Tag: Freedom

Fear’s Table

- JaclynPalmer Leave a comment

Sitting there alone as my tears washed over the kitchen floor, I knew something had to change. I was paralyzed by fear. I was overcome by left-over emotions of past realities. Realities of my dad’s death at 33; I was eight. Realities of this same dad leaving 7 years earlier; my 8-year-old self wondering if it were her fault. I was broken and bound by fear. And in this reality, I sat in my corner all alone. Wrapped in the body of my 32-year-old self, I wept the tears of fear that washed over me after my husband and son walked out the door. This was when I knew something had to change. Read more

In His Presence

- JaclynPalmer 4 Comments

The presence of God is frightening to those who do not know the presence of God.

I think of the men on the ship heading to Tarshish. The moment they conclude Jonah’s story the pieces all fall together. The power of God and His plan were readily seen and felt in the lives of the ship crew. Fear overtook their actions.

The presence of God is freedom to those who choose to sit in the presence of God.

I think of you and me walking in our daily lives. The moment we conclude that our story is bigger than our perception the pieces all fall together. The power of God and His plan are readily seen and felt by His Children. May freedom overtake our actions. Read more

My Personal Writing Journey

- JaclynPalmer 13 Comments

If Great Writers are Great Readers then I must be phenomenal, but I’m not. I am simply a great reader.

I have a 3rd grade education, yet I am a Bible college graduate. Connect those dots. Being pulled out of public school at the age of 8, I was fully unaware of the death of my furthering education. But I had books. So, I read. I read everything from the King James Bible to Roots with Kunta Kinte. I claimed to be smart. I claimed to have read Shakespeare and Dickens until I got convicted of lying. My options from there were to step up and claim my true, uneducated ignorance or read what I was claiming. So, I read. The humor and intelligence found within the pages of Much Ado About Nothing lured me into my claim in such a way that I simply could not escape. Shakespeare and Dickens became my educators alongside Alcott, Austen, and the very depth of all things Books.

If Great Writers are Great Observers of Life then I must be brilliant, but not quite. I am merely overly observant.

I am a statistic, yet I grew up in a Christian home. Connect those dots. Being lost in the pages of someone else’s words, I was able to disengage from the reality that entrapped me. As much as I dreamed a dream more than once in hopes that it would come true, my mother’s husband never left, died, or got flushed down a toilet. Hey, a child’s dream goes without explanation or rationalization at times. So, I observed my life within my glass box of “Christian home” without ever saying a word of truth to anyone. It is said that, “If you want to say a lot you have to have a lot to say.” For me, I had a lot to say, but I trusted no one with the words I was forbade to say. My newlywed husband listened to me before I even uttered a word. He stood beside me and fought for my verbal freedom in order to heal. Girlfriends unlocked little by little throughout the years. One friend knows one bit, and another knows another and all in all my girlfriends hold the dots that connect.

If Great Writers are Wrestlers with their own Struggles then it must be time to call the fight, but not yet. I am only just beginning.

Uneducated and unhealed, yet I published a Bible study on the book of Matthew. Dots that beautifully connected; my grammar was grade level, my sentence structure painful, but in the end, I found myself perfectly free. Where I was saved by His Grace at a young age, I was now healed by the Words of His human existence. I was the target reader of my own written observation. For me, my book was great, and I will forever be humbled and amazed at the journey that grew me to be the healed and set free woman I am today. I may have fought victoriously within my heart and mind, but I have abundant battles before me; grammar, structure, commas, clauses, etc… Even as I write this I giggle, cringe, and shrug, for all I can do is write according to what I know. Oh, how I desire to grow!