~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;)