As I sit here

Good ‘Good Friday’ morning, my friends,

I’m sitting by the ballroom at my university’s student activity central building on campus while a young man, who I do not know (he cannot see me, nor I him), plays a beautiful lamentation on Good Friday, the day that Christ our Lord was raised from the dead. 

While I sit and listen to this beautiful music, I can’t help but reflect on the incredible sacrifice that He gave for our sake. 

At times this music is serious and slow, reflecting to me the grave feelings that Jesus had as He carried the crude of our sins to the point where it was implanted into the Earth. But at others this compelling music is quick and seemingly upbeat reflecting to me the times when Jesus loved and preached to His disciples and followers. I wish that I was more eloquent in musical terminology to describe it better. 

At some points, this beautiful music is quick but has sharp and flat notes in a very low key, making me think of the thoughts of Jesus in the last moments of His crucifixion. The pain that this man went through for my well being makes me feel immense guilt. 

This music is so wonderful and perfectly palaces into this day when all children of God (that’s everyone) were saved and freed (from the laws of Leviticus) to live a free and beautiful life. 

Today, Good Friday, my favorite of Christian holidays, is the most important day in all of human history. 

Even if you do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of mankind, this day (over 2,000 years ago) has changed the course of humanity. It is important to remember that as you go through your day.

May God Bless everyone and bestow His mercy on all of us.

~Alexandra Mae

My future

Hello, my beloved readers,

Wow. I’m almost done! I had really begun to feel like I was never going to finish college.

If you’ve read my about me ‘Sur Moi’, you know that my life has not been very easy in the last five or six years by any stretch of the imagination.

I’ve survived a nearly catastrophic TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and I’ve almost completed my undergraduate college degree against all doctors’ expectations.

In order to graduate, all that I have left is next semester’s two French courses (along with one general education course) and this semester’s Languages and Cultures course with two courses over the summer in France (woe is me :p  . . . seriously!) . After this summer, I will have four classes next semester and one course online over the 2016-2017 winter vacation. So, in all reality, I have seven courses and three semesters left but in my head, I only have one full semester left after this one. It has come to my attention in the last semester or two, that a French degree won’t really open up too many doors for me after college, so in order to work within my interests, French, helping others/the Earth  and religion, I’ve also realized that I’m  am going to have to broaden my scope. . . A LOT. :p

My heart tells me to look for a job with my faith or in Hospitality or cooking for the homeless/unemployed, but my head tells me that neither of those are an easy career path and would probably cause more debt before I’m able to start paying off my undergraduate degree. If I go for a degree related to my faith, . . . . . . . . . I don’t even know. The only thing that I really want to do with my faith is spread it and bring glory to the Creator and Protector of all. I’m not even sure how I could do that and get paid for it, even if only a very small amount.

I think, (what I keep coming back to) maybe . . . that I will just find some part time work and make a few bucks while living at home until I publish my book. To the new readers out there, that I PRAY I’m getting, . . . . I have been through an extremely traumatic car accident in which I received a Traumatic (Catastrophic) Brain Injury [due to lack of oxygen . . it’s a long story] and several small lacerations to my liver and some cuts on my skin. . . If you’re really interested, look for my book. I should be able to publish it by 2020.. . .Hopefully. 😉 When I refer to TBI, it’s my Traumatic Brain Injury and hen I refer to having been through a lot, it’s the painful steps of recovery from all of the TBI junk. :p

My heart wants to literally do nothing but write after I graduate. I feel that my story is very important to some people involved with my recovery and future TBI victims, so I need to focus on that until I finally get to publish it. But, my Momma (the sole reason that I’ve recovered as well as I have) insists that I need a job right after college. I see her point, but at the same time, I think that it’s very important for me to chase my dreams and become a successful author and possibly life-changer.

At the same time as wanting to simply follow my dream and not do any ‘work’ that I’m not interested in, I realize that I actually have to be an adult and make money and stuff. I dread becoming an adult and having to get a real job and worry about bills and benefits and crap, but I am absolutely ecstatic about not being in college anymore! I’m ready . . . I think. . . Maybe . . . Hopefully . . .  Well, not really. . I’m anxious and a little scared of what the next chapter is . . if I even get another chapter. I feel like the increasingly terroristic current terrorist group  is going to blow me up while I’m in Europe this summer, but I run about the same risk here in the U.S. In all reality, no place is safe; not the church,  not my house, not your house, not the homes of the terrorists themselves. No place has even been safe, even before these terrorists emerged. This world is not what it was meant to be, not by any means. If we are to have any chance at turning everything around, I think that we all need to die. I think that because we know fear, fear will always exist. Because we know pain, it will always affect us. Because we know hate, it will always be in our hearts, because we know about every emotion that we do, they will never cease to be.

I think God needs to start everything over. . . . .Maybe He already has and He’s just letting us die off. Woah, that’s a bit mind blowing. I wonder how many versions of life He has made trying to find the perfect one. It’s obviously not us, I’m sure of that much. But, maybe it IS us, maybe He wanted to find the mix between ‘free will’ and ‘love of Creator’ and we are the best that He could muster up out of the dust of all of the universes in existence. Wow. I’m getting a little bit too ‘deep’ here, aren’t I? . . . [Old readers; didn’t I tell you I overthink stuff?] [New readers; heads up, I overthink stuff :p ]

Well, I’m getting tired from all of this crazy/ intense thinking. . . . .

My love to all,

❤

Alexandra Mae

 

Une lettre pour mon âme sœur 😘

Dear soul mate,

I might not know your name yet, but I promise, I love you deeply. My entire being craves to have you with me. Not because I’m lonely or bored, but because I crave being with you in the deepest and most sincere way.

My heart leaps years ahead of reality and it portrays the most beautiful image of us simply loving eachother and the family we create out of friends and new family members.

My skin aches to touch you, be touched by you and hold you and feel you at my side. My lungs feel suffocated without you and my brain doesn’t understand why I don’t know you yet because I feel such a gravely deep love for you already.

Dear soul mate,

I am patiently waiting for us to be together. As the time passes, I feel less and less sure of us ever being together, but I have loved you always and that will never change.

With my body, mind and soul, I wish all a fortunate present and future. 😘

~Alexandra Mae

XoXo

It REALLY, TRULY is almost over!

Hello, lovely readers.

I’m just trying to wrap my mind around being almost done with college. It seems too good to be true. I’ve been working tirelessly for my education to be complete for my whole life (only 23 years, but to me, that’s forever) and having almost accomplished that lifelong goal is just mind-blowing to me. I cannot fathom what it will feel like to honestly be done. After I get my degree, I literally have no stinking clue what I’m going to do. All that I can really tell you is what I wasn’t out of life;

I want to use my degree, I want to travel.  I want to learn more languages. I want to walk where Jesus walked, to speak the language that He spoke. I want to feed people. I want to make others feel loved and wanted. I want my parents to be proud of me. I want my siblings to be proud of how far I’ve come. I want the world around me to flourish. I want to grow my own fruits and vegetables. I want to live off of the money that my first, autobiographical book makes. I want to keep writing. I want to be an author who lives everywhere, one who travels and writes about my experiences for a living. I want to ‘work’ for a traveling medical group, telling my stories in the form of words until I settle down into ‘real life’ somewhere.

What many people don’t realize is exactly how big the world is, how much different stuff is out there, and how marvelous that is!! I mean, honestly. Most people in America (I’m going out on a limb here) never travel to our neighboring continent, South America, or even Canada or Mexico!! I mean, I admire people that stay put and enjoy the benefits of their locale, but the world is SO much bigger than your tiny little hometown, whether or not you’re from a city. The world is almost unfathomably huge! I just wish that every one could understand how much of the world they are missing out on seeing by being stationary to his/her hometown.

Education is the most important belonging that anyone could ever have. Money is evil, people often suck, but a decent education is a window to the great big huge world that so many people don’t get the chance to experience.

At the very least, I feel that it is essential that every human being should be given the ability to read and write. Literacy is probably more important than an education. Without literacy, a person can’t read books or write countless essays that college requires. Literacy is the best gift that I have ever been given by my elementary school teachers. I could not be any more thankful. (Thanks especially to Mrs. Steffen, my 1st grade teacher)

After literacy and education, I believe that the most important thing that a person should be permitted to experience is travel. The ability to see and experience how others live is so . . . . . . important to understanding the world, important to understanding others, important to maturing as a human being. The ability to travel is probably the second most precious gift that I’ve ever been given. I am so thankful that my mother traveled to Spain and the tip of Morocco in her college days, and that my father has traveled to Canada and Ireland with his family. Those two people have made a far greater impression on my understanding of the world than any book or location ever could. Their travels prior to my own made it possible for me to experience another culture and become addicted to travel.

That’s probably what I should do with my life, travel and continually learn about other cultures and people. I just don’t know how I could possibly make any money with that lifestyle, so I’m not sure how realistic that is. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Plus, I want kids. I’m just not ready for them yet. I think that I’ll try and make a few extra large sums of money (I’ll live off of my parents for a few years) and then I’ll travel for a while before I  settle in and start ‘adulting’.  . . .

Well, that’s the idea. But all that I’m really doing is leaving my options wide open for God to fill them with His will. ❤

With all of my love,

Alexandra Mae

XoXo ❤

Krislund

Hello, my dear readers!

Today is Monday and I have just had what I consider the best weekend of my collegiate career.

That statement may not turn out to be true to you and your opinion of what I did over the weekend, but my heart feels amplified and larger than life, and my heart and soul is more excited to serve after college. 

I went to a Christian retreat in central Pennsylvania called the Krislund Camp (TELS) program for Training Emerging Leaders in Society and the church with a few members of my PCM family. 

The speaker, Jon Jorgensen was the most divinely inspired and  impactful speaker that I’ve ever heard in my life! He talked a little bit about lighting your heart mind and soul on fire for the good of God and His kingdom at a few seperate parts in his speeches. Before he spoke (before I recognized who he was), we talked for a while about different ways that God calls us to serve. 

He talked with me about me doing something that will be using the tragedy in my life for the glory of Christ. We talked about cooking, about singing and about different ways that I could use my limited abilities to spread His love and glory everywhere that I go. We briefly discussed using French, song, cooking and baking in missionary work. 

Oh my! The possibilities are endless for me ! God is SO good! 

Krislund allowed me to connect with someone hero was spiritually lost and the camp filled my heart and mind with Him so that I’m able to intelligently discuss my faith wish that young daughter of God  and other nonbelieving souls that I encounter. Unfortunately, I was only there for two nights, but I promised myself they I would go back someday soon as I left the camp. It’s a wonderful hillside camp that spreads love and tha Glory of God to everyone that enters! 😘

If you are able, I genuinely encourage you to look into visiting them and possibly hosting an event there! 😘🙏🏼☺️💜📖💜

Krislund is the best.

SPRING BREAK IS HERE!

Hello, my lovely readers! I finished my second French test in my 206 level french course this morning and spring break (which is only a week, unfortunately) is here! I’m especially excited about this break because for the first two days of it I will get to be with my beloved Protestant Campus Ministry family at a Christian leadership/workshop-sort of camp! I’m pretty stoked about the camp! But, I really don’t know what to expect.

There’s this huge joke inside of my PCM family that all of us student are a family, me being the sister of the girl of our power couple (a senior and his 20 year old-freshman girlfriend) and most of our other members being their kids. The girlfriend, who, like me is curvy and unashamed of the love handles God gave to her, and I are pretty close to eachother, we share a lot of qualities other than being curvy and having blue eyes. We’re both idealists, dreamers, love providing for others, and love hugs and loving other people. When people call me family, I don’t take it lightly. I take it as one of the biggest compliments in the world.

I mean, think about it, family is generally something that you’re stuck with for your whole life, and a person CHOOSING to call you family is them saying that they wish you were related. They are telling you that they love you so much that they want you in their life forever. When I am feeling low about myself, all that I have to do is think about people, like my PCM family, that want me in their life forever and will be honest with me about things and just truly love me as I am. That lifts my spirits a lot and I am SOO excited to get to spend the weekend with my family-by-choice! 😀 :* ❤

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WOW, that was QUITE a tangent!! But, I love my family, both genealogically-related and related-by-choice. After my weekend with my PCM family, I go home for about a week and (except for a few hours with some local friends at home) I have the whole week to work on homework and try to get ahead in my French classes and study for my Languages and Cultures midterm, which should be pretty easy. I’m pretty stoked about my life.

I mean, who wouldn’t be excited that a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG awaited release from a grueling schedule was coming in just a few months?! I have the three classes mentioned above in my schedule this semester, two summer-classes in France and four classes in the fall semester. Then I will probably have an online winter class and I WILL BE DONE WITH MY UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE!!!

Spring break is great, and I could not be more thankful of the week that will catch me up/ get me ahead in homework, but I worry about having too much time to think. . . . when I think too much, I usually  end up becoming depressed and that’s no fun. So, I try to keep myself busy all the time, leaving me little time to think too much. I do love having the time to empty my heart and mind to God, so I struggle a bit with finding a balance between too much time to think and not enough time with God.

My tendency of negative thought makes me fear what I’m going to do with myself after graduation. I’ll need to occupy myself by writing my book, then I can see how that goes and pay off some debt from my college experience. I can do that and (if my book profits as much as I pray that it will) I can think about paying off the rest of my college debt and attend graduate school for hospitality or small business management.

Growing up in the United States has, inevitably, made me into a human doing, not a human being. So, I have a hard time just being. Because of things that I have filled my mind with in the past, I feel a necessity to always be doing something. I wish that I was one of those people that could just ‘be’. But, I have yet to reach that higher mental security. I want to write my book and just ‘be’ for a while. I hope that I can do that. . . . .

I don’t think that my book is going to become sensationalized . . . at least not until I’m dead, but I do hope that my words are able to reach and comfort people (that I don’t necessarily know) that are struggling with some form of trauma-recovery. Yes, that is a very broad statement, but I feel it is important for each person to know that the individual person might not mean much to the world, but to at least one person, they mean the world. That’s derived from a very old saying from something, I don’t know what. But, it gets my point across. I am so sure that I live for a reason, and I am so sure that every other person does too.

This is getting into my faith, because my faith causes me to believe that God spared me from death for a reason, but I am perfectly fine with talking about my faith. I’m very open to other ideas and I feel that it’s important for others to be heard, but I am just floored by God’s genius in creating every human being for a purpose! Some humans, like Martin Luther King Junior, had a great purpose and affected many lives.  Some humans, like my Mother’s father, remained unknown to most of the world for most (if not all) of their lives.

Haha, I don’t intend to make myself sound conceited, or make it seem like I think that I’m as good or as special as MLKJr was, but I do hope to make some sort of impact like he did. Maybe not as large-scale as him, but he made an ENORMOUS difference in the lives of very many people.  There’s only really one thing that I am passionate about having others learn, and that ‘thing’ is love.

Love is something so powerful that I don’t think it can be truly described with mere words, but I am most certainly going to put a few ideas on the screen in the form of words because I can’t come and show every single reader how powerful and essential to life I feel love to be:

Love is knowing a person’s weaknesses and, instead of exploiting them and making them feel bad about those weaknesses, comforting them and providing them with a way to carry on despite those weaknesses. Love is providing someone with a month’s worth of food when they ask for a meal. Love is teaching a poor child in an illiterate family to read and write, even though it may be dangerous and life-threatening to the person that is teaching. Love is paying for the person in the drive through line and love is taking a homeless  adult to the hospital when you hear them coughing and wheezing in the streets on New York or any other major City. Love is so powerful that I am still alive when I clearly should have died six years ago after the car accident in May. Love is the most important thing to experience in this life and I grieve for the people that don ‘t get to feel what I have felt every day of my entire life.

Do you see what I mean about having too much time to think?!

I stated this post excitedly talking about having a week to be with some of my favorite people on the world, then do a bunch of homework, and I ended up talking about the poor souls that don’t know love. . . . .too much time. :p

Haha. Well, I’ll just have to get better at organizing my time into hours of work for school (or my current employment) and hours for thinking. :p ❤
But, not too many hours for thinking!! I’ll get myself in trouble that way. 😉

Haha,

I leave you with all of my love,

~Alexandra Mae

XoXo