Rod Jetton

I am the father of  three children, which includes two beautiful girls, Callie and Emily  and  son Will .  Callie and Emily are out of college and Will is out of high school.  I attend the Sanctuary of Hope Church in Branson, Missouri, where I serve as an elder.  I also joined the Branson Camp of the Gideons, which is a group that passes out Bibles in America and all over the world.

I love spending time outdoors which makes Branson a wonderful place to live.  With three beautiful lakes it is a great place for fishing and hunting.  Our area is home to several state parks with never-ending trail systems that are perfect for bike riding, trail running or just taking a relaxing hike.

My father Bill Jetton and mother Judy Jetton are wonderful Christian parent’s who taught me about Jesus.  They also live a life of service to others and set a great example for me to follow.  Most of my life I tried hard to follow their example, and when I did, I obtained tremendous success.  Unfortunately, there were a few years when I strayed from their teachings and allowed success, pride, and the responsibilities of life to change me.  During that time I made mistakes and decisions that ruined my reputation, compromised my integrity, and cost me dearly.  Because of my parents prayers and Gods grace I was able to change my wayward ways and turn back to Christ.

Since that day everything in life is better.  I have peace, contentment and real joy.  Joy I have never known before in my life.   The Lord’s blessings are amazing.  I went from a potential lifetime in prison and being scorned by the public as well as most of my friends, to finding a wonderful job, and a higher calling than just looking out for #1.  There are hardly words to describe how much happier I am now that I focus on serving Jesus and helping others.

I am so very thankful for my troubles, and wouldn’t want to go through them again, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything.  They have allowed me to be less judgmental and more understanding, less prideful and more caring, as well as less envious and more content.   Temptations still come, wrong thoughts still slip in, but God‘s grace and my past mistakes, along with my new-found peace, all help me resist temptations and enticements.

What Paul said in 1st Timothy 1:15 seems so well to apply to me, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of which I am chief.”  I am not proud to admit that I was the chief sinner and yet God loved me enough to show me mercy and grace.  I consider myself  better than no one, and much worse than most.  He loves others as much as he loves me, which makes it much easier for me to love and care for my fellow-man.

Before my failure, when I was considered a success in the world’s eyes, I looked down on others and judged them by my standards.  I had very little compassion on those less fortunate than myself and offered very little help to those who I deemed unworthy.  Just as Paul said in Romans 7:24, “O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of  this death?”  What a wretched man I was, but the whole time pride blinded me to my own glaring faults.

This is why I am thankful for my troubles.  Where would I be? What would I have become? Where would I have spent eternity had I stayed on the path I was going down?   Success and all the praise of my fellow-men made me think I didn’t need God and that I could do everything all by myself.  When God allowed me to fail and fall from power I lost the things I thought were most important to me.  Thankfully, He allowed me to keep the most important things such as my family and my health, but my money, reputation, occupation and powerful status were all gone in the blink of an eye.

Losing those temporal things that I foolishly placed my faith in was worth it to gain the peace, contentment, and joy I have today.  Then to see what God has done for me now and the blessing he has given to one of the biggest and worst sinners on earth.  It’s a miraculous turnaround. I have a wonderful job with amazing financial possibilities and my reputation is being unbelievably restored. While I am so very thankful for all those earthly blessings, God is also helping me be a better father, son, brother and friend.  Most importantly, He is teaching me to be a better servant to Him and my fellow-man. I wish I could describe in words how I feel inside now that Jesus is in control of my life.  The best word that comes to my mind is JOY, but even that doesn’t adequately convey my feelings. I guess I am a Jesus freak, but don’t let that scare you. All my family, friends and business associates who knew me before my downfall say I’m a lot better person to be around. Sorry I took so long to tell about myself, but without explaining my failures, troubles, and God’s miraculous rescue, you would not have known the truth about me.

In 2012 I started Targeted Communications, a content marketing company helping businesses build better relationships with their customers. I’m an author, public speaker, publisher, content marketer, public relations guru, business adviser, salesman, fundraiser and social media pro whose writings have been featured on The Arena – Politico and the Recovering Politician. I’m also a partner in Second Act Strategies, a bipartisan group of former public servants who share our stories of overcoming crisis with corporations, elected officials and not-for-profit organizations. I sure don’t have all of life’s answers, and truthfully, I’ve experienced both the highs and lows of life. But I love the Lord, I enjoy each day here on earth and I wish you the kind of peace I’ve found.

As a content marketing specialist I help both small and large companies tell their stories. I enjoy seeing my clients build better relationships with their customers by providing them with useful content and helping them deliver it through channels such as websites, blogs, email, and social media, as well as eBooks, white papers and traditional advertising.