by Marcia Taylor

This article was originally published in PCJH’s Fall 2022 Pinnacle, “Living Our Faith”

I was very blessed to grow up in southern Illinois on a small family farm. My parents were Christians who made sure we attended a small Southern Baptist church each week. I lost my father at the age of 14, so my heavenly father became my earthly father as well. I married early and started a family. My marriage ended badly and in 1971, my three children and I moved to Georgia to go to work for a small startup trucking company. I had never been away from home and was very young with a small family. It was never part of my plan to move to Georgia but thankfully God had a better plan for my life than I had for myself.

I remarried and in 1974 my husband J.D. Garrison and I purchased a small trucking company that had 15 trucks, 30 trailers and two small contracts, one with Sunshine Biscuit company and the other with Ford Tractor Co. We had $500 in capital to start and a lot of faith in God that we were doing the right thing. It was tough, but we worked long hours and slowly began to build our business. 

In 1981 my husband J.D. passed away leaving me with a small business and a family to raise. This was a dark time for me, and I really had to draw on my faith to have the courage to try to keep the business going. There were not many women in my industry which was trucking, during that time. 

Today our company, The Bennett Family of Companies will be 49 years old, and we are made up of 16 different companies that specializes in Flatbed, Van, International, RV and Government Shipments that support our Men and Women who fight for our Freedom each day. We are a privately held, family company, with my three children, four grandchildren and 2 grandson-in laws working in the company each day.  We have 12 core values that we live by every day and one of those values is that we are faith based. We know that all our blessings truly come from God and we know if it was not for his guiding light and direction, we would not have made it through the last 49 years. We are truly blessed. 

Because of our Strong Spiritual Commitment, we brought on a Chaplin that ministers to our drivers. Pastor Dewberry provides counseling, prayer and time with our drivers when they come onto our yard.

Each week he has a time of devotion that our drivers can be on, and each week we have between 400 – 500 drivers that hear the word and are prayed over on each call.  During the Pandemic, we reached out to the “Dave Nemo” show that is on XM Radio, because we wanted to reach not only our drivers but other drivers across this nation, that at the time needed encouragement and the word of God in their lives. Each morning at 7:10am Chaplin Dewberry gives a time of devotion that reaches several thousand drivers. We have devotions at our main office, that is provided by Jonathan Moses, who worked with us, but was called to minister as a pastor at a local church. But each Wednesday during the lunch hour, our employees can be a part of the devotional as well as share their prayer requests.

We try to live our faith each day and one of the stories I love to share, of how living our faith touched one of our employees. We had an individual who worked for our company for a long time, he didn’t go to church, he didn’t believe, and his language was not the best. But because of our company’s strong faith, because we pray before each meeting, because we pray before our meals, because we are not ashamed of the Gospel. This individual gave his heart to God. He now prays before a meeting, he shares what all he is doing in his church, and above all, he shares that he is so much happier, now that he is living a Christian life.

May God continue to be your refuge in times of need. All we need is the faith of a mustard seed, and the rest is in our Heavenly Father’s hands. Never give up, I know, I have experienced the struggles of life, but I also know our blessings and strength truly come from God.