Join Elizabeth Walker, author of the memoir, The Tablet of My Heart, (Xulon Press), as she virtually tours the blogosphere in May on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion!
About the Author
Elizabeth Walker is the author of the memoir, The Tablet of My Heart. You can visit her website at www.tabletofmyheart.net. To read an extended bio, click here!
About the Book
The world turns upside down for a young girl when her father begins a fatal battle with the merciless affliction cancer. Before his illness finishes it’s devastating rampage through her adolescence, she is confronted by a new demon. She falls victim, by the hands of a trusted adult, to sexual abuse. The devastation of these events causes her to question God’s role in her life, and whether He ever loved her at all. The Tablet of My Heart is a collection of Poetry from the journal of that young girl. It is narrated by the author of the journal herself, who paints a portrait of words illustrating her emotional journey from hopelessness to healing. It is dedicated to victims of abuse; to bring to them the realization of hope that there is a light at the end of the silence.
Excerpt:
My dad had been sick, very sick, for two years of my life now. My mother’s energy was consumed by his sickness. My brothers had their own agendas. One of them was farther away than I could imagine, and the other two . . . let’s be honest . . . what big brother wants his baby sister tagging along for anything? It was a perfectly natural relationship, I assure you.
Unfortunately, Doyle saw it as a perfectly inviting opportunity to gain my trust and friendship. I was alone inside my head. As I said before, I wasn’t really used to someone giving me all his attention. When I was in Doyle’s presence, he paid all sorts of attention to me. He loved my company, he loved to make me smile, and casually he began to love to have me sit on his lap.
Contrary to a mind’s projection of what a child molester should look like, Doyle did not appear to be a monster at all. As a matter of fact, he appeared to be a hero of sorts.
Here was my mother, grieving over the certain death of her husband and father of her children. There with her were the four of us kids, bound to be fatherless. Desperate, sad, and struggling for hope, we were sinking. Then came Doyle, offering a life raft in the midst of troubled waters. He reached out to my mother and supplied her with shelter when she desperately needed it. He gave her a shoulder to cry on in her weakness. He read the loneliness written on my face and responded with friendship. He let us stay in his tiny apartment on the weekends, even though we nearly crowded him out of it. A pillar of a man, people must have thought—certainly not a monster.
Into the Darkness
Sometimes darkness falls so quickly
You barely know it’s there,
Before it finds the warmth inside your soul
And buries itself there.
If you’re lucky maybe embers
Can survive the dying flames,
Smothered by the lifeless dark
That snuffed them when it came.
Once the blackness enters,
Does it ever leave?
Will it stay until it suffocates
The light entirely?
The darkness speaks and hisses
Ugly little things
That mock you every time you pray,
“He’s not lis-s-s-s-s-s-tening.”
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