Jess's Journal: Life Unscripted

Many things happened during the nearly three years of law school. When I started this blog years ago, I struggled to figure out who I was. The only difference between high school and college was that I had obstacles. I had barriers that no person in their 20s should have faced. Don't get me wrong; I had obstacles in law school, but I overcame them.  It should not be a shock to anyone that I persevered through the law school obstacles, with the only obstacle left being bar admission. I am graduating with a law degree nobody can take away from me. Here I am with a message to my younger self. It's a message I wish she had heard while going through the education program. The message I heard was to find somewhere where you will shine. If she were to hear that now, transfer schools. My younger self did not deserve to be somewhere she had been gaslit at any turn, where she was called a liar when going to board meetings instead of chapel service, and she certainly did not deserve the l...

Ever since I graduated college with a Bachelor of Arts degree, I had a series of revelations about myself I never realized before. Honestly, I never thought this blog would last like it did. Originally, it is a way for me to cope through life's struggles and challenges. As I matured, I discovered thought patterns and habits that are no longer present in my life. Some of the biggest factors of healing is recognizing the sense of power within yourself, or as I like to call it, inner strength. News flash: the world is not out to get me. Failure is not a death sentence. Nor is it a mental road block. Failure should not paralyze you. In fact, it should be your greatest motivator to rise above it all. Personally, I would like to tell my younger self this to save her from feeling worthless. Because even in failure, you are worth something. In fact, facing my fear of rejection by not taking it personally is a part of the maturation process. In fact, seeing how a lot of my peers handle ...

I remember thinking today during the reflective period about the newness of life. Recently, I have worked on the Bible reading plan, "Longing Wrongly". I asked myself what I longed for. Well, consistent with the transparent intent of this blog, I should reveal this. Over the past year, I did a lot of soul searching. Just like how sometimes endings may not be what is intended and doors close, new things come to existence. Apparently, the ending creates a new beginning. Today, I finally decided to let the pain, bitterness, anxiety, sadness, and anger go. Throughout the process, God was healing me from the inside out. It was not easy. Trust the process. It's worth it in the end. We can acknowledge the past and how it affects us, but if we dwell on it, it will be hard to move forward. God sends people even during our lowest points to carry us. God did not promise healing, He promised to be with me throughout these points. It reminds me about the parable about the how th...

Somehow, I feel led to share what has been on my heart the past few weeks. Since I am heading into the final stretch of the semester, I had so many thoughts and emotions roll through my mind and heart like a rush of wind. Comparison is the thief of joy. How am I going to break that down? It starts with a Facebook post, an Instagram post, a Tweet. Then I see people share about getting engaged, a pregnancy, wedding photos, and everything else under the sun. And then questions come into my mind, such as, "Why not me?" "Why am I still single?" "Am I pretty enough?" "Am I smart enough?" Then a feeling a dread comes in...rushing, rushing, rushing like the Cumberland River during a storm where there's a flood. But snap back to reality. What gives? That's how you know comparison is the thief of joy. It leads to jealousy and bitterness. It leads to acting without thinking. It leads to discouragement. What's the cure? It's...

It is Day 6 of the Daniel Fast, and a lot of things have come to pass. The semester has started, and the assignments are clear as day. But there were things I did not understand. This morning during my quiet time, I discovered the word abundance. Now, it refers to what we have in great quantities. There is a great quantity of time. There are great quantities of knowledge I have. But what we do with these qualities may lead to things becoming idols that rob us of both. This morning, the Word became so clear. For the past week I have been trying (and failing!) to fast off of the news and limiting social media that I have almost no sight of the forest beneath the trees. For now, it is time to refocus. God is still on the move. He will always move. I will receive it and believe it.

As we enter into 2019, I wanted to take a moment and review my ever evolving word for 2018: integrity. I chose that word carefully based on Union's core values. My spiritual phrases and words were be still and surrender. I have to be honest, I didn't do a great job upholding the original one word since it changed repeatedly. This was my first time doing the One Word challenge instead of a New Year's resolution. Now that 2018 is over, it is time to dive into the reasoning behind my one word for 2019. My #OneWord for 2019 is responsibility. Now, responsibility is a tough one to conquer, but as I learned on the last Sunday sermon of 2018, I have to recognize that a change in belief leads to a change in behavior. Before 2018 ended, I decided to break up with the blame game and start taking responsibility for every mistake I have made. One of the responsibilities I ended up taking so far is abandoning my long time Alice in Wonderland/Mad Hatter composition notebook. I used t...

Since I am on Christmas break and I successfully conquered the fall 2018 semester, I thought I would write this blog post. 2018 molded me, broke me, and humbled me. Today, I'm a whole lot smarter and wiser. I'm thankful for the hidden blessings and the lessons learned along the way. This past semester was a time I decided to change my perspective on a whole lot of things. I came into this semester with uncertainty. I had to detach myself from the events that happened from the end of sophomore year that continued on through junior year. This fall, it was a completely clean slate in the English department. It was also a clean slate in Common Partners and in the Writing Center. I have come to realize that people are human. I have come to accept my own shortcomings as opportunities to be more vulnerable, for growth. Detaching myself is one of the hardest skills I have worked on this past semester. Not only did I attempt to remove myself from the situation with the education d...

Last night when I was surfing the Internet, I discovered a picture of something very poignant. The text of a book excerpt really resonated with me today, so I thought I would share it.  "The world is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn't very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more? How do you sell an anti-[aging] [moisturizer]? You make someone worry about [aging]. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are left behind.  To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human...

Senior year is a time where we assume greater financial independence. It is a year where we stress over grad school applications and our futures after college. In my case, it would be to set a budget to be able to live within my means. For three years, I have been overspending on food at school, so my hope is to do things a little bit differently. Living within your means is finding the limit of how much money you have to spend. I have yet to find what the amount in that limit is, but what I do know is that I know what the amount is above it. So it is time to make a change. It is a change that will benefit me in the long run. It's time for me to stop spending money on snacks, food, and drinks, and start spending money on healthier options. That way, school would not be as much of a burden as it is.

I've had a lot of things on my heart and mind lately. Somehow, I have entered a new season in my life without even realizing it. I'm not the same person I was a year ago. I've grown as a human being in retrospect realizing that everything happens for a reason. I've learned to embrace my weaknesses and will gladly boast in them, because God created me for a purpose. Interpreting social cues has been a long-standing weakness, even as I started this blog almost four years ago. Sometimes, when I read old posts, I do not recognize the person I was when I wrote them. Writing them was a way to channel the raw emotion I've held inside. Looking back, I could have channeled my emotions privately. I don't know for certain how the future will look like moving forward, but things are so much different now and I am still learning. As a digital citizen on the Internet, I have a responsibility and an obligation to live authentically and humbly, and to spread positivity and ...

This is what I found today on the Internet. I hope you enjoy this quote. "Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it." - Robert Frost

I wanted to let everyone know that I am moving forward with things. So, I thought I would write this short blog just for fun. Well, here's the thing. If you constantly focus your energy on your setback and how it is affecting you, you will never be able to move forward. Taking your energy away from the past and its hold can give you a brighter future. I got back to writing recently and personally, I think it is helping me move forward. I am much happier now than I was a year ago, or even six months ago. What happened in the past does not have a hold on me. Nor does it have the power to affect my future. Positive being positive is what we should strive for. In order to move forward, we have to keep on saying that the past does not define us and should have no hold on us from now on. This is what we need to do in order to come back on top, stronger than we've ever been, in God's grace.

When I started this blog, I had no clue where it would take me. At the core of this blog, I knew I wanted to put faith as an integral part of it all. Unscripted, raw, unblemished. This ever-evolving faith continues to be a huge part of what I write about. The trials and tribulations I have gone through, some self-inflicted to the point where things get out of control serve as a reminder that things in this world are only meant to be temporary -- from the friends and acquaintances in my core circle, to life groups at Immanuel, to extra-curricular activities, and to schools. It is important to know that sometimes I do look at the past as a reminder of how far I have come. Going to college straight out of high school is a whirlwind. A whirlwind of emotions, possibilities, and setbacks. Every year I ask myself: why stay when I continue to have setbacks? This year, I hope I don't come up with the same answer of being a legacy student. Instead, I am asking what God's will is for my...

I have to admit, I wanted to title this blog post “You Never Know Which Direction You Want to Go”. However, I stopped dead in my tracks. God’s plan is not easy to decipher, if I am being honest. Since there were trials and hardships, I took a break from writing for a bit. Mainly because school got in the way of many things. If I were to do a soul-check right now, I would describe it as a metaphor of room temperature coffee served to Elizabeth by Miss Clara in the movie War Room . Now this Christian film was number one in the box office for a brief period during 2015, and it was a movie about how prayer can be used as a powerful tool in the restoration of a marriage.  Now, this is a huge struggle. Honestly, my faith cooled a bit throughout the past year, leaving it to be lukewarm. As believers, we are supposed to be on fire for Christ and hate being lukewarm, but to say I have not been lukewarm in my faith would be deceptive and therefore distort the truth. I ha...

Three years ago, my senior year of high school dealt a mixed bag. Three years later, I’m not the same person crying over what happened with journalism. In fact, a little more life experience can cause me to laugh at the general cynicism of life. If I’m honest, these failures made me toughen up a bit. Perhaps I’ve gotten a little too worrisome. College is a whole different level of mixed bag. When the lows happened in high school, they did not compare to the low points I have experienced in college. Even with last semester, I was focused on what people thought and what people tell me to do, instead of listening to my own heart and intuition. Wisdom taught me to be wary of chasing pipe dreams and plans that fall apart. I guess I am just sick and tired of trying at things I will never be good at. One more year to possible graduation. I will be looking forward to it.

Quicker than next semester's quips, my creative juices are in overdrive. More blog posts will be written more than ever, especially over the break. Expect a few poems to come from the fray. I have also received information from colleges at the graduate level, which has gotten me thinking about life after college. I am nervous about the whole thing to be honest. Maybe I will know more once graduation rolls around. Until then, I am going to take things one day at a time.

Life has its own share of chaotic moments we either share with close friends and family members or keep to ourselves in the midst of confusion. I remember over the summer when I volunteered at LUCID when chaos and confusion gave a whole new meaning to my life during 2017. In that time period, I struggled to find myself through a change in majors and a deteriorating mental state. I then thought to myself, "What purpose do I have left?" When life is in disarray, I go off course. Sometimes I struggle to realize that my plans are meant to fall apart before clarity takes place. So I spent the next few months struggling to write what was in my heart and soul in this crazy roller coaster called life. When human beings make plans without consequence, they fall apart. I sought to reclaim the teacher in me when I returned this past fall: the dreams I had plus many more. But the hole in my heart grew deeper and deeper. I was taking 18 hours over the course of the semester and I gr...

When there is a writer's block, what am I to do? A writer with so many feelings cannot just stop writing all together. So many articles to plan in so little time. What's a girl to do? Luckily, the spring semester is on its way to beginning and it gets better from here. I am close to graduating and starting the next chapter. What's the next chapter? I do not know for sure. In the meantime, to keep my creative juices flowing, I am planning for a novel plus some poems. I got a few more articles and blogs to crank out as the semester rolls around.

For those that know me, I tend to bottle things up inside until the time passes where things go downhill. I wanted to bring up the topic of words. Words have the power to either bring life or death to a situation. In other words, words can help and hurt others. The power of our tongue can take us places we don't expect to go. Yet, the power of our mind and the power of our tongue work hand in hand. Once a word forms into our mind, it is pretty much inevitable it would be spoken. But what happens when words aren't enough? To be honest, when I speak to people, I tend to both overthink things and I also tend to stutter. The same holds true with writing. I tend to get so overwhelmed when writing long papers. I tend to go down the rabbit hole while on analysis mode with a topic until I get a second, and sometimes third pair of eyes when I proceed on the final draft. I would like to think that my careful and overly cautious choices of words would help in the long run, but somet...

This is it. I've reached the halfway point of the fall 2017 semester. Never have I felt so frazzled and swamped with deadlines over essays and papers. Never had I had to worry about self-directed learning. Never had I have felt so behind on almost everything. Yet, this is par for the course. My midterm grades are still above average but I struggle to keep up with them. This is the peak, and it all goes downhill from this point. Before you know it, finals week will be around the corner. This past week, I have felt the waves of the 18 hour semester come crashing down on me like moths to flames. Sometimes, it is a struggle. Is it worth it? Yes. The feeling of dread surrounding me when it comes to school shall pass. I will be okay.