esperanza y gozo

Wrote this in February and let perfectionism get the best of me so I never posted it.

When I post something, on here, on facebook or even Instagram, it's like I'm exposing a part of me to the world. (Obviously, right?) Well the hardest part for me in it all is that I crave responses, opinions and the underlying truth is that I crave approval.  Hi, my name is Jen Boulos and I am a people pleaser. I think that's why it's hard for me to post things sometimes, I fear the response or lack there of so it doesn't seem worth it.  That's my own battle I will continue to fight because I know someone out there checks this blog and I hope (here we go again) that you enjoy it.  So this one's for you! Cheers!

2015 was dubbed - through a prayer that my heart clings to - a year for HOPE and JOY (well in reality, the prayer was in Spanish so really it's "esperanza y gozo").  As you may have caught on from last year's posts, 2014 wasn't filled with those for me.  It was a tough year.  A year of God tearing up the rock hard soil in my heart so that He could fill this year with his seeds of hope and joy.  It was a year, even as I was going through it, that I knew Nicaragua was just feeding into the symptoms of the hard but it wasn't the root of the issue.  I knew that these things had to be dug out and no matter where I would be located geographically, it was going to suck.  So here I am, in the second month of the new year, still sorting through the broken terrain and awaiting the rains of May (here in Nica), clinging to the year of hope & joy.  Would you pray those words for me this year?  Thanks.

Nicaragua, although we clash sometimes, draws me into what true hope and joy look like.  Even in my short trip to the states in December, I could feel my heart filling those places with false hope or fleeting happiness.  Nicaragua is a tool that God uses for me to show the noisiness that I run to when in reality I need time away.  Nicaragua is a place that draws me to my knees because my needs can't be ignored as I daydream in the aisles of Target.  Nicaragua is a place where I am literally living off the financial support of others so if AND WHEN I try to do things on my own, things don't work out. That's what much of last year was like for me.  Trying to cope, to say everything's just fine and when it wasn't, my tendency was off.  Nothing happens in the off position. I cling to the God of Hope and ask for courage to not shut down.  I'm learning. I'm growing.  And I still shut down at times but knowing is half the battle.

Hope.&.Joy.
Esperanza.&.Gozo