Earlier this month Kemay Jackson did what we all do on Facebook, type our thoughts and feelings in that little blue and white box.
“Ten years ago I made the decision to quit my job, pack up me and my son and go to law school. Many people told me I was crazy to leave a good job. But I decided to listen to God. It hasn’t been easy, and initially I felt that I made a big mistake but I stepped out on faith. Lesson learned: When God gives you a vision, he also gives provision. #blessed”
Jackson, a 36-year-old attorney from Orlando, Fl said that statement was all about listening to God’s plan for her life.
“I think sometimes God tells us what he has for us, and we don’t believe it, because it seems too big,” said Jackson who currently lives in Atlanta with her son Mathieu, 16.
She continued that it’s like the story of Joseph in the Bible, you have big dreams and you don’t know how they are going to happen. Jackson said people give you a million reasons why you can’t. “I don’t blame people, because God didn’t give them a vision for my life, He gave it to me,” she said.
Jackson received her Juris Doctorate from University of Florida. Going to law school turned out to be a great decision she says. The same people who were discouraging her are the ones that praise her now. “God didn’t tell me how, He just told me to go,” she says of law school. Before becoming an attorney Jackson worked as a Benefits Specialist in Human Resources.
As a lawyer she loves the cross examination part of trials, “I love getting someone on the stand and gut punching them. It’s a thrill, I live for it,” Jackson said. She also enjoys helping people.
Jackson offers advice to women who are afraid to act on their vision. She says to simply pray on it and move on. However, work quietly on your dreams.
“People can talk you out of you dreams. Let them see you working on it, not what you about to do,” Jackson said.
While she offers words of advice for others, Jackson says she’s motivated by her past. Her grandmother came to the United States from Haiti with nothing. Her father was a drug addict her mother was a single mother with English as a second language and Jackson had a baby at the age of 19. Through it all she still became a successful attorney.
“My mother is my role model, although she drives me crazy,” Jackson said. She adds that her mother always wanted more for her children, and accomplished it.
Jackson said her mother is another example of having big dreams and not knowing the how or why. “I think about the places I’ve been and things I have seen. It’s all because my mother wanted them for me and I want the same for my son,” she said.
Jackson often recalls a dream she had as a little girl about of being an attorney.
At the time she wasn’t sure what the dream was. She remembers a vision of me being in a big city, wearing a black suit and drinking a cup of coffee.
“That’s my life now,” Jackson said. “God gives us dreams and sometimes we wonder how it’s going to happen.”
Jackson said many things have happened in her life, but the one constant has been that the Lord on her side. “I’ve had detours, but my destination is the same. I believe that the best is yet to come,” she said.
And while there is excitement about what’s next there is a bit of sadness for Jackson.
“The only thing that make me sad, is that my best friend is not here to share it with me,” she said of her friend who passed from breast cancer in 2011.
“We went through so much together,” she said. “Both of us had big dreams surrounded by little people. I think that is how we became friends.”
Jackson recently fulfilled another lifelong dream when she started her own law firm. K.L.Jackson Law LLC opened in June 2013 focusing on criminal and family law. She can be reached at 2330 Scenic Highway Snellville, Ga 30078. The number is 770-559-9917 and website is http://www.kljackson.com