Читать книгу Jesus and Those Bodacious Women - Linda H. Hollies - Страница 8

A book is never written in isolation. All the persons who touch, influence, inspire, and even hinder your life help you in the writing process. The lessons you have learned and the individuals who taught you hover over your shoulders, waiting to see if you mastered the materials. In the same way that “it takes a village to raise a child,” it takes your entire community to write a book. And, it takes bodacious women in the community to role-model correct behavior for little girls.

I am thankful to my “life community” for my personal experiences and awareness of the journey of forgiveness. Many are the charitable and gracious souls who have forgiven me when I have stumbled, blundered, and just plain messed up. I have been picked up, lifted up, forgiven, and blessed to grow and to become. It is in community that I have become a bodacious woman.

My family of origin heads this list of folks who helped write this book. My grandmothers, Lucinda Weston, Eunice Wade, Ethel Kellom, and Lessie Bell King, live in me, speak to me, and continue to admonish and cheer me as they watch from the realms of glory. My Big Daddy, Dock Wade, is with them, and I appreciate the loving role modeling he provided. My parents, James and Doretha Adams, gave me life and granted me the necessary lessons that have taught me to hold on to God’s unchanging hand. My aunt, Barbara Ruth Weston, taught me, by example, the art of meditation, relaxing, releasing, and letting go of yesterday’s pain. Church mothers and community mothers have played vital roles in my becoming. Especially dear to my heart are Mother Lula Smith and Mother Louise Holliway. All of these people now await me on the “other side.” “Miss” Ethel Sims, a neighbor-mother, Hortense House, teacher-mother, and Dr. Delia Burt, professor-mother each taught me how to “strut my stuff.” I pray that I teach their lessons well.

My siblings and extended family are the rich soil that has nurtured my soul. For Jacquie, Bob, and Troy; Riene, Tony, Lynne, Michael, and Missy; Regina, Arthur, Raymond, Ibn, and Millicent; James Jr., Jeanette, Noah, and Mohanna; Eddie, Onnette, Eddie Jr., and Candace; David, Kim, Dave Jr., and Ean; and Robert Tyrone, I give God thanks and praise. The loving support of my “awesome uncle” Clenton Weston has upheld, supported, and encouraged me through the years.

Finally, my husband, Chuck; my daughter, Grian; her sons, Giraurd and Gamel; and my sons, Greg and Grelon, have each taught me lessons and learned, because of me, how to live bodaciously. My family is another name for love. They inspire and sustain this bodacious woman in ministry. God gave them as gifts in my life.