BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – For 50 years, Pastor Sandra Jackson has led the faithful to align with God in a storied ministry career that wasn’t always easy.
The pastor is being celebrated with a banquet in her honor for compassionate care in preaching the Word, shouldering burdens, and caring for souls.
She gives the glory to God for staying all these years, when at times she wanted to walk or even run away.
“I wanted to hide. As a woman, you don’t always get the greatest respect from people, sometimes your colleagues and others in the same field,” said Word of Truth Church Pastor Jackson. “But I had to remember that I didn’t call myself; God called me. The only reason that I’m doing this is because that’s what he ordained me to do.”
Pastor Jac (Evangelist Jackson), as she was known during her Charleston church days, says she never felt that pastoring was her spiritual calling, but something changed.
“A mother there told me you have a gifting to pastor. I couldn’t see it. In October 1985, when the minister left, there was nobody else to carry on,” Jackson said, adding that she heard ‘I guess it’s up to you’ from Deacon Herbert Smith. From that time on, I started pastoring.”
A year passed, when the pastor grew tired of struggling against the will of God.
“Once I said, yes, Lord, I had peace and joy. I took it day by day,” said Jackson. “But I know it was the grace of God that allowed me to stay through all the difficulties. I am feeling fulfillment in this first era of my life.”
For those struggling, she says you can rise above the darkness, but that means enduring the trying times.
“Because when your mind is made up, you persist, continue, and persevere. And then the faithfulness, loyal to what God called you to do and to be faithful, he’s going to help you through the situation and bring you out on the other side,” Jackson said.
While not starting over, after a half-century, the pastor says she feels like this is a reset.
“To continue what he’s told me to do,” said Jackson. “When it comes to all those years, I just hear God saying, ‘Well done.'”
