Johnny’s Gift

In the chaos of war, some gifts cannot be explained. They can only be trusted.

Colonel Johnny Mackenzie arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center carrying more than his wounds from Vietnam. He carried a gift he had never asked for and didn’t fully understand — an ability to feel other people’s emotions, to know when danger was coming, to know what others couldn’t see.

Growing up, his mother had lovingly called this gift “The Luck of the Irish.” Johnny had never been so sure. There was nothing lucky about carrying the weight of knowing. But on the battlefields of Vietnam, that gift had kept men alive who should have died — and that was something he thanked God for every day.

Now at Walter Reed, the war was supposed to be behind him. But the gift didn’t rest just because he did. And neither did his heart — because nothing in his life had prepared him for Marta Simmons. The quietly strong Army nurse who saw past his rank, past his wounds, past every wall he had carefully built — and straight into the heart he was so desperate to protect.

Marta had her own reasons for keeping her distance. She had learned the hard way that loving a soldier meant learning to let go. But something about Johnny was different. Something she couldn’t explain and couldn’t ignore.

Set against the backdrop of one of America’s most turbulent eras, Johnny’s Gift is a story about the courage it takes to trust what God has placed inside you — and the even greater courage it takes to open your heart when everything in you says to keep it closed.