~Courtesy of me! ;)

Hey there guys! Hope all is going well for y'all! This week has been quite a week for me...

First of all, Spring has sprung... with a vengeance! Not only have the flowers bloomed and the grass has turned greener, but the pollen is killin' alot people's sinuses here! For some reason it only affects me the first couple of days but then I'm over it. Weird... anywho, thanks to school finally slowing down some I've been able to get out and do favorite hobby I hadn't done in a while: photography. Yep! I got out and took some pictures (as you can see above) of some of the flowers here at ACC in full bloom. It was so nice... and then earlier this week I also happen to a little free time to sit and snap a few shots of a couple of volleyball games... all in all, it was great! ;)







Also this past week, it was my 26th birthday (don't really feel 26...) and it was good. Not much to do when you have hardly any money, time or a car to do stuff. Anywho, people did wish me a happy birthday and I got a lovely home-made card from my friend Rebecca, a massive birthday cupcake from my "twin" Kate (btw, after eating that thing I had to detox from sugar the rest of the day... @.@; ) and a wonderful birthday card from my best friend Rich! Absolutely made my day!! :D



One of the interesting things I've been encountering here at school as well as with people who are a part of my college ministry is the topic of relationships! Yes, spring is in the air and everyone is going to become "twitterpated" (hopefully y'all know what that means and if you don't go watch Disney's Bambi) - and it very much has here at ACC. So many people have going into relationships here and its wonderful to see! As I talk to some of these people, they talk about one thing in particular that they have faced before in other relationships and fear in these new ones: the possibility of losing their significant other and how it will affect them. I can understand... its not something everyone wants or needs. Many of these people have talked to me about how they've become so distraught and in shambles after the relationship has ended. With about every single one, I've told them the same two things: First of all, the human heart was meant to be broken. As I shared in a previous blog about one of the unforgettable quotes that CS Lewis says in his Four Loves book, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one...But in that casket...it will change...it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." We, as humans and more so as Christians, are meant to have breakable hearts. If not, it is a damned heart - one that can't love and can't be loved, can't be changed and will become nothing but a dead weight on one's soul. Secondly, the level of pain and agony one goes through after a relationship ends shows just how much one has lost their true identity in the relationship. I understand loving a person can make you blind and change you in dramatic ways but if you use the relationship in order to add another label to yourself instead striving and seeking God and what he has created you to be, then you have lost perspective of the truly bigger picture in your life. One of the reasons if not the main reason for you not to lose yourself in a relationship is this: how is that going to benefit you and your significant other in the end? If God created you a certain way, why are you changing yourself and not allowing others to see you for who you really are? To do this doesn't help edify the person you are with, it hinders them from growing and maturing and more so goes against God's will and plan in the situation. As Chris McCandless said in the movie "Into the Wild", "...you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things." If we keep God in the forefront of our thoughts and make all relationships, friendships as well as intimate ones, God-centered then you will not only stay your true self -the one that God created and ordained for his will - but you will see others for who they really are and the blessings and lessons that come out of those relationships. ;)

Finally, I'm entering the home stretch... that's right! School is almost over! This next week is the last week of normal classes and the following will be final exams for the semester! I'm so excited about it almost being over and summer beginning but I'm also sad due to this being my last semester at ACC. As sad as it is though I also know this is what God wants of me so I have peace about it and I look at it as... well another adventure for me to experience, another chapter to the story of my life that God pinned so long ago. I know its going to be interesting to see what God has in store for me: the people I'll meet and the relationships that will come out of it, the opportunities I'll have at this new school and the lessons and growth that I'll experience up in Toccoa Falls. Hopefully, I won't stick out... too much... ;)

Well that's it! Thanks again for checking out my blog! Hope y'all have a great week... and remember you students out there: only a couple more weeks! Hang in there and finish strong! Later!

~Jeanne;)

Hey guys! Hope all is going well for you in your lives. Many things are going on in my life right now so lets get started shall we? ;)

This past week we had dorm wars here at our school. Now, I'll admit, I didn't want to participate because I had ALOT of work and working to do here at school so I was really trying to avoid it as much as possible. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well. Our team, the girls' apartment aka The Flamingo Chicas, was having a hard time trying to get people involved so I agreed to help with a few competitions but not all of them. So, of course, they had me in arm wrestling, dodge-ball, and tug of war. I didn't think it would be such a big deal and that I wouldn't get hurt... I was wrong...


*Rope burn that stretched from my wrist up to my shoulder*


*Bruise from the rope straining and rubbing against my arm and one of the girl's fists being pinned under my arm during the matches*

LOL! Sorry if this grosses any of y'all out, out there in internet world. Fortunately, these "battle scars" were worth it because in the end our dorm (apartments) won overall! So I'm proud of my girls for working so hard and participating as much as they did and could! Go Flamingo Chicas!! :)

Moving on to other things going on in my life, right now its the last few weeks of the semester here at our school so of course projects are in the processing of being made and turned in. Luckily I finished one of three of mine (12 page paper on the Egyptian gods of the underworld, focusing primarily on Osiris, Isis and Horus). It wasn't fun typing and constructing but it was fun researching and finding out all these different myths and stories connected to these gods. After researching various articles and 15 or so books (including the original transcripts and translated transcripts of the Book of the Dead and Plutarch's "On Isis and Osiris"), I was able to get it done and with a week to spare. Right now, I'm just letting it sit and "breathe" a bit before I look back over one more time for revision and then I'll turn it in. Right now, however, I'm working on my other two projects: an interview paper for my Women's History class in which I had to interview an older woman, 60 or older, and tell of her experiences and how she could be placed in history. My other project, a group project, focuses on the debate of whether or not Christians should participate in military service and show the different perspectives of people from the 2nd and 3rd Century church and people's perspective today. Hoping to get these two done ASAP! We'll see... ;)

Moving on, earlier this week I FINALLY got my refund check from my school so I'm UBER excited about being able to use some of it to get my car. And then my parents called... they called me last night and told me that this woman had come to our house and telling them how she was working on behalf of our landlord (who we hadn't heard from in like over a month because for some reason he's in the hospital... please be in prayer for him) and was demanding our rent for the month or she would have us evicted! (Please continue to pray for my family and that we can get out of this house ASAP!) Unfortunately my family didn't have all the funds to pay for the rent and asked to borrow money. Naturally, I told them I would help them out however I could. I knew that that money had been given to me for a reason. By the grace of God, he gave me far more than enough to get some kind of a car and pay for the deposit at Toccoa Falls. I knew that the rest of that money was going to be used to bless and help my family or anyone else God needed me to use it for. Thankfully, years ago when I was first trying to get out on the mission field, I went through a type of bible study with a group of people at my college ministry that focused on the importance of being a God-centered steward of your finances. By the end of the study, I learned a number of things:

1) Anything and everything that I possess (clothes, finances, etc) were given to me by God.

2) Anything that is given to you by God will not just bless you but others eventually.

3)Learn the difference between what is a need and what is a want.

4) How to split your money: 10% tithe, 10% saving, 80% spending - first for bills and necessities and after that anything left over is for fun!

I also was blessed to hear my pastor at my church, 12 Stone, preach a series called "Economic Atheist" and explained how we, as followers, will trust God with anything and everything else EXCEPT our money. When we act like that, we aren't fully relying on God and really not believing in God to watch out for us and help us in our financial area of our lives. Not believing in God, no matter how small the area is, is being somewhat atheistic. We are either all in on our trust and belief in Him or not at all, we can't be lukewarm (God tells us what he'll do about that - Revelation 3:16). Just some food for thought... ;)

Any who, earlier this week someone was so "kind" to remind me that my 26th birthday was coming up in the next couple of weeks (April 21st). I swear, the older you get, the more your birthdays have the tendency to sneak up on you. Anyways, just to let y'all know I have no idea what I'm doing and in all honesty I'm too busy to really thing about what to do right now. So I don't know... we'll see what happens as it gets closer...

Well, that's it for now! Sorry if this was really long! I hope y'all have a great week ahead and to the students out there, hang in there! We're almost done! Just a couple more weeks! Love y'all! Later days!

~Jeanne;)

~Courtesy of www.catholicbishops.ie

Hey guys! Happy Easter to you all and I hope all is going well! Things are pretty much going right now for me...

Easter is pretty good this year! I went home for a nice 3 day weekend since we got Good Friday off. It was great spending it with my family, eating some good food and relaxing some (thanks to homework/projects... >.<). My older sister, Jess, sang at our church, 12Stone, for Easter! OMG!! She was incredible! She did Eva Cassidy's version of "Somewhere over the rainbow"... so amazing! The reason for the song was because our pastor, Pastor Kevin or PK for short, talked about how all great stories have the same general make up and structure of the first and greatest story ever told: the story of Jesus. He pointed out that all great stories have the same three basic components: We all get lost, We all need help and There's no place like home. It was such an amazing sermon and it had me and my mom ballin' like babies! We also became witnesses to so many people accepting Jesus as their Savior for the first time and we couldn't help but be moved and rejoice with them! God was there and He changed lives these past couple of days. So incredible! Afterward, we came home, decorated eggs with the kids and chilled out for the rest of the weekend! It was great... :D



Along with all this happening, I've been working through some things of my own (like that's anything new - ;) ). Amongst clearing out all the rubbish in my mind and heart that I'm trying to throw out that aren't true and focusing on things in my life right now that are good and pleasing to God, I can't help but feel feelings I hadn't in a very long time: the feeling of love. Now hold your horses before you jump to any conclusions... I'm talking about a few different versions of love (For those of you who haven't read "The Four Loves" by CS Lewis this might not make much sense but stick with me). I usually experience and know agape love (loving/caring regardless of circumstance) as well as storge love (love/caring through familiarity like family/friends) but recently I've felt more the loves I haven't and I'm not use to feeling: that of philas love (love/strong bond shared between friends who have alot in common) and possibly eros love (the sense of "being in love") have begun to resonate a bit more than they usually do in my heart. I'm trying to understand and figure out what exactly this all might means. In all honesty I'm scared... these are feelings I haven't felt in so long and I'm terrified of jumping to the wrong conclusion or getting hurt because that's how it ALWAYS ends up. Just pray that I can figure these feelings and situations out right now... it would mean so much to me... ;)

Well to end a happier note... I have about 4 weeks left here at Atlanta Christian College! I'm trying hard to finish strong and do my best on these last few projects I have to do here for a few classes! Pray that I can get them done on time and done well! (Trying to maintain my 4.0 GPA as I transfer to Toccoa in the fall) Things are starting to pile on top of me but I know if I buckle down, grit my teeth and do my best I'll get through it before I know it!

Well that's it for now! Thanks for reading and I hope that y'all have a great week and for God to bless you! Later days! ;)

~Jeanne;)