Books

Where is My Coat?

Where is My Coat? was released in October, 2025 by TMM Publishing (link below) and is a deep dive into the life of the Biblical Joseph. Along with Joseph, Jernigan shares some of her own struggles and helps the reader to realize that we are all the same as life brings many struggles. What we know about God will help us as we face those struggles and continue on the journey through life. Read the preface below!

Preface to Where is My Coat?

I sat quietly in the all-too familiar meeting  room. I had talked with the church’s leadership team many times in this room. The room had been used for my Geometry and Algebra classes, the Great Books and English classes. This year, Kindergarten students had gleefully learned in this room.  All of those students, their parents and memories were flooding back as I sat there, in a board meeting that was already underway. 

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We were supposed to be discussing the transition of the hybrid school that I, and three others, had founded just six years before. With the other three founders moving on to other endeavors at various stages in the last few years, I was the only founder left and the one who had served as the Executive Director for five years. While it had been an extreme privilege and honor, it had taken its toll on the personal bank account, my health, and other interests that just stood in the ‘wings,’ waiting for my attention. Just a month before, I had resigned as Director, as the job was too large for just one person and I knew that I could not keep pace as I approached 60. Along with several others, I hoped we could begin a transition that would break those tasks into several positions. This would ease the burden on any one person and  guarantee a long future for this unique school. My position would become several positions that would work alongside each other and I already had several ideas of folks that I would like to work with and mentor. It was time in the school’s history and was much needed for the program to grow. In addition to this pressing matter of redefining the various job descriptions, Covid was still an issue nearly three years after the pandemic had struck, changing the world as we knew it. Some recent rises in Covid statistics and cases had increased conflict over our Covid policies and we needed to hammer out our future policies in regard to this continuing nuisance and how it would affect the school year.

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But as I listened to the conversation, I heard all of my tasks being broken up amongst the board members and found that an odd arrangement. I was trying to allow others to speak and present ideas so remained quiet. Some of the jobs were rather large (hiring, making schedules, reporting to the state and IRS) and probably not suited for a board member as board members only served for a few years at a time.  However, at the apparent and rather abrupt end to the meeting, I asked a question that turned out to be one of those pivotal, before and after scenarios in life. Because all of my tasks had been presumably given to board members, I asked the group “What do you want me to do next year?” Silence. Absolute and deafening silence. I then hesitantly followed up: “Do none of you want me to return to any of my tasks next year?”

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Silence ensued again. No one made eye contact with me. And I knew in that moment that I was no longer wanted. Needed? Probably. But not wanted. 

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Since the other founders were no longer on the board, much of the vision had shifted and many of the original goals of the first five years were no longer front and center. The manner in which we had operated and educated for the previous six years was being seriously questioned and I represented the old regime as my fourth and final child had graduated two years before so I had no children or “teeth” in the program. I was outspoken on some of these goals and operations and was told I was exasperating  (according to one of my fellow board members) in those  ideals and goals. The newer and younger board members desired to move in different directions both with personnel and the day to day running of the school.

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So, here we were, in the sterile, cold room, and as the ice began to crack, one member exclaimed rather awkwardly, “You can return and teach…you are a great teacher.” Another member agreed while a third member candidly noted “There is too much drama internally (on the board) and we want a change from that.” I was frozen inside – you know that knotty feeling where your stomach turns somersaults, your blood boils and you have so much to say, but your mouth is soldered shut? Yes, that was me. Somewhere between holding back the tears, wanting to explode with words that I could later regret, and melting to the floor, I gathered my things and left. I had not experienced a gut punch like this before. As I numbly walked to my car, I remembered a line from a movie that I loved to watch over and over.  I was likely feeling similarly to the three astronauts who were on the Apollo 13 mission in 1969. Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert were on their way to the moon. Just the year before, Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon and so would these astronauts. However, shortly into the mission, there was an equipment failure that sent them and NASA into a frenzy. In the movie, there is a defining moment when Lovell looks at his counterparts and declares: “Gentlemen, we’ve just lost the moon.” Recently, I came to understand that Lovell did not actually say this, but instead declared “NASA, we have a problem.” Hollywood actually took some liberties and dramatized the moment! Regardless, I had just lost my moon. 

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This hybrid school had been my 5th child, so to speak. It had been a dream to start a two-day a week, classical, great books school for the homeschooling community where I lived (My own children had attended a similar program almost an hour from our home). Since our opening day in 2017, our classes had been at capacity, the school fully staffed with amazing teachers and we had seen our high school (the culminating piece of such a program) progressively grow over the years. We were running as a 501 c3, with a strong parent base and a vibrant board, but that would eventually be my demise. While I wouldn’t change how we established  this school/business, a not-for-profit organizational model does put the power into the hands of the board. That board had just made a decision about my life and it was not at all in line with how I saw my life playing out. I had assumed I would retire from this school, and now I was out. No longer was I a board member, the director or a teacher. 

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I drove home….just a few short miles. I yelled at God. I asked Him why. I just wanted to understand. For nearly a year, I had been at odds with some of the administrative management ideas. Just three months prior, seeing that the board was struggling in relationships and in general functioning, I had asked our board to consider doing some training on how to work and function better as a leadership body, more specifically working toward reconciliation where pieces had been broken or challenged in the past. Three times I asked. Three times there was little response and only minimal follow-up. With little hope of learning to work better as a leadership body, I would ultimately have to decide whether to stay and deal with difficult people and situations, or go and pursue other paths. I decided to leave, but felt very much under duress. There was great disappointment that relationships would be left hanging, friendships damaged and a vision/passion lost.

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My story of loss and disappointment is similar to so many. Great loss is a part of life. This was probably one of the greatest losses I had experienced and as I arrived home, I did crumple into a mess of broken dreams. My children and my husband would work over the next months just to make sure I walked from one day into the next during the transitioning of the business into the hands of others. Even as I write, I am reduced to some of those same emotions. I loved that school. I loved the students and families. I loved the education methodology. I knew that God had given me a mandate in 2016 and He had clearly directed me to build it. He had not mandated that I run it for an undetermined period and I sensed that He was saying to me “It’s time to go.” But I did not want to go and would kick and scream my way through the following summer. I am not quick at obedience and was one of those kids that said “Please, just five more minutes?” 

As I have processed these subsequent years, God has consistently brought me back to Joseph. He and I have become quite good friends as I have studied his life and God’s chosen family in the book of Genesis. I began by getting down into that nasty well that his brothers threw him in. I sat with him for quite a while, cold, damp and wondering how it had come to this. I felt betrayal, as did this teenage boy, when his brothers drew him out of the well just to sell him off, like an animal. He would end up in Egypt, disappointed, with an uncertain future. I was leaving the only thing I had known (teaching and leading in a hybrid, classical environment) for about 16 years and was certainly in a disappointed and uncertain state.

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 This book is that story of pain, loss, redirecting my identity, healing and seeking God’s plan. Loss is an inevitable and regular certainty in all of our lives. Some experience horrific loss – that of a child or a crisis that takes everything from them like victims of weather or natural crisis. Those losses are in a category of their own and not something I have experienced or can give counsel to.  Some of my own losses are traumatic and difficult, as are Joseph’s and I will intertwine my story with that of Joseph’s. His story, as providence would have it, leaves us with many gaps. We see just tiny snippets of him in Genesis and few references to him beyond that. However, he knew something. He experienced something. He did something. While I can’t speak with absolute certainty about how he processed things that happened to him, I will speculate and perhaps give some life to the in-between parts of Joseph. I’m not adding to scripture at all and have no hard evidence on which to base my claims of his in between times of life.  I do know that God held him and God holds me. The rest is just me speculating! May you find words of comfort from a fellow traveler on the journey.