Hey guys! Hope all is going well for ya! Things have started getting a bit rough but I can honestly say that without God and some awesome friends (old and new), things could be alot worse... :)

So... yeah first week of school is done with and I'm heading into my second week! Now that I've been to all my classes and have met all my professor and such, I can honestly say I feel a bit overwhelmed. I'm only taking 16 hours but the requirements for the classes I'm taking (Hermeneutics, Cultural Anthropology, Life & Revelation of Christ, etc.) is a whole other realm of "schoolwork" I've never experienced. I will SERIOUSLY be surprised if I have a 4.0 by the end of this semester... :S But like I said above, with God and the amazing friends that I have here at school (and elsewhere), I know I'm going to be just fine! :)



Well for the past week a couple of verses have kept popping up at me and what's crazy? They both talk about the same thing! Matthew 22:34-40 and John 15:9-17 both talk about not only loving and abiding in God but how that is so closely tied to loving others how you would want to be loved. Take a look:

"Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." ~Matthew 22:34-40

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other."~John 15:9-17

After reading these verses, I really started thinking and focusing on not only what it means to love God with all my heart, soul and mind (biblical scholars call this the "Shema") and to love others like I love myself (what we call the "Golden Rule") but also how by doing these things show me how I'm abiding in God and his love for me! I really can't help but notice how one, if not the holiest, of the decrees that God gave to his people long ago when he was beginning to give them a new life combined this with one of the most simple and most moral of all rules that have existed on earth. These verses show one of many ways how Christ came to bridge the gap between heaven and earth and more importantly between God and his children. :)



So... yeah this area was one of my hard ones. Some of you have heard me talk a bit about love and the like in these blogs but I have never had to deal with something so painful these past couple of days than what I'm about to tell you. But in this pain God spoke to me more and helped me to begin to see him in a light I've never seen him in before. Earlier the other day I had posted something on Facebook (Isn't that how it always starts?) and had a few "friends" (better term would be acquaintance) respond to it by sending me personal messages/IMing me on Facebook, all of them disheartening and flat out sucker punches! One of these girls said "Wait... you don't have a man? What's wrong with you?" Another girl also messaged me saying something along the lines of "Oh you aren't with someone? I feel sorry for you..." And the final girl was the real kicker: "Well that's nobody's fault but your own. If you wouldn't hole yourself up in a room and have your nose in books all the time, you'd probably have someone by now..." ((O.o;)) X-/ Okay, my first response to this was... SERIOUSLY?!?!? Not going to lie, I was hurt... very badly. I know that they didn't mean to come off harsh or rude but... seriously? I don't need it to be rubbed in, don't need a pity party and I don't need a lecture! *Venting session over*

Now, after all this I went to bed and had a really bad night's rest and woke up still weighed down by this. These negative thoughts were already in my head and now there were people saying it to me, to my face (well, virtually that is). I walked around alot today in solace prayer, focusing alot on Song of Songs 8:4 (Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires), asking God to help me. I kept taking these feelings and my wish/desire to be in a relationship back to him and putting it on his alter so that I could get God to be center again. I eventually ended up at Chapel today where an organization called Broken Voices came and spoke about their theme for the year, "Center". The guy who spoke talked about how if we don't have God in the center of our lives, we will be off-centered and weighed down with things that will burden us to death! With God being the center, you are completely liberated and free and with him at the center you will see the world being off-centered and long to bring it back into the alignment it was meant to be! So he asked, "What is it that is the center of your life?" As I thought about it, God was my center but there were many things (like the wish/desire to be with someone) that was getting too close to being the center of my life. Later, as I reviewed and thought more about what the guy had said, I suddenly realized something I hadn't in years and years: Christ was the only man who was willing to die for me! Because he was in love with me that much. God loved me so much that he turned himself into a human (far below who he truly is) in order to die for me and that the love that was displayed was undoubtedly true love and the love that was sacrificed was eternal so when he was raised from the dead, so this love became everlasting for all. It couldn't be a human love because then that love wouldn't be God's true love; it would be fickle, ever changing and subjective. :*) And slowly but surely God began to speak to me and my heart telling me how much he loved me and how he wanted to be so close to me! For the first time ever in my life, I was beginning to understand and look at God how I always wanted to and longed to: The lover of my soul... I couldn't help but walk around the rest of the day with a huge smile on my face and skip in my step! :D Yes, that wish is still there but its not so dominating in my life! Its so... well, liberating... :)

Well that's it for now... sorry if this was pretty long but I thought you guys would like to know. Now its time for me to get back to my homework and the likes... love y'all! Later days!

~Jeanne ;)

PS-Btw, got a phone! Email me if you want my number... :)