Lessons Learned & Life Loved

Formerly known as jesssiroo to my high school and college friends, I’m now a 20-something mom to my rescue dog Daisy and my daughter Emerson, and I’m married to my college sweetheart. I enjoy running and walking outside, listening to podcasts and audiobooks, and taking pictures. My friends and family know I’m the person who ALWAYS has a picture or a video of “that one time,” and even though it takes me far too long to dig through my 20,000 photo-deep iCloud library, I do have a gift for documenting and organizing life experiences. Since 7th grade, I’ve dreamed of becoming an author after reading Fahrenheit 451, but someone told me that I’d never make a living doing that so I should become a journalist instead.

I eagerly joined my high school newspaper staff and even scored a paid internship with a local newspaper my senior year. My manager (also mentor and dear friend) at the restaurant where I worked throughout high school and college encouraged me to start a blog so I could be one step closer to writing my book, but I didn’t do it. I felt like I was on the fasttrack to living my dreams, and when it was time to apply for colleges, I solely applied to the University of Missouri – Columbia and was admitted pre-journalism because my ACT score was one point short for direct admittance. At the time, I saw that as a minor speed bump instead of God’s will for a different path in my life, but without my short-lived experience at Mizzou, my story wouldn’t be the same and this blog likely wouldn’t exist.

Today, I’m back where I started in many ways, teaching English (with Fahrenheit 451 included in the curriculum!) and advising yearbook at my alma mater after graduating from the University of Central Missouri in spring of 2017 with my Bachelor’s degree in English Education and a Creative Writing minor. In the spring of 2022, I graduated again from UCM with a Master’s degree in Applied Communication. Although I love teaching, it was my back up plan after God closed the door on my journalism plans. I wake up and teach every day because I love communicating with my students, including hearing their stories and sharing mine, but by far my favorite part of my job is working with my yearbook students, which gives me a small piece of the journalism world I imagined I would be in.

I am a lover of writing, teaching, and Jesus. Although I grew up going to church and I was saved when I was in sixth grade, I didn’t make my faith my own or really begin to pursue a relationship with Christ until I started college. When I finally understood what God did for me when he sent His Son to die on the cross so someone like me might have a relationship with Him, I felt God calling me to tell my story. This blog chronicles my journey walking with the Lord through the good and the bad, the funny and the heartbreaking, and all of the yucky, confusing parts in between. My most sincere hope is that girls like me when I was a freshman in college – lost, heartbroken, and unworthy – will stumble upon my lessons learned and the way I’ve loved life through them and find encouragement in their own journeys. I am a daughter of the King, and this blog is for all of my sisters because they are beautiful, pure, and SO worthy of His love. Sometimes it just takes the right words to show you who you really are. If something I write inspires just one person, it will all be worth it.

Publish His glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things He does.

1 Chronicles 16:24