Author: Jess Boctor

So today started out like any other day. It was the first day of classes for the Fall quarter and so I got up way early to catch my bus at 6:30. UCR and RTA have partnered up to allow UCR students to ride the bus for free. Free ride? Hundred dollar parking permit and three dollar a gallon gas prices? I’ll take the free ride.

So after sleeping my way through most of the day, I caught my bus for the ride home.  My bus route travels through downtown riverside, a place with tons of potential most of which has not been realized yet.  So I am sitting on the bus heading down University which is known for its…um…late night business?

Anyways, the bus pulls up to a stop and a woman gets on. As I am watching her she looks frazzled and very much like a stripper. She is wearing a black lace halter top, black pants with a leopard thong sticking out and really heavy makeup. As she puts her change into the bus meter, which takes a few minutes because of the small denominations, a thought pops into my head, “You should love on her.”

WHAT?

“You should love on her,” the now recognizable voice says, this is the voice that stretches me to do things I really don’t want to or understand. “Ask her how she is, what’s her name, if she knows Jesus” the voice pushes on.

“Okay,” I try to compromise, “if she sits next to me, I’ll talk to her.” I should have known better then to try and compromise. The girl walked by, a breathed a sigh of relief thinking I was out of the danger zone.

“That’s not good enough.” The voice continued, “Go love on her.”

Alright, I’m done. I pull my ear phones out of my ears and wait for the next stop. I get up and walk to the back of the bus where she is sitting, trying desperately to come up with an introduction. She, meanwhile, is spritzing up the place with perfume. I get a whiff, it smells nice.

“That smells really pretty, what is it?” I ask.

“Thank you. It’s Celine Dion.” She answers.

“I’m Jessica.”

“Nicole”

That’s how it started.  I later found out that Nicole, is really a man going through hormone therapy to change her(his?) sex. I don’t feel like it’s my story to completely share, at least not here, but the afternoon ended with me taking Nicole to lunch at El Territo. She shared with me some of the struggles that she had been going through in life. Alot of them had to deal with being unloved. She spoke of God alot and how she knew that He loved her. I knew that He loved her too. I invited her to church this weekend, gave her one of my favorite sweaters, my phone number and some extra bus fare. I hope that I will see her there and that she will find out who it really is, the God that she calls on.

What a strange day! To think what I would have missed out on if I didn’t get out of bed today.

I remember the first time I ever lifted my hands in worship to God. I was at Harvest Sunday School. I had recently attended the “Big Church” service and had seen the adults lifting their hands, so I thought I should do it. My friend Sarah was sitting a few seats away from me asked, “Jessica, what are you doing?”

“I am worshipping.” I answere in a typical ‘I know better then you do’ seven year old voice.

“You look stupid.” Ouch.

I’ll never forget that day. Sometimes, I wonder if I still look stupid. Especially at Pipeline when I never know what Eddiewill make me do next. Yesterday it didn’t matter though. I was up on stage, I had already whacked my mic stand which looked really dumb, thinking about how horrible my voice sounded and that I really need to start working it out when I saw this kid. He was sitting in the middle three rows back, singing his heart out with his eyes closed. I felt like it was such a gift, he didn’t care if I was off key, and I probably could have fell flat on my face and it wouldn’t have phased him. Right then, in that moment, it was just him and God, and I got to see it.

I don’t think this kid knows my name, but his little blonde curls brightened my day. Next time I’ll have an answer for the question “What are you doing?”

“I am worshipping”

“You look stupid”

“That’s okay, at least I can make God laugh!” 

‘Lay down the knife,’ the angel said[to Abraham]. ‘Do not hurt the boy in anyway, for now I know you truly fear God. You have not withheld even your beloved son from me.’

Genesis 23: 12

  Paul and I have been praying and considering taking a job as the assistant managers at our apartment complex, Casa de Jerardo. Some of the perks of this job include free rent and utilities for a two bedroom apartment, a laundry allowance every month, plus a regular salary.

Everything was going really well. Apparently our property managers think very highly of us and strongly recommended us to their boss. We went in for the interview and pretty much had the job in the bag when she brought up the topic of friends in the complex. She essentially said that for professionalism’s sake we would not be allowed to have any friends who lived in the complex. Heck, we moved here because of the Sandals people! How was that going to work? I left the interview very distraught. I was not willing to give up the friendships and relationships that Paul and I had begun forming over the last few years for a job, but we both really wanted this job. I thought we could just tell her that it wouldn’t be a problem and then see our friends anyways, but I didn’t want to lie either.

We came home and talked to our manager, Linda, who is one of the nicest ladies I know. She said that she didn’t think it would be a problem. I still didn’t feel okay with it though, it seemed shady. 

Initially we decided to say no. Our reasons were simple. God called us to be in a life of relationships, we need to be obedient to that calling and no job, no matter how good it may seem, is worth disobedience.

I put off making the call to the lady who interviewed us as long as I could. I don’t like conflict. I even told my parents and my brother that Paul and I weren’t going to take the position before I had talked to the lady.

This morning I got a knock on my door. I opened it to find Steve standing on my doorstep. He had come to explain that he and Linda had talked to their boss. They explained that they knew our friends and they knew there would be no conflict of interest in us taking the position and maintaining our relationships. He said that he really hoped we would reconsider it and not worry about the friends issue, and that if we wanted it, the job was ours.

We took it. Paul and I start on Monday as the new assistant managers at Casa de Jerado. I am excited, but mostly I am grateful. I feel that God has blessed Paul and I because we were faithful to the life he called us to live. I think He was really testing us to see if we walk the way we talk, I would like to think we passed. 

I have a confession to make. See the Blog community at Sandals is getting to be amazing, full of so many insightful, funny, and interesting people that I felt I had to upgrade from my itty bitty MySpace Blog to a grown up blog. I had all these dreams of it being an insightful, romantic (more in a literary sense, not the queasy sense), intelligent and artistic, amazing Blog. I wanted to anonymously climb the ranks of the Blog Father’s list to the top five. I didn’t want to be number one, just in the top five. That isn’t too ridiculous is it? He only has about a jillion blogs linked to his page.  I wanted to comment on peoples pages and watch them get creeped out as I knew so much about them (okay so I have a dark side). I wanted to giggle as people around me would comment on some post I made and say, “Who is the PhantomBlonde?” Anyways, here’s my problem, reality hit. Truth be told, I am not really all that insightful, intelligent, romantic (both in the literary sense or the queasy sense), or artistic; at least not enough so to carry a blog on, I mean really, I’m only 21! That and I am an ego maniac, so if I don’t hear about how cool my post is, even if I know how cool it is, I go nuts. So all this combined and I managed to hold out for a day and half. Weak.

So the cats out of the bag, the PhantomBlonde is Jessica B, the crazy kid from Pipeline who hangs out with the brown guy (I mean Paul, not Carlos) even though I am sure that most of you are still wondering “Phantom Who?” The cool thing is that my mom and dad are still on vacation, so by the time they get back I will have a weeks worth of cool stuff put up and I can listen to my mom yell at me, “You have a blog and you didn’t tell me?!” Yeah, you would think kids would grow out enjoying making their parents yell, we don’t.

So maybe I will be able to throw in something cool and insightful or artsy every now and again, but for now you’re just going to get me and all the weirdness that goes with it. Enjoy!