AMAZING STORY
Money Can't Buy True Love
By Tim Smith
The 700 Club
CBN.com - Janice Simpson and her husband Bob are co-owners of the Texas Rangers. Though they’ve enjoyed great success, Janice will tell you her life began with great pain. “We became his wives, more or less, as opposed to his children,” says Janice.
Janice and her sister were mentally and sexually abused by their father. It started when their mother died. Janice was just five. The abuse continued for seven years. “We did all of the cooking and cleaning, and eventually it led into wifely duties. He’d promise to quit, and never do it again, and then it would start right back up again. As a child, I did whatever I had to do to get that love, or to feel that love.”
When Janice was twelve, her father was sent to prison for abusing his daughters. So she lived in foster homes or with family members. As a teenager, Janice started drinking. “After I got out of high school was when I went wild and crazy. I think I was looking for security.(I was) Looking for that older, father figure type, but really trying to fill my life, this void that’s in my life, with love.”
At 18, Janice married an alcoholic, and they had two sons. Her view of love was still distorted. “I used sex to be able to love, and I know that came from my father.”
Janice’s husband physically abused her, and she divorced him. At 26, she met Bob, and they married in 1998. “After we got married, we had two beautiful girls. I think like every marriage, then the honeymoon part is over. And you have to learn to love each other without the fireworks and explosions. You think, ‘We are so in love.’ Then, ‘Wait a minute, he doesn’t love me anymore, I guess.’”
Bob soon became the CEO of a multi-billion dollar energy corporation. The couple continued to drift apart. “We were probably worth a couple hundred million, probably 2 or 3 hundred million at the time. So we had lots of money, but not happiness. So I didn’t care anymore. I went in the opposite direction, and started drinking and that led to drugs and to cocaine. Having money won’t make you happy, but you sure can get into a lot of trouble with it.”
One night, when Janice was home alone, something simple got her attention.
“I went in the bathroom and I looked into the mirror, and my eyes were dark. I looked into the mirror that day, there was no life in those eyes any more. And I had this picture taped up to my mirror, and it was a picture of me and my daughter, and I had light in my eyes then. And I looked back at myself and said, ‘This is not who I want to be any more.’”
Janice checked herself into rehab. She completed the program, and never touched drugs again. Alcohol was a different story. Then a friend invited her to a Bible study.
“They said, ‘Does anybody have a prayer need?’And it was pulling at my heart. It was like He was reaching in and pulling my heart. I lifted up my hand, and I remember saying, ‘I’m a closet drinker. I don’t want to drink any more. And I know that there’s only one way that this is going to stop.’ And I asked them to pray for me. They all came over and they laid their hands on me. And He took that urge away from me that moment.”
“When I say that, it’s pretty strong, because I was drinking a lot of vodka at night. A lot! I never will forget the day that happened. I knew, at that instant, what love really is. And that was He loves me enough, He died for me. He really doesn’t want me to carry that stuff around with me anymore.”
Janice was a new person. And Bob began to notice something different about his wife. “As God was working in my life, and my attitude changed, my husband’s did the same. Gradually, he started coming to church. He started coming to Bible study.”
Bob gave his life to Christ in 2009. “A marriage that never should have stayed together came back together, with God in the middle.”
Today, Janice and Bob are closer than ever. They're still rooting for their Rangers, and they recently launched Raylynn Records, a record company in Nashville, TN.
“My prayer for women is to know it doesn’t matter what you’ve done,” says Janice. “It doesn’t matter where you’ve been. And God showed me that. Don’t look at who the world says you are. Look at who God says you are, and you are His beloved. And He loves you.”
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