Dr. Alicia L. Jackson, PhD
Featured Episode Voice • Purpose • Healing • Leadership
Meet the Featured Guest
This episode centers on a meaningful conversation between Dr. James C. Rodríguez and Dr. Alicia L. Jackson, whose reflections bridge clinical insight, faith, leadership, courage, authorship, and the personal work required to step into the next level of purpose.
Host
Dr. James C. Rodríguez, MSW
President and Chief Executive Officer of Fathers and Families Coalition of America, clinical social worker, veteran, author, fatherhood advocate, and host of Opportunity Awaits — Lead The Way. In this episode, Dr. Rodríguez reflects on belonging, purpose, pain, family, leadership, and rising out of the ashes like the phoenix.
Learn About the HostFeatured Guest
Dr. Alicia L. Jackson, PhD
Clinician, educator, minister, author, and International Executive Fellow of Fathers and Families Coalition of America. Dr. Jackson brings a deeply thoughtful perspective on mental health, faith, courage, fertile ground, perspective, personal growth, and doing what must be done even when we have to do it scared.
Learn About Dr. JacksonThis episode also honors the spirit of international friendship and shared purpose. With gratitude to Dr. Chacko Abraham, who joined the recording from La Paz, Bolivia, this public release features the captured conversation and enduring themes of courage, purpose, leadership, and belonging.
From the Book • The Purpose Within
Most Great People Take Their Great Pain Into Purpose
This episode is rooted in a chapter from Dr. Rodríguez’s book, The Purpose Within: Rise Out of the Ashes Like the Phoenix. The chapter explores how people who serve deeply often do so not because life has been easy, but because they have carried something, survived something, and found a way to make pain useful for someone else.
Inside the episode, Dr. Rodríguez reflects on being invited into rooms where he still felt unqualified, receiving unexpected support from strangers, meeting Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, and First Lady Michelle Obama, and finally coming to understand that belonging is not earned by titles or status. Sometimes love carries us into purpose before we fully understand why we were invited.
“Sometimes resolve sounds like: I don’t know, but I’m going up.”
This is not simply a story about public moments. It is a reflection for every listener who has felt unseen, unqualified, uncertain, or quietly afraid, yet still senses that purpose is calling.
Move the Needle • Three Powerful Takeaways
Three Nuggets from For Such A Time As This
Every episode of Opportunity Awaits — Lead The Way is built to move people from reflection to action. These three takeaways capture the heart of this episode and offer listeners language for courage, purpose, growth, and belonging.
Nugget One
The Ground May Be Fertile Right Now.
Dr. Alicia L. Jackson reminds listeners that “for such a time as this” can mean the ground is ready. There are moments, windows, and seasons when growth, development, change, and transformation are possible. The question is whether we recognize the season and respond.
Nugget Two
Some Things Must Be Done Scared.
Courage does not always wait for comfort. Dr. Jackson offers a powerful reminder that if we wait until we feel fully ready, fully confident, or fully comfortable, the moment may never come. Sometimes the call requires us to move while fear is still present.
Nugget Three
You Belong.
Dr. Rodríguez closes with a message for anyone sitting, standing, doubting, or wondering: you are beloved, you are not late, you are not lost, you are not invisible, your pain has purpose, your story has meaning, and you belong.
Ancient Stories • Modern Courage • Purpose in Every Season
Seven Lessons That Still Speak
This episode reflects on women whose lives continue to offer language for human strength, dignity, courage, grief, loyalty, redemption, leadership, prayer, waiting, and surrender. These stories are not presented as a sermon, but as a reminder that purpose often emerges from complicated, painful, and uncertain seasons.
Vashti
The call of dignity. Sometimes before we step into what is next, we must decide what we will no longer allow.
Esther
The call of courage and purpose. Sometimes we are positioned not only for ourselves, but for those connected to our assignment.
Naomi
The call to return. Grief may visit, but pain does not have the final authority to rename us.
Ruth
The call of loyalty and love. Purpose may begin with commitment, but it often grows through labor.
Rahab
The call of risk and redemption. Your past does not have to cancel your future.
Deborah
The call of leadership. Leadership is not applause; leadership is responsibility, service, and courage.
Hannah & Mary
The calls of prayer, waiting, promise, surrender, and trust. Sometimes purpose begins before the full explanation arrives.
Pain • Purpose • Belonging • Rising
What This Episode Is Really About
This conversation speaks to people in transition, people carrying grief, people asking what comes next, people who have been called into rooms where they still feel unqualified, and people who are trying to turn pain into something useful for someone else.
Answering the Call
Many people receive a call, but fear, self-doubt, pain, and feeling unqualified can stop them from picking it up.
Pain Into Purpose
Pain can create a void, but that void does not have to be filled with shame or fear. It can be filled with purpose.
Courage While Afraid
Courage and fear can exist in the same person at the same time. Sometimes we must do the thing scared.
You Belong
Belonging is not earned through titles, status, or perfection. Your story has meaning, and your life still carries purpose.
“I Don’t Know, But I’m Going Up.”
One of the most powerful reflections in this episode comes from Dr. Rodríguez’s story of being called into a room where he felt he did not belong. Sometimes purpose does not arrive with full clarity. Sometimes resolve means refusing to go back down the escalator of fear and choosing to keep going up.
Listen • Follow • Share • Lead The Way
Keep Walking in Purpose
If this episode speaks to you, share it with someone who needs encouragement, someone who feels unqualified, someone who is walking through pain, or someone who needs to remember that purpose can still rise from the ashes.
Complete, Not Compete. Rise With Purpose. Lead The Way.
Follow the Conversation
Continue the movement by sharing this episode and connecting with the themes of purpose, courage, healing, belonging, leadership, faith, fatherhood, family, and the next generation.
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