In this article, we illuminate the obstacles truckers face, especially Christian truckers, and highlight their unwavering determination to overcome them.

Christian truckers play a vital role in navigating the complexities of our constantly changing world.

They not only carry essential goods across the country, ensuring that supply chains remain intact, but they also bring a sense of community and faith to the road.

By fostering connections with fellow drivers and sharing their values, they create a supportive network that helps them face the challenges of the trucking lifestyle.

Their commitment to their faith often guides their interactions and decision-making, allowing them to remain resilient and hopeful in an unpredictable industry.

These dedicated individuals encounter numerous challenges on the road, from adapting to new regulations and technologies to managing the demands of long hauls.

Despite these difficulties, they remain dedicated to their faith and values, using their journeys to spread positivity and support their communities.

Their willingness to confront these challenges reflects their resilience, passion for their work, and the impact they aspire to make.

The world may be changing around them, but they understand that God can use their vocation to bring the gospel's good news to a hurting soul hundreds of miles away, and do so overnight.

These drivers remain committed to their faith and values, using their journeys to spread positivity and support their communities. Their willingness to embrace these challenges reflects their resilience, passion for their work, and the impact they aspire to make.

After enduring rejection for most of my childhood, I arrived at a point where I believed I could escape from my troubles and myself. My parents were wrestling with the decision of whether to have me committed to an asylum, and regrettably, I found myself turning to drugs once again.

I took off trucking and ran the wheels off my truck, averaging over six thousand miles per week, but my troubles and troubled past seemed to haunt me through my windshield. Suddenly, I began to have thoughts of suicide, as I had run out of reasons to live.

I was a young, backslidden preacher who felt overworked and stressed to the limit. This led me to experience a partial nervous breakdown that lasted for more than seven years.

In the early 1980s, I left home and secured a job running coast to coast, believing I could escape my troubles and myself.

It was time for me to go, and soon I found myself back on drugs and reverting to my old ways, buying new clothes that looked like something out of a young gun’s movie, and hitting the western trail.

I didn’t make contact with my family for over a year and ran the wheels off my truck, averaging over six thousand miles per week while traveling coast to coast.

At some point during this period, I realized that I no longer had the desire to live and attempted to end my life on three different occasions, which was not difficult to do since I had guns all over my truck.

I cannot recall the first time I attempted to take my life. However, I will never forget the second and third times. In the early 1980s, I remember being in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, near the Association of Christian Truckers Chapel.

I remember that I had just gotten a voicemail system number where someone could call and leave me a voicemail. We would not have had cell phones for several years; all we had were pay phones.

Back then, most truck stops provided drivers with free phones in their restaurants, usually one at every table.

I remember picking one up to call my voicemail to leave a farewell message for my friends and family, who had access codes to retrieve any messages I might go. Surprisingly, the phone emitted a loud buzzing tone in my ear.

I tried several more phones, and they behaved the same way. I became frustrated and angrily snapped at the waitress, “Do you not have any phones in this place that will work?” She replied, “Try this one over here, as I saw some drivers using it.”

God, being my witness, as I picked up the phone to leave my farewell to my family and friends, a gentleman sitting nearby spoke in a trembling voice, “Jerry, I know what you are planning to do, and I am here to tell you that this is not what you want, nor will this help you get out of your depression.”

This stopped me in my tracks and brought me to my senses, causing me to entertain thoughts such as, How did he know my name, and How did he know that I was making plans to end my miserable life?

My life continued, and instead of improving, it became even worse. I began searching for speed, known as crank, to numb my senses and assist me in running those long, lonely miles.

Sometime later, I found myself in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, suffering from deep depression. I remember that it was raining, and as the morning sun began to swallow up the darkness, I slipped out of my truck with one of my guns and stood behind the cab of my big truck in the rain, placing the pistol under my chin, thinking that nobody would see me and nobody would even care.

I cannot remember much except that someone stopped me, pointed at the Association of Christian Truckers Chapel on the premises, and said, “That is where you need to be.”

I don’t know who they were or where they went. Still, it got me thinking that maybe I could put it off and go to the chapel, for I had once carried the blessed word of God, and I recall as if it were yesterday; as I opened that chapel door, a beautiful redhead lady greeted me with a smile that would stop the rain.

Sensing my distress, the chaplain began to speak the words I desperately needed to hear. I was a broken individual, disillusioned by the church's hypocrisy, where preachers preached with closed fists and lacked love for the hurting. I could open up to her, expressing my confusion about the stark contrast between their behavior in church and towards their families.

I felt like I could talk to her, so I informed her that I did not understand how church leaders could behave one way toward their family and another way in church without remorse or conscience.

The lady chaplain walked over to where I was sitting and stared into my face with a smile that made me forget why I was there. I was taken aback as I looked at her red dress and white boots when she suddenly began speaking about how clergy sometimes get caught up in the flesh.

This lady chaplain immediately caught my attention. I remember she began explaining how people could claim to be godly but end up being dragged down by the flesh, adding that sometimes individuals do these things because the flesh enjoys doing what it knows to do.

I remember it like it was yesterday when I began to cry and told her what I had just attempted to do behind my truck. Then, I saw her husband, Joe, start crying with me. The lady chaplain prayed with me, and I later learned that her name was Kris and that her husband’s name was Joe, a retired high-ranking officer in the US Navy.

It took me years to emerge from that dark period. But from that day forward, I made it a habit to visit the two people who unknowingly became instrumental in my life. Their influence and willingness to listen gave me the strength to begin seeking reasons to live.

In the early 1990s, I was on Interstate 80, passing through Milton, Pennsylvania, when I heard a voice I had come to know so well. Was it the lady chaplain that God had used to spare my life at that Pennsylvania truck stop when I was making the third attempt on my life?

After all these years, could this be her? Could this be the one God used to bring me back to my senses and cause me to look at life differently?

I could not get her familiar voice coming across on my CB radio, so I made a point of passing that route again; sure enough, that voice was calling me home.

I stopped in, and she instantly recognized me, saying, “The Lord says you are preaching tonight.” I smiled and replied, “Chaplain Kris, the Lord has cleared up my nerves and placed me back into his ministry, but I have not attempted to speak. " She responded, “I knew it, and you are preaching tonight!”

I remember preaching the message about the woman at the well found in John 4:4, calling it God’s Flower Garden, and I remember it clearly.

In the message, I described my love for my rose gardens, how I had specially ordered them to bloom in different seasons, and how I dug deep holes and placed rocks in them to help prepare the soil for nourishing the plants. However, one day after returning from a long trip, I discovered that insects and disease had struck some of my plants.

I shared how the living God had done the same for me, just as I did with my plants. I spoke about how He would quietly sit beside me and say, "Come on, Jerry, I have done all I can, and now it’s up to you, my boy. Reach down deep and pull what you need up through your roots and bloom where I have planted you because I love you so much, and I need you to bloom for me."

I did not know it, but later I discovered that Chaplain Kris had recorded the message that night and gave me a copy. This resulted in three tape ministries reproducing it, leading to hundreds of responses, with changed lives and salvations stemming from that one message God preached through a renewed driver who refused to let his past define him and one who had developed a mindset to reach the lost at any cost.

The message recorded that night in the Little Grace Chapel traveled the world through three tape ministries. We received numerous reports about how the message had ministered to people at the right time when they needed it most.

I often stopped by The Little Grace Chapel in Milton, Pennsylvania, to preach to the drivers coming in off the lonely road. Many drivers reported rededicating their lives to Christ and even offering their services if needed at the chapel.

The lady chaplain held chapel services every night at 7:30 and 10:30, and the place was usually packed. I remember one occasion when the Lord even had my runs set up until I could conduct a week’s revival there, leading to many lives changed for the Glory of God.

We witnessed God bring them in by the hundreds for the next several years as we sang and played our guitars over the speakers during outdoor services. Young and old drivers danced in the parking lot, praising the Lord as we experienced a revival by the fuel aisle.

Many times, God would use me to provide a word of wisdom and knowledge that would prevent drivers from attempting to take their lives.

The troubled drivers would share stories like mine, explaining how they had left their trucks to come to our meeting, looking for a reason to live. And praise God, they found it! Just as Chaplain Kris had the words for me, God had the words for them, and just like me, some of these precious individuals later became involved in the Lord’s ministry.

Since then, I have devoted my entire life to serving in God’s ministry, allowing Him to leave His signature through me for future generations. He opened doors for me at several radio and TV stations and performed miracles while I preached.

After enduring a severe nervous breakdown for more than seven years, I came back into fellowship with the Lord in 1994 and accepted God's call in 1995. I became a recognized chaplain with the Association of Christian Truckers.

I am still a recognized chaplain with them and will always be connected to them, for God used that lady chaplain to change my life forever.

I was blessed to minister at the Road Angel Truckers Center, an outreach of the Association of Christian Truckers, located off Exit 68 on Interstate 70 in Brownstown, Illinois, during some of their gatherings known as jamborees.

God has utilized my ministry, Withered Hand Ministries, Inc., globally, with hundreds of testimonials of transformed lives, miracles, and healings.

The Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to write inspirational books, which can be found in many cities across the USA and numerous countries worldwide. Many of these books were written from the open road.

I can confidently say that when God has special rewards for people who have paved the way for Mobil Chapel ministries, such as Jim Keys, the founder of Transportation for Christ, including "The Association of Christian Truckers," and my dear friends Chaplain Joe and Jan Hunter, the founders of "Truckstop Ministries,"

Be blessed & be A Blessing
Retired Trucker "The Guardian Angel"