jLabel setVisible(true) Doesn't Work

I apologize for the simple question, but how do the label setVisible properly.

(1) I dragged a jLabel to my form. I then set it like so:

 my_jLabel.setVisible (false);

Later in the project, I set its visibility to true:

 my_jLabel.setVisible (true);

But, the label is no where to be found. That's my problem.

(2)FYI: If I do the following after setting it to true, I do see the label:

JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Is the jLable visible");

(3) Instead of using the show method, doing the following after setting the label visibility to true did not help.
          
            my_jLabel.repaint();
            my_jLabel.validate();

(4) Replacing the showMessageDialog with a sleep did not help.

(5) Replacing the above setVisible in (1) with the following code did not help:

SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
{ //The EDT (Event Dispatch Thread)
   public void run()
   {
      JLabel myLabel = new JLabel("Old Text");
      my_jLabel.setVisible (true);
   }
});

(6) Using google to search for an answer isn't helping.

Thanks,