International day of the woman ... is for embracing all that makes us strong and for the ways we are teaching those behind us to be strong too. I tear up over how the climate is changing for women and am so grateful to be witnessing it. I am so blessed for the women that God placed in my life and my path especially through the last few years. Their prayers, support and friendship have held me up through major life transitions and as we all are in the trenches raising our children.
I chose this picture because the truth is standing like this did not come naturally to me. In my teens and 20s I can tell you I would push myself in so many ways but to be assertive if I needed to, to speak up to authority? It would terrify me, even to the point where I couldn’t control myself from crying trying to have a difficult conversation with a teacher or a boss.
But as time went on, in my job as a journalist, then becoming a mom, and really literally having to stand up against so much that was wrong in the last decade I have had to be bold and brave beyond what I would have thought I was capable. But I did because I was never alone. I had God and his word and I had these prayer warrior sisters interceding.
While these steps I've taken have been hard and draining at times I am witnessing my daughters having a boldness in their own lives and circumstances at their young ages that just blows me away. And that is the silver lining, that they are seeing first hand and owning how to stand for what is right and to speak up.
The same goes for the women in the entertainment and other industries who are speaking up and making it so that the path will be different, better for future generations.
Here's to all of you beautiful bold women and women in the making. I am so grateful for you! (She is bold as a lion. –Proverbs 28:1).
Jackie is a single mom to three now all in the teen and tween years, and she's learning to love this new season with them.
Creating art has always been a cathartic healing part of Jackie's life. In the aftermath of her first awareness of infidelity she felt God nudging her to create scripture art and that is how willowofwonder.etsy.com was born.
Jackie's marriage did not survive after many years of marriage crisis, yet out of it all, she can say that she knows her relationship with Christ has deepened to a level it would not have without the trials. She has learned to receive His unconditional love, and what it truly means to have the joy of the Lord as her strength.
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