About Voice Ministries
When I was a child growing up in the countryside of Jacksonville, Illinois, I spent many summer days in the top of a large catalpa tree writing poetry. I just never quit writing! Born into a Christian family, the center of our activities was the church. My parents shared a honeymoon love, and I never heard a harsh word between them. Truly, I was born and cradled in love. When I entered college, I began to realize the uniqueness of my upbringing. Many peers had come from dysfunctional homes of abuse, divorce, or alcoholism. That made me different. I had no scars. No pain. No reason to feel sorry for myself.
After college, I married my high school sweetheart who promised me a life with God. He fell away from his faith, and suddenly I knew pain. Three children later, I found myself immersed in a lifestyle my parents had not prepared me for. My husband became a stranger to me. Though I longed for our hearts to be one, padlocks barred his soul. The result was a “bruised heart.” Daily, I was faced with anger, neglect, and loneliness. This condition became a rock and hard place from which I could either become bitter or better. I chose to seek hard after the Word of God, looking to the Lord for the betterment of my soul through the worst of times. In the early years of family life, the tempter’s voice screamed, “divorce!” My hunger for God developed into a private, personal quest to preserve the peace in our home at all cost. Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, began writing volumes in my heart. "Journaled feelings" helped me to understand the pain. Hurt produces growth, and I was growing. If pain is the greatest motivator for creative expression, then I had reason to write. Divine healing was being recorded.
As a young wife and mother, I published several poetry books. These projects prepared me to release Bruised Heart in 1996, the contents of which were pulled from the journal. At this point, I had begun to live at my husband’s side in peace and victory. He didn’t need to read Bruised Heart. He was watching it lived out before his eyes, and he was responding. Though my heart had once been bruised, it was healing. The Father’s Voice was released three years later under the name of my new company, Voice Publishing. The daily devotional entries were “love letters" received from our Father. My wonderful earthly daddy had made it easy to hear our Heavenly Father’s voice. Rosie was published in 2002. This story wrapped the muscle of daily life around the skeleton of my poetry. Truth became fiction through a young wife and mother who passionately elicited heaven’s interaction in the life of her family. PrayerScripts was published two years later, a spiritual warfare manual that prayed the Word; turning worry into faith; confessing God’s Word over life circumstances. These thirty prayers birthed the workbook, PrayerScripts Bible Study, in 2007. In 2011, PrayerScripts Two was released.
Through my early years of marriage, I lived in 1 Peter 3:1, “Adapt yourselves to them, so that even if any do not obey the Word of God, they may be won over not by discussion but by the godly lives of their wives.” My story is that I obeyed the Word of God and adapted to my husband. His lifestyle became mine—a quiet and quaint, sometimes lonely stillness. I found a place of restful contentment at my husband’s side. In 2001, I received my first letter from a state prisoner. She had been reading her cellmate’s book, The Father’s Voice, and desired her own copy. Who was I to deny the need? I sent one book, and the rest is history. Inmate to inmate, the prisoners themselves published this book behind the walls. Hours of solitude were required to write. My adapted lifestyle was perfect for the task. God brought life out of death.
Remember me, the girl who had a perfect childhood? What could I possibly have in common with a drug addict, prostitute, or thief? The answer is everything! Each man is a prisoner to his own pain. God’s answers are the same for all of His children. The truth of God’s Word sets men free! In 2003, I took an early retirement from public school teaching to pursue the prison ministry. In 2006, I was ordained as a minister and founded Voice Ministries as a federally approved 501 (C) (3) public charity. The one book planted at Lincoln Correctional Center turned into thousands of books sent to prisoners throughout the United States. Staff workers and a prayer team now support our motto from Acts 20:35, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Today, my husband and I are the proud grandparents of six grandchildren. This is my story. May it bring God glory.
Rose Marie Jones
