Author: Jess Boctor

Last night in a mix of good intentions and bad judgement I broke three of my personal rules.

Don’t write personal messages late at night.

Don’t speak into a life where I don’t have permission.

Don’t use Facebook for conversations of the heart.

This morning, as I contemplated what I had done, I realized what a fool I was. I reread what I wrote and felt ashamed. Since I didn’t have a way to retract the message I sent, I sent a follow up message apologizing and therby solidfying my role as a weird stalker type person.

Crap.

To make matters worse, I got an email this morning from Relventmagazine.com. They ran an article I WROTE about the need for an understanding of intimacy in correlation to authenticity.

My actions are so out of line with my vision of what I want to be, it is ridiculous.

So there you have it my friends. I am a hypcorite.

And if you are the person whose business I stuck my big fat nose into, please know, I am truly sorry.

Continuing the adventure, missteps and all,

Jess

Last night I went to see Moi and Dex in concert.

At one point the word “ridiculous” slipped out under my breath. They are just so talented. Though my favorite part of the concert was not actually the music.

It was the chance to see two men who are continuing on the adventure of who God is creating them to be. I don’t know very much of their story. I do know, like many of our stories, it has been wraught with challenges and questions. Yesterday night each man stood on stage, with different stories to tell, but with the determination to continue on and the blessings which are apparent in their lives.

I believe this is the other side of our stories. Sometimes it becomes easier to talk about the pain, the abuse, the questions and the hardships. I think we need to have the freedom to talk about these things. There is healing in expressing where we have come from.

But…

The real beauty, the story of redemption which makes my heart beats fast, is in the other side of the story. It is in what happens after everything seems hopeless. It is in the hero winning. It is in the confidence of someone who has survived the battle. It is in finding the treasure.

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

 

It’s December and I found this late bloomer in my lemon tree.

Keep growing my friend.

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

If you run
I’ll give chase
If you lead
I will follow
Embrace me in your arms
Reteach me the art of the long kiss
For my words were not hollow
When I said I chose you.

 

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

This post has been sitting in my drafts box for awhile…

It isn’t enough to be me. 

Jessica is simply not enough.

This is one lie which I now realize has played on repeat throughout my life. Since I was a small child, I remember moments and times when it just wasn’t enough to be myself. I had to wear a mask. I had to be better. Prettier. Smarter. I had to like boy bands.

I identified this lie over the summer when I was wrestling with the question of why I didn’t believe there was grace for myself. I realized the grace which I invited others to know through Jesus was something which was not a part of my internal dialogue. I assured others they were created by a loving God with design and purpose. Yet I question why my feet are a funny shape, or why I am not more self disciplined, or why I have such a weird sounding laugh. I tell others how Jesus wants to know them and love them passionately. I tell Jesus He can’t possible want to know me. I hide from His romance. I tell others Jesus does not mearsure them in success and failures. I meticulously count the value of my accomplishments and balance them against my failures, hoping the columes will give me a positive value. They never do.

So this is how I lived; pouring out the grace of Jesus to others and keeping none for myself. 

And I didn’t know why.

It took a venn diagram, two cups of mint tea and a few hours of journaling to dig the lie out. It had dug it’s roots deep into my understanding of who I was. And to me, I simply wasn’t enough.

This is why failure hurts so much, it confirms the lie. It’s why I am driven to have a life of adventure, it defies the lie. It is why I am terrified and obsessed with success. Success would either show my ability or reveal the places I am lacking. It is why grace is not for me.

Grace is for the whole who miss the mark. I am not whole. I am not enough.

I wish I could say identifying the lie was the hard part, but it wasn’t. My friend the neuropsycholgist student told me it only takes 21 days for a thought process to become permenant. It takes a life time to change it after. 

So this will be my journey, the path of learning to trust Jesus when he says I am enough. 

Continuing the adventure, 

Jess

 

Calls for yellow jackets and purple rainboots.

Mostly for nostaligic purposes.

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

These are my friends Eun San and Linda.

They have been visiting Paul and I for the last three weeks or so. It has been great to have them here not only because I enjoy their company, but because they are introverts.

Just like me.

My mother doesn’t really believe I am an introvert because I am, as she says, the loudest introvert she has ever met. Many people who I meet are often surprised when I tell them I am an introvert. I attribute this obeservation to the fact that I have been raised in a family of extroverts, I married an extrovert, Paul’s family are almost all extroverts, and most of my friends are extroverts.

My options were to be loud or fade into the background.

I’ve been trained and groomed to act, think, and speak like an extrovert. I am pretty good at faking it for awhile. However, anyone who has seen me after a long day of talking (especially to people I don’t know well) have witnessed that at some point I just run out of words. If I get to this point I usually skulk away to some quiet corner and hide.

Here is where the lies come in. Since I operate differently than extroverts, and extroverts seem to run the world, it has been easy to feel that I am defective. When I need time to myself I feel percieved as somehow antisocial, moody, or melancholic. I have been described as “stuck in a shell”, “shy”, “sad”, and Paul’s personal favorite “crazy”.

The joy of spending time with other introverts is in realizing I am not alone. Silence, when shared with friends, can be just as great as talking. It doesn’t have to be boring, uncomfortable or exhausting as the extroverts would have us believe. Eun San and I spent three hours in silence. He sat on the couch reading his book. I laid on the floor and switched between sleeping and reading. No music. No TV. No frivolous noise.

It was beautiful.

So extroverts, I’ll play your games, but maybe sometime you would be willing to sit in silence with me.

Continuing the adventure,

Jess