Category: The Early Years

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

 

I spent the day playing in the garden with some friends and a few tubes of paint. These are the results.

“How does it feel to be home?”

This is the question I have been asked the most since arriving back in Southern California. I don’t really know how to answer it. This is mostly because the question makes a very basic assumption.

It assumes I am home. 

Now, I know my address. I know where I am living. Since I have the benefit of living in a place where I know the area and I’m familiar with my surroundings, it is easy to navigate. 

But what does it mean to be home? Where is it?

I made the comment today that I would always be homeless. I then threathed to punch my friend in the face if he challenged me with the old addage, “Home is where the heart is.”

I know, not the best example of Jesus.

You see, my heart is always looking to the horizons. It feels a breeze and hears it’s name. When my heart finds a kindred soul, part of it stays behind. My heart is never in one place.

I know what people mean when they ask about home. They want to know how it feels to be among the familiar. They want to know how it is to understand everything again. They want to know if I am comforted.

I am blessed. 

Comfort may come in time.

Then again, I’m not sure if I want it to.

Continuing the adventure, 

Jess

 

Last night as I started to drift off to sleep one thought seemed to be on replay through my mind.

It was this: self belittling, shame and guilt for my failures and sins will never break the cycle. My only hope is to chase after Jesus, to love Him more. By loving Jesus, I love myself.

There is a lot to unpack in that statement, I know. I don’t know why this is what has been whispered to me in the warmth of a sumner evening. However, as someone who has a history of been overly self critical and who burns her own good intentions at the stake, I desperately need it to be true.

So, I think I will rest here for awhile. I’ll let God whisper to me in the dark of night. I’ll chase after Jesus. I’ll learn to love him.

I’ll learn to love myself.

Continuing the adventure,

Jess

I wrote this on our flight from Düsseldorf to Los Angeles. Fittingly, it is written on an airsickness bag because, well, I was feeling rather sick at the time.

I am sorry I didn’t cry

When it was time to say goodbye

I disdain pages unread

I hate words left unsaid

 

The mask I’ve been wearing

Can be mistaken as uncaring

So long I’ve been behind this wall

It is difficult now to let tears fall

 

This tide of emotion

Could sweep me into a salty ocean

So I try to hide my distresses

And tuck it all under neatly braided tresses

 

But, somewhere in Greenland’s skies

I realized the price of luke warm goodbyes

The perservation of myself

Cost you the love which I felt

 

I’ve once lived through the fright

Of living with a heart locked tight

But to correct my mistake, these words will have to do

I love you. I love you. I love you.

 

To the friends we had to leave

Please trust me and believe

A cross would have been easier to bear

Than to leave you standing there.

 

Much love to those in Düsseldorf who were our family and loved us for the time we were with you. Thank you for everything you did for us.