamped with paparazzi and media wanting to know why Jenni chose me, the youngest, not artist, a woman that had not studied the business of the family. Why would she choose me out of all the wonderful, strong, intelligent, business-oriented men? And I didn’t have the answer. I didn’t know because to be honest with you, I didn’t want it. I received it because I loved her and I received the assignment from Christ. But I did not want to be famous. And I still do not want to be famous. I want Christ to be famous. I want Him to be famous for what He does in me. And so if people know my name, I let them know my story because it’s a way of knowing Christ. But it’s been a difficult journey for me to let people see the worst side of you. They met me when I was broken, broken because of my sister’s death, broken in my marriage, just in the most naive time of my life and my calling. And I was angry. I was angry that she had died and I was angry that my privacy was taken away. 

I was shaken to the core, because the plan that I had made couldn’t work anymore. I still miss her and I think I always will. But I didn’t die without her. I thought I would. I thought I would go back to drugs and alcohol. I told her I would if she ever died. I told her I’d go crazy, and I didn’t. And I stand by the grace of Christ, I have a reason to smile. He is still my joy and I know now more than ever I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength because I have found to be content in every area of my life at every time of my life. 

Jesus Calling was a book where I really, really got to know Christ as the lover of my soul. And that’s how I can describe it. I remember reading my devotional for the day and really allowing the words to sink in. And that’s where the challenge was for me personally, to believe, to really continue to believe the Word of God was for me. When He says, “child of God, masterpiece, fearfully and wonderfully made,” I could no longer believe that. But with books like Jesus Calling, I would just let them sink in. 

And I really, really felt and know that Christ was talking to me. It was really me. And that’s what I love about Jesus Calling when He says, “My child, my daughter,” oh, I’m just like, “Yep, that’s me.” I treasure my book. And as my children grow, I want to read it to them. 

Jesus Calling, January 18th.

I am leading you along the high road, but there are descents as well as ascents. In the distance you see snow-covered peaks glistening in brilliant sunlight. Your longing to reach those peaks is good, but you must not take shortcuts. Your assignment is to follow Me, allowing Me to direct your path. Let the heights beckon you onward, but stay close to Me.

Learn to trust Me when things go “wrong.” Disruptions to your routine highlight your dependence on Me. Trusting acceptance of trials brings blessings that far outweigh them all. Walk hand in hand with Me through this day. I have lovingly planned every inch of the way. Trust does not falter when the path becomes rocky and steep. Breathe deep draughts of My Presence, and hold tightly to My hand. Together we can make it!

I have just had the best, most intimate, even joyful moments with Christ. I have learned how to allow God to be my defender, and now I have this joy in my heart. It’s going to sound a little funny, but when someone makes fun of me because I have wrinkles or my age is showing, I will laugh and I will say, “Lord, how are You going to defend me? I am waiting.” There’s joy in my heart, knowing He is going to speak for me. I don’t have to make anyone else feel bad or, you know, let them know how old they’re getting or that you’ll be here soon. I just have to continue loving Him and that’s it. 

In loving people, I’m just so happy to be able to really share a message full of the message because the power comes with His Word. I can trust that no matter what is going on with the world, as long as I am holding His hand, I am safe and I am on the right path. It reminds me that in the highs and the lows, He is the same. And in the happiness or even some sad moments, He’s the same. And I just Iove that He always takes me back. If I have let go of His hand, I can come right back. And He’s always been so ready to say, “Let’s keep walking.”

“Power comes with His Word. I can trust that no matter what is going on with the world, as long as I am holding His hand, I am safe and I am on the right path. It reminds me that in the highs and the lows, He is the same.” – Rosie Rivera

Narrator: To learn more about Rosie and her work, visit rosierivera.com, and you can find her book, God Is Your Defender: Learning to Stand After Life Has Knocked You Down, everywhere books are sold.  

We’ll continue with former fighter, now pastor, Jason Sautel’s story after this brief message.

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Jesus Calling for First Responders

The team at Jesus Calling has chosen 100 Jesus Calling devotions that have been specially selected for those heroes in our midst. There are hardcover editions of these 100 devotions for Medical Professionals, Firefighters, Law Enforcement, and the Armed Forces. Find these Jesus Calling  for First Responders editions exclusively at ChristianBook.com.

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Narrator: Our next guest is firefighter-turned-evangelist Jason Sautel. After a difficult childhood, and a twenty-two-year career fighting fires, and arriving first on the scenes of many people’s worst nightmare, Jason was used to darkness finding its way into his soul. He tried earthly remedies, but never felt fully whole until he turned to the One who would rescue him the way he rescued others—Jesus. 

Jason Sautel: Hi, my name is Jason Sautel, and I’m the author of the book The Rescuer. And prior to being an author, I worked for the fire department for twenty-two years. I finished my career in Oakland, California and that was actually the most memorable time of my career just because of how busy the city was, how many emergencies we went out to every single day. And just being able to help people is such a blessing. Since then I have been writing, talking, and teaching all things Jesus. And I just love writing and connecting with people. 

The Source of Darkness

My parents divorced when I was around seven or eight years old, and my mom moved five hundred miles away and I stayed with my dad. And unfortunately, my dad had a rough time of his own. He was a Vietnam veteran. And I think the war and his childhood and the traumas that he had in the past had never really cleared up. He struggled being a father, and those struggles came down upon me in ways where I was basically raised in a home where I didn’t have the stuff that other kids had. I didn’t have any support for school. And quite honestly, if I asked my dad for help, it would never really end well for me. So it was easier for me just to shut down and live within myself as opposed to asking for help. 

I was a leg hugger, meaning when other kids were out running and playing, I would just want to huddle on my mom’s leg. And she was kind of like my everything. The first day of kindergarten, she dropped me off and I started to pick up really quick, I’m like, Oh, wait a second, she’s going to leave. And I was not okay with that. So when my security blanket, if you will, left, I started panicking and I started getting upset and I started crying. 

Well, rightfully so, the teacher escorted me to the office. And when I got to the office, my mom wasn’t there and things got even worse. And all I wanted to do was see my mom and I was crying and I started acting out more and more. Well, instead of calling me down and relaxing me, they actually threw me in a janitor’s closet. They threw me in there, and they’re outside the door. I remember pounding on the door saying, “Let me out!” But they wouldn’t unless I calmed down. And I calmed down and got quiet, not because I wanted to be good and their punishment was working—I just felt all of a sudden an emptiness and a darkness and a true sadness came over me as I was sitting there in that dark closet when I was in kindergarten, and I wanted out. And that’s kind of when I first started feeling the darkness, the evilness, and the sadness of this world. 

Becoming a Firefighter

When I was a teenager, I dropped out of high school in the tenth grade because, as I mentioned earlier, I didn’t have any support. And finally, as a fifteen or sixteen year old, I just said, “Enough.” Well, I wasn’t doing bad things, but I started to realize I was going down a wrong road. So I looked into this thing called the California Conservation Corps, where basically you get to make trails in national parks and pick up garbage on the side of the freeways. But it was like you’re working with a team of people. 

Well, while I was there working with the Conservation Corps, we were at a fire and our job was to feed the firefighters and fire camp. So when we were at fire camp, a firefighter comes over and talks to us. So I think, Wow, that’s really cool what you guys do. You help people save lives, fight fire. Plus, the adrenaline rush of the job sounded really cool. And I sat there, kept thinking about it, thinking about it. It’s something in me kept saying, Man, that’d be so cool that actually help other people and have that job. So I went and applied for the California Department of Forestry and I got the job. I went back and I got my GED, which was required for the job. So that’s how I became a firefighter at the age of eighteen. 

Finding Ways to Escape the Darkness

To try to make the darkness go away, I would always rely on what people told me. Obviously not having any Christian friends or mentorship, I would listen to the wisdom of this world and people would say, especially once I started getting older, “Hey, go out and skateboard with your buddies. You’ll feel better. Come hang out with us.” You know, maybe at a younger age, “Drink and party.” Well, I would try that, but honestly, I never felt right. It’s not like I got into partying like, “Hey, this is great. It’s a good time.” So I would show up and hang out with the older kids. But what they were doing just never felt good to me. So I wouldn’t do it. 

Then when I got older and I became a firefighter, I started listening again to like, “Hey, buy a house, get a boat, get a truck, go down to Cabo with all the firefighters on the trip, live the way that a young man should live.” And I tried. And every time I threw any of that stuff into the emptiness inside me, it would actually eat it up, spit it out, and I’d feel worse. So I kind of describe it as a black hole inside of me, that no matter what goodness of this world I’d try to throw into it, it would not seal it up and it would actually make things worse. So being a firefighter that was called to help other people but had no idea how to rescue himself, it was really challenging, especially at that point in my life, being a young man.

“No matter what goodness of this world I’d try to throw into it, it would not seal it up and it would actually make things worse. So being a firefighter that was called to help other people but had no idea how to rescue himself, it was really challenging, especially at that point in my life.” – Jason Sautel

One of the calls that I remember, one that really started the process of me looking for some truth, was when we were on the Bay Bridge, we got called to the scene of a suicidal jumper who was just at the end of his rope. Well, as the firefighter and a paramedic, it was my job to talk to him and try to give him the help that he needs to come back over to our side so we can get him to the hospital to treat him. And that’s having a connection with him. But as I was speaking with him, I looked into his eyes and I could just see an emptiness. And it wasn’t as if that poor man was evil. But as we know, this fallen world’s a mess. 

Looking back on it now, I could see that he was empty as I was at the time, and I could see the emptiness in his eyes. And it was almost like there was an evilness that was eating that emptiness up and it was making him want to jump. 

Well, right as I figured I had, the guy was going in a way that he would come back over the rail and we could walk over to the ambulance. He snapped up and he looked at me with that emptiness in his eyes and he stepped back and he took that eternal plunge. And I watched him fall to his death. 

What scared me to death was as he was falling, what I saw in his eyes was the same thing I saw in my own eyes when I’d look in the mirror, because I felt so empty and I could start to actually see the emptiness. And it scared me to death. 

You get back on that fire truck. And that scene is still inside you. You get back to the firehouse, it’s still inside you. When you leave the firehouse after your twenty-four or forty-eight hour shift and you go home and you walk through the door and people say, “Daddy’s home!” or, “Mommy’s home!” guess what? That scene is still with you. And it sticks with you. 

So when I finally kind of hit the snapping point of I’m done, I can’t handle this because my whole life I had been told, “Jason, you can do whatever you want to do. You can become whatever you want to be.” Well, I wanted every person I encountered at a fire, I wanted to rescue them. Every person who their life was in need, I wanted to save them. But guess what? I couldn’t. So I felt like a huge failure.

What a lot of people don’t understand about our first responders on all levels is they’re human beings. Now, I’m speaking just from a firefighter standpoint. Our job is to show up, not judge, and make it better. That’s it. If our house is on fire, let’s put it out. There’s people trapped. Let’s rescue them. If there’s someone on the brink of death, let’s use all of our medical skills to save them. So when people see us responding to that incident or we’re there, all they see is a big red fire truck like a chariot. And then when we hop off in all that gear, all they see is like knights in shining armor and heroes. 

Well, at the end of the day, all that is on that fire truck and under all that gear and behind that badge is a human being who just wants to help other people. And when you’re on scene of a rough call or a rough incident, that piece of it attaches itself to you. Even if it’s good or if it’s bad, it attaches itself to you. Meaning if you’re at a fire, you absorb the chemicals, you absorb the bad stuff. And that’s physically bad. But even worse is when you’re on the scene of a horrible medical call or an assault and you’re watching someone take their final breath as their eternity is being locked in, but you’re the one who has to try to save their life, and meanwhile, family members are screaming, “Save them! Save them!” And there’s nothing you can do. And it was horrible. After a series of a bunch of rough calls, I started to get really down.

“At the end of the day, all that is on that fire truck and under all that gear and behind that badge is a human being who just wants to help other people.” – Jason Sautel

I finally had all those stressors that were just taking me down and I realized, Hey, I need a place to leave this. I don’t know what it is. I noticed people were going to church and they were happy. And one night I was just struggling with all the traumas in my past. I said, “I want to go to church.” I don’t know where it came from. And so when I got to that church and I was ready to walk in, there were these greeters. And these two greeters stopped being greeters and became bouncers and immediately said, “You can’t come in here dressed like this.” 

And I was like, “What are you talking about? I’m wearing a nice, clean shirt. I’ve got my best pair of shorts and vans and I can’t come in?” 

And they said, “You’re not dressed properly to come into church.”

All of a sudden, the sadness of my childhood of not being welcome to places and people turning me away came back and I had a lump in my throat. But what crushed me was at that moment, I was thinking in my mind, I pull people out of burning buildings, I do CPR, and I do mouth to mouth on children. But I’m not good enough to come into your church because the way I dress? And I was like, “Fine.” 

I walked away and I had tears in my eyes. And shortly thereafter, I actually started coming up with a plan to end my life and actually leave all that pain behind me. And it was one of the worst days of my life, but it was also a huge turning point. Now things in my life started to change. I couldn’t explain why, but I started looking at things differently. When we would go on a rough call. I would look at it like, I don’t want to end up alone. And I started recognizing Grace, even though I didn’t realize what it was at the time, in the form of people being nice to me when I didn’t deserve it.

“I started recognizing Grace, even though I didn’t realize what it was at the time, in the form of people being nice to me when I didn’t deserve it.” – Jason Sautel

The beauty of putting my faith in Jesus and becoming a Christian was that things did not get better. It’s not like all of a sudden all the badness went away. I was still responding to emergencies. I was still seeing the worst of the worst. But I had clarity, where prior to being a Christian, I didn’t know what sin was. I didn’t know about the fallen world. I didn’t know about brokenness. So after I put my faith in Jesus, the clarity that I got of, Wait, fallen people doing bad things. And now I kind of get it. And I then had a place to now leave the pain from those scenes. Meaning if I was on a really rough call, I could then read my Bible. I could pray. I could recite scripture. And I had the body of Christ, of other Christians around me to help me work my way through it.

I knew about Jesus Calling a few years ago. First just walking through a bookstore. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never been a big reader. But when I saw Jesus Calling, I was like, Wow, Jesus had been calling me for many, many years before I finally answered. And yeah, I actually did grab a copy and it was just beautifully, beautifully written because I could see the scripture pouring out of it and the messages coming out of it. And I just love looking at Sarah’s writing. Like I say, I don’t stop at the person, I looked through the message, and I absolutely adore her messages all the way through. And this one really resonated with me. So here we go.

Jesus Calling, December 3rd:

DO NOT BE SURPRISED by the fiery attacks on your mind. When you struggle to find Me and to live in My Peace, don’t let discouragement set in. You are engaged in massive warfare, spiritually speaking. The evil one abhors your closeness to Me, and his demonic underlings are determined to destroy our intimacy. When you find yourself in the thick of battle, call upon My Name: “Jesus, help me!” At that instant, the battle becomes Mine; your role is simply to trust Me as I fight for you. My Name, properly used, has unlimited Power to bless and protect. At the end of time, every knee will bow (in heaven, on earth, and under the earth) when My Name is proclaimed. People who have used “Jesus” as a shoddy swear word will fall down in terror on that awesome day. But all those who have drawn near Me through trustingly uttering My Name will be filled with inexpressible and glorious Joy. This is your great hope as you await My return.

This passage resonates with me on so many levels. First off, Jesus is just reiterating the power in the gospel message. He’s reminding us that He can fight what we can’t. And He is also reminding us that He’s won the battle. And I absolutely love that because that is where strength lies, because we’re so weak. But on the perfect name of Jesus and in the gospel message, that is where everything is. 

I’m just praying for people that draw closer to God and I’m praying for people to put their faith in Jesus. And for those who have, I’m praying that they will reflect on what their faith truly means, because I have learned over the many years of responding to the bad stuff of this world, I can’t fix anything, nor can time. Time alone heals nothing. Time with Jesus heals everything.

“I’m just praying for people that draw closer to God and I’m praying for people to put their faith in Jesus. And for those who have, I’m praying that they will reflect on what their faith truly means, because I have learned over the many years of responding to the bad stuff of this world, I can’t fix anything, nor can time. Time alone heals nothing. Time with Jesus heals everything.” – Jason Sautel

Narrator: To learn more about Jason, visit https://jasonsautel.wordpress.com/, and be sure to find his book, The Rescuer, wherever books are sold. 

If you’d like to hear more stories about God’s relentless love, check out our interview with the women of The Next Door organization.

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Narrator: Next time on the Jesus Calling Podcast, we speak with minister, worship artist, and justice advocate Cece Jones-Davis, who shares how she found her way to helping others through ministry and justice advocacy. 

Cece: I realized that I had to start praying a little bit differently, and I had to start saying, “God, I’m willing to do what it is You want me to do, even if what You want me to do scares me.”