13 FOR 31, LOVE.

13 THINGS FOR 31. 

I am a firm believer in the way words matter, so here are 13 things I am taking into this year of life and I hope YOU also can learn from, too. 

1. the anthem for my entire life has always been this: SHOW UP. it's still the same at 31. 
if you want something bad enough, you will show up in whatever it is that looks like. 
you can have excuse after excuse, but at the heart of who we are -- if you want it, step up baby.

2. between the pines are where the best things are. 
the mountains are probably my favorite place in the world to be. Its where I feel my best self, where i see God the most and where I feel the most peace. if I could always be in one place it would be in between the pine trees and fresh air. 

3. being scared IS PART OF LIFE. 
but don't let fear take the driver seat. If something feels scary to you, its probably there to help you grow. I think some times we miss out on the next best thing because we are terrified if we fail. But failure, I have learned, is where we learn to fight. so just do the scary thing and keep doing it until it becomes less frightening, love. 

4. you can start over. 
i was always afraid of this and the belief that what if I made the wrong decision, but what I have realized is that sometimes changing the narrative might end up being way better -- you might like your new story better. 

5. Your parents are people, too. 
it took me a long time to be close to my parents but as I have gotten older, I see it all so much more clearly and the way they, too, are learning life just as much as you are. 
spend time with them and ask them questions -- you will never regret it. 

6. karaoke parties with your friends is needed. 
you don't always need to be serious ... some nights are best when singing is involved. And then, laughing. lots of laughing. 

7. cry it out, babe. 
this last year, i tried my best to not let my sadness about anything get in the way. I kept repeating to myself that its not that serious, i don't need to feel that deep. But that was a lie. sometimes you truly do need to feel a little deeper, cry a little harder and let the tears fall... i always say, "you can have one pity party, but then when you wake up the next day you will continue being the badass you are." 
i still stand by that.

8. ice cream can fix anything. 
I don't know if this sentence really needs an explanation, but I've never been sad when I am eating ice cream. 

9. You are worthy of good things. 
i've always struggled with this one to be honest. in my most raw version of myself, I sometimes don't think i deserve the best, but oh i want it, i dream of it. I try to remind myself that I am worthy of something beautiful, real and honest. some days its hard to believe it, but some days I grasp onto it with both hands so tightly. 

10. cheer for other people like you cheer for yourself. 
I think this one takes some humbling but I think we need to be the type of people who champion others around us and want to see them win, even if that means we aren't. I think there's so much beauty in hoping for others what you hope for yourself. 

11. Psalm 23. repeat it over yourself. 
I got a tattoo of this last month because I so desperately want to make sure i keep reminding myself of these words. I grew up with constant anxiety and wondering if life would ever feel joyful and peaceful again -- this verse kept me grounded in the simple truth that: i lack nothing. 
so if you need any words of truth today -- go look this up. 

12.  let someone in. on purpose. 
after a year of truly healing, i found out that sometimes you really REALLY have to try your hardest to understand that not everyone will hurt you. not everyone is your past and if you take a chance on bravery and courage, you might find out that love is vulnerable and it is worth it. 
so i am trying here... i am trying to be open again. i know it'll be worth it... right? haha 

13. It matters that you are here. 
this line is something I tell every single person i meet. everyone. you matter. because we live in a generation that simply is quite mean, honestly. 
so i repeat this to myself, to others so much that it never leaves their mind. 
I think there is so much damn power in making sure someone else knows that they are worthy of belonging, thay are beautiful and they matter enough in this world to take up space. 
'cause you are. 


if you got through all 13 of my anthems for 31 then thank you for reading. I hope you take these things and can use them, too. 

I hope you know I am rooting for you. 

XO, J.

HERE IS TO THE NEW, MY LOVE.

so here is what I know about change. It's uncomfortable and it's anything but picture perfect. It's driving home at night with tears streaming down your face and it's contemplating your decisions over coffee at 8am, it is everything the internet doesn't show you in the highlight reels. 

Change sounds thrilling when you sit and think about wanting it. But the action of change calls us to be in spaces where we are faced with unfamiliarity and welcome in the new. 

In my early 20s, I was bright, bold and so much of me wanted to be a person who was made for more. 

Lately, God has been tugging at my heart all over again with the same exact words, 
"YOU WERE MADE FOR MORE." 

I've ignored it for quite some time because I've been so damn afraid. I've been terrified of what comes after the, "more" part. 

Stepping into a calling when you don't know what is on the other side takes trust and maybe somewhere along the winding road I kind of forgotten about the blindness in trusting God. 
I have gotten way too comfortable in seeing the next intersection - being very careful about the next direction to take. 

I found a group of friends that felt like home to me, I finally was over the church hurt and began loving where I was in life. 
In fact, I still do have those things, I still love the mapdot but somewhere between blurry lines I've gotten far too okay with being okay. 

I have this saying I repeat over myself and over everyone I come face to face with. 
"show up and then stay." 

I think I thought I did those things and that was done, but I have been learning that those things are new every day. You must repeat them to yourself constantly. 

I write goals for myself every January. Every time the New Year ball drops on Decemeber 31st, I cry a little bit because it's the one time a year every human believes in the new; believes in this idea that they can be a new version of themselves if they really want to. 

and I absolutely love that.
Even if it's not entirely true, we all have this sense of hope that we can create a new beginning if we stick to the process. 

This January 1st, as I began writing down all my goals, dreams and hopes I began to realize that for the last few years, I wasn't bold enough with my goals. 
I was quieting the potential I had inside of me. 
For many reasons in itself, a few for words of hurt a boy left me, and some because I was nervous life would completely change and people would grow distant. 

But this year, the beating in my heart wasn't accidental. 

I am going to be flat out honest here: thirty has been the first year I've felt genuinely brave and free in years. 
There has been a lot of things that convinced me that I need to hide in my softness and so many lies i've let filter through my tongue outwardly making me believe I am too late to my calling. 

Amy Poehler once said, "It takes years as a woman to unlearn what you have been sorry for," and although I believed in her words, it wasn't until July 2024 did I actually understand the depths of all that.

I had lived my twenties in such a way that I began to get scared to move forward all due to words I let hurt me through the years. I carried them in my back pocket without even realizing how big of an impact it had in my potential to become who I want to be. 

I don't write like I once did before. I rarely share parts of my life with the internet anymore and I have felt slightly judged when I do want to post anything more than a simple text to a photo. 

I have grown so scared to be bold and I truly have neglected the best parts of me. 

I created this blog at twenty to proclaim that I knew my worth and that other women knew their worth. 
I walked so loud and proud that God was in my story and He was in the stories of those who came across my words. 

I need to get back to that girl. 
and slowly, I feel God is doing just that. 
With each prayer, I feel Him gravitating towards my heart and whispering, "you were made for more, J. stop being afraid to start again." 

So I am starting over. it's taken me some self reflection and so many tears, you have no idea. 
I'm doing the things I've been wanting to, praying for, and striving to reach. 
I'm putting to rest the lies that once screamed at me saying if I just stopped writing, if I didn't always open my mouth and live life as an open book, that I will be loved. 

I am tired of quieting my voice at the expense of feeling worthy to another person. I've always been worthy. I've always been loved. 
I need to get back to that girl who let people into her stories. Because stories are where hearts are mended. 

So this is the year I will rise up, this is the year I will teach the childlike faith in me to rise again, to be bold and show up. 

I have decided to serve at a new church again, after eight years of not doing so. I am packing up my bags and I am moving because new scenery is good for the soul. I am saying goodbye to things that make me less like Christ and I am mending things that need to be mended. 

so to end this all, here is what I am going to tell you:

My love, if you've been looking for a reason to shift your direction a little, this is it. 
If you've been praying for the woman or man you hope to become, i am going to tell you to keep on praying for God to swing open doors - He will. 
I pray you would open your arms wide, let God make melodies with the battle cries and try to embrace the new. 

we are entering the part of the new year where the lights aren't shining as bright anymore and things are wearing off, but as the mundane might creep in, I am here to tell you that I know first hand that God does His best work in the nitty and gritty; behind the scenes. 

I am holding your hand and cheering you on, always. 

Because, I, too, am in the midst of an ever changing season. 
But it will be good. 
and You will be good. 

Keep showing up. 

XO, J.

hello, you are loved here.

it's been 10 years since I began writing, I was almost 20 years old when I decided to write to the world about my journey with self worth. 
I started, AnotherPorcelainHeart, as a way to let the world know that I understood the depths of what it meant to try so hard to love yourself, believe someone loves you, and believe in Jesus. 
There's a song called, "Porcelain Heart" by a band named Barlow Girl, I listened to it over and over again in high school. It was about a girl who didn't believe she was worthy of love. She walked around on shattered glass, trying to make it another day, but deep inside she was longing for someone to prove to her that she was beautiful and chosen.
I titled my instagram and blog with that name as a declaration to say, "I am just another one of those girls, who on the outside comes off always happy and joyful, but deep inside, I, like so many other girls, was trying to feel worthy of her own skin"

For years, I blogged and I posted on my instagram the ways God was teaching me how to heal in His hands. 
I let people into my world and they let me into theirs. 
I dedicated myself to making sure people felt loved, because growing up, that was all I ever wanted. I spent so many years wondering if i'd ever be good enough. 
To give you the beauty of the end of this story though, you need to understand the beginning. The beginning that's not so pretty, but the honest why:

I was 6 years old when I got my first anxiety attack. It was early in the morning, I couldn't stop my hands from shaking and the tears kept streaming down my face like it was never going to end. 
My dad held me in his arms and said, "you're gonna be okay" as I cried. 

Then, I was 10 years old when the doctor told me I had this condition called, "Scoliosis". Scoliosis is a spinal condition where your spine is curved at a degree causing pain and if not caught early on, can require intense spinal surgery.
I was taken to a specialist where they designed a back brace for me to wear 24/7 up until I was 18 years old. 
If going through puberty wasn't enough trauma already, why not add a spine defect. 
Life began to feel really broken. 

I fell into a deep depression from this, leading me to believe the worst things about myself. 
I wore self doubt on my forehead everywhere I went. 
Anxiety became a part of my every day, walking on pins and needles trying to manage my emotions but only to realize that my emotions ran me into the ground.

I became my own worst enemy. I tried so hard not to feel that I eventually didn't believe in love anymore, I just grew numb to everything golden around me. 
But my gosh, I just desperately wanted someone to hug me and tell me that I was beautiful, wanted and chosen. 

My relationship with the Lord fell so far as I truly felt ashamed of who I was.

I ran to boy after boy trying to fit the puzzle piece and as each one left, I once again looked at my reflection this time believing nobody stays. 

I began to truly believe that people would always leave. that in the end, nobody stays.
I wore the words, "people leave" like a chain around my neck.

and instead, I started wearing less clothes and showed more skin, I began wearing dark makeup to cover up any imperfections and I cursed more in my vocabulary than I would like to even admit on paper. 
I wanted to be just like those "hot" celebrities on every TigerBeat Magazine. 

I knew the right words to say, but I stayed at arms length.
I realize now that living at arms length is a very dangerous and lonely place to live. 

I spent months and months living in a place that felt so alone, so lonely and it was easier to come off to people that I was hardcore and unaffected by things than to show the hurt inside, to show any feeling.

There was a Sunday morning I was sitting in church, so defeated and angry, someone came up to me. Someone I barely knew, looking down at me she said the words i will never forget to this day. She said, "i dont know why but God really wanted me to tell you to open your bible to Jeremiah 31:3." and she read it aloud to me saying the words after, "jess, idk what you're facing but God wants you to know that you are loved, not you WERE loved or you ARE GOING to be loved, but you are loved right now just as you are ." 
and I wept. 
like the ugliest cry. 
That day was one of the most prominent miracles I had ever faced. 
I pondered that day for a really long time until I gave my life back to Jesus. It took years, but it was the stepping stone that I needed to get me to who I am today. 

It took a lot in me and a lot of help and guidance to find love. to find joy. to find jesus and myself. 
I got to this point where I truly knew I had to stop taking the easier roads - we are all trying so hard to play it safe, and I wanted to be that girl who didn't anymore. Nothing worth having comes from playing it safe. 
I remember praying really big words, "God, someone else needs a reason to believe. Someone else needs to know they aren't incapable of love. use my life."

I had to believe my life was made for something bigger than myself. 

I have always loved writing. I journaled from the time I was 12 but this was the first time God put a dream in my heart in years. 
Like I said in the beginning, I was almost 20 when I began blogging. 
Some days I cried writing posts - they were so personal to me, but I needed to show the world that life is more than just highlight reels. 
I remember trying to come up with enough strength to publish my first post. I was scared, I was shaken and I was nervous people would label me as FAKE. 

But I pushed through. 
Love never felt like a safe place to land for me. I tried and I tried to get rid of the noises inside my head claiming I wasn't good enough, that my true self wasn't worth showing .. but I HAD to believe that in this maybe, just maybe, I could find that I was okay. 
I titled my very first post, "Beauty is Not your Face, My Darling". and I wrote about how hard it is to prove to yourself that people will think you are beautiful if you show your heart, not only your skin.

I did this for years, until my following grew and it GREW. 
I started to get other young girls messaging me saying they needed to hear my words and that they felt the same. I engraved the words, "you are so worth loving" all over my platforms. every signature I wrote ended with, "you are so loved, my friend" & soon I began to believe I was loved, like I was speaking into people, too. 
Over time, I made so many new friends online. 
I started to pen pal and I began writing handwritten encouragement letters to strangers. 
I opened my instagram to people and I asked them to drop their address if they needed to feel loved and i wrote them. 
I started posting my every day struggles and started to tell others about my battle with self worth, with learning how to believe love was real and trying to understand beauty. 
I dug deep DEEP into the meaning of love that I all I really knew how to do was love people so fiercely because of how many years I spent searching for that feeling.

I did this until eventually I believed it, believed in myself and believed that I am loved by Jesus. The more I spoke words of encouragement towards my body, the more I began to believe I was beautiful just how I am, the way God has made me and that was enough. I was enough. 

It's been 10 years this January that I began this journey. 
and dang, it's been an emotional few weeks because as I look back at my journey, the more I see the hands of Jesus in my story so personally. 

I am going to be honest, there are some things I still do struggle with. I still get scared to let people see my messy parts, I still am afraid that my friends will leave sometimes, I am terrified that if i make a mistake that I will be blamed, I still battle anxiety and days when I lack some confidence - but I know who I am and I know the woman I am becoming still and who I am not anymore. 
I know what love means and i've studied it for years. I rooted myself in the process of becoming until I became her. 
we will always be people who are a work in progress, we all carry deep rooted things, but the difference you eventually learn is how to not let those things take a front row seat and you keep going. 

I used to wear a key around my neck with the words, "beloved" on it. People used to ask me why I wore it and I always would say, "because it means love." the real meaning of the word is, "a deeply loved person" and I wore it to remind myself that I am loved, as I am whether I am happy, sad, messy, broken, angry... I am loved as I am. 

I haven't shared my story in years. but to celebrate 10 years of being a writer and this brand new revamped blog, I decided to share because of how proud of my story I am now. How much God has just moved in my life, without even noticing, he showed up.
my writing has come a long long way from where I began to now. 
My style of writing and what I write about has changed - the way I see life has shifted. 
I grew from this passive young scared girl, to this woman who only let the bold things touch her and teach her how to fight meaningful battles. 
I always knew I wanted to be a writer, someone once told me I could be and for years I held onto it until one day I did. 
Since then, I have written over 100 different posts and self published two books that I wish I could hug so tightly because of the road to get there. 
Books I never believed I can dedicated myself to. 

I have realized now that Jesus takes broken things and He uses them for His glory and makes them beautiful.
He can take ANY story and transform it. 

I think this is why I love people so intensely. I lose myself in loving people because I once believed it wasn't good. My mom has always said, "if you love too deep and easily, people will take advantage of you so be careful", but I learned to go against the grain. If one more person feels worthy of love, even if I don't for a second than I know that God is shining through and He gets the glory. 

I am a big believer in showing up. I say this to every single person I meet. You must show up. Love the process. do the work and then stay. 
stay like you believe in magic, grace and God. 
God can do so much with your life if you LET HIM. 
so that's my prayer for you -- let Him use your life to the fullest and love people well. 
that's it. 

If you read this far, thank you. and if you did read this far, I hope you do know how valuable you are and that it matters that you are here, your story - it matters. and YOU matter, my goodness you do. 

This world, I have realized in the last 10 years, has absolutely nothing to do with me and love always wins. 

That's been my anthem all my twenties - it's the same thing I will carry into my thirties. 

So to end this all, I hope you know how loved you are, my friend. 
'cause you are and always will be. 
always. 

XO, J.