Episode 120 :: Jasmine L. Holmes :: Stories of Sharing Beauty, Resilience, and Fierce Faith from Black Women’s Experiences in History

Today I have the absolute pleasure of sharing with you my conversation with the one and the only Jasmine Holmes. Jasmine is an essayist, an educator and an excavator of jewels hidden in history. She shares her story of growing up in a predominately white environment and shares about the well-meaning people in her life who would say totally misguided and inappropriate things to her that she just felt like she had to accept as normal. As she began to learn about more about history and the Black experience within it, she began to realize how those patterns of behavior have been woven so deeply into the generations. When she became a wife and a Mother, she began to really unpack some of the layers of her community and experiences, which gave birth to her book Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope. In this beautiful book, she poured out her heart’s desire to raise young men who understand what they’ve inherited, to live honestly and authentically, but also to be led by hope.

During her journey of unpacking some unsung ambassodors of the faith that she mentioned in Mother to Son, readers approached Jasmine about wanting to know more about these Black pillars of the faith they had not heard of before. That set Jasmine on a journey of discovering who else is out there. What emerged is her beautiful work Carved in Ebony: Lessons from the Black Women Who Shape Us. Jasmine calls this her love letter to the little girl that she was who had a quest for knowledge, but so often did not see people that looked like her. Y’all this book is SO good. The women in its pages are fascinating women of fierce faith, who fought for abolition, carried the Gospel with them where they went and more. I’m so inspired by them and by Jasmine.

The beauty and importance of intentionally unearthing people in history who have long been hidden within its yellowed pages is to give others a chance to have their voice an opportunity to be heard and highlight that their story and their life matters, and her book Carved in Ebony is an opportunity to do just that. In it you will find inspiring, faith fueling, and humbling stories of women that speak of the power of God in their lives, and the book serves as such a poignant picture of how much stories matter. These women lived lives that were full of struggle and triumph and they are ministering to us anew. That’s what God does with the lives of people. They matter to Him. And you matter to Him, friend. You matter. Your story matters.