Xlibris-published author Joni Jacques may have achieved what many others can only wish for. She got the chance to stand in Oprah’s shoes—literally. The American media mogul has recently invited Joni to appear on the “Oprah Show” to reveal how a pair of shoes changed the latter’s life.
The Indiana native said she bought the shoes during an Oprah charity sale in 1997.
“I bought the shoes, and I really loved them, and I kept them in my bedroom. And when I got really, really, depressed, and I couldn’t find anybody to talk to, I took the shoes out and…,” she said before a teary-eyed Oprah chimed in, “Stood in my shoes. She would stand in my shoes,”
“And now she says she doesn’t have to stand in the shoes as much, because she’s standing on her own,” Oprah added.
Even after almost two decades, Joni can still remember vividly the fateful event that would become the turning point in her life.
“I was in the bed one night, and you know, you pray and everything, and it was just a voice. People might believe it or might not, and they just said, ‘Stand in the shoes.’ And I’ll remember that until the day I die, ‘Stand in the shoes.’ … And the weight of the world just dropped off. Life totally changed that day,” Joni recalled.
Joni won a literary award for her short story back when she was a university student in 2004. In 2009, she went back to school and graduated from Indiana University Northwest where she discovered her love of writing. She has also written and published through Xlibris her book “Record Paradise” this year.
Watch her TV guesting on the Oprah Show here.