PHOTO BY CLARISSA OEHLER Dr. Jackie Smallbones holds her recently published memoir, “Knit Together: Many Colors, One Life.”
A knitted garment of seven colors of yarn serves as the foundation for Dr. Jackie Smallbones’ 167-page memoir, “Knit Together: Many Colors, One Life.”
Published in August, the book is a personal, random collection of stories in loose chronological order from infancy to adulthood that highlights certain aspects of her life.
“It includes both serious and humorous, playful and honest as it documents my journey towards healing and wholeness in the way of Jesus,” Smallbones said. “Life is a mosaic of many colors woven together by the Master Weaver.”
Each book section is a different color relating to what the section is about. “Blue: Early childhood experiences,” is because she relates blue with her blue-eyed child syndrome. As the only blue-eyed child of five in her family, she tried hard to be the ‘blue-eyed’ or ‘good’ child.
When she sees the color green, she thinks of growing and relates that to her faith; therefore, “Green: Church and other religious experiences.”
The section called, “Silver: Things my mother told me” is that color because it’s one she associates as being older.
Smallbones thinks that the color white represents healing and that is why the section about healing and wholeness is called, “White: Healing and wholeness.”
Brown is random and worked perfectly for the random stories she included in her memoir, “Variegated Brown: Variegated stories randomly told.”
Smallbones commented on her process of writing this personal memoir.
“I started with the things that my mother had told me growing up and from there, everything seemed to flow,” she said.
After finishing the memoir, she experienced a sense of pride and accomplishment.
“The hardest part was figuring out how to self-publish,” Smallbones said. “Of all the writings I’ve done, this was definitely the most fun.”
Chaplain Harlan Van Oort has read Smallbone’s memoir.
“The memoir is vintage Jackie, and who she really is comes through the pages,” Van Oort said.
Van Oort is honored to say he is a good friend of Smallbones and said he is blessed to have known her for the past 20 years.
After reading the memoir, Van Oort reflected on the various stories and how they were told by Smallbones.
“She cannot help but teach the Bible. Her sermons are in her memoir,” Van Oort said.
In the “Variegated Brown: Variegated stories randomly told” section of the memoir, there are different stories that have ‘preaching’ in the title.
“Jackie is honest and students might realize that she is speaking frankly,” Van Oort said.
In 2003, Augsburg Books published Smallbones’ first book, “Keeping Company with Jesus.” The afterword in the book is titled “Not yet the end”; which implies she may do more writing eventually, but does not know when that may be.
The memoir is available on Amazon.com, Lulu.com and the NW Bookstore.
