Birthday Joys

Lou Engle said this…

“God had a dream, and He wrapped flesh around it, and you were born.”

I love that so much. Though it would be a good 15 years of my life before I would say yes to the Lord, a dream of His heart really was made manifest to the world when I was born and its through my new birth in Him that that dream gets to truly live

Maybe people say this every year, I dont know, but I really do feel like this is one of the best birthdays I’ve had in a long time. I just see the goodness of the Lord all around me. So much so that it’s almost too much for me to take in all at once. So, let’s start with the beginning of the day to tally all the little gifts He’s given me today, mostly so I can just see it for myself, but also as a witness to everyone of how kind He really is to His beloved

• As I’ve already bragged about via facebook and what not, I received probably one of the best gifts ever as soon as I woke up this morning. My beloved Courtney left me the most amaaaaaaaaazing voicemail message where she sang me a song that she had written about me based to the tune of Cory Asbury’s “One thing/My Beloved”. It was so creative and every lyric is just perfect in every way, I can not help but laugh with joy evertime I listen to it. It really was the perfect way to start the day.
• Really just all the words from people that I love were such gifts in and of themselves. All the little conversations and texts that I got today blessed my heart beyond measure
• As if it’s not amazing enough to have my friend from FITN Jenna coming to visit me and Dora in the East Coast wild, I just found out today that my roomate Steph will be spending Christmas over here ! I am beyooooooond excited for both of these guys to come out here, I just cant get over how good the Lord is to have two of my friends from FITN come out here, it’s gonna be totally surreal, can’t wait!
• Every single card that I got from someone was absolutely perfect for me.
• I’ve been asking the Lord every day for my eyes to get healed, I’m shootin for 20/20 vision, especially after hearing that testimony from IHOP about a girl’s eyes getting healed, it just boosted my faith even more. So, today I had an eye exam and if you know me, you know that my eyes are pretty bad, and every year I go for the checkup they always get one notch worse. Buuuuuuuuut, when I went today it turns out that my eyes didn’t get worse! They just stayed stable! So I’ll take that! I’m gonna keep petitioning for complete healing, I’m tired of wearing glasses, He didn’t make me with glasses in mind
• My parents gave me a good chunk of money that’s really gonna help me out and I havent seen my grandparents and everyone else yet so come Thanksgiving I’ll probably have a little more. Thank you Jesus! This just makes me want to give more and more and more!
• And speaking of testimonies that have to do with giving – (I’m gonna actually write a separate post about this because it’s just that awesome) Okay so, My car has a good $500 worth of damage done to it by myself, a nice white scratch down the passenger side and a piece of the metal on the bottom is sliced open pretty bad and starting to rust. In short summary, I’m getting all that fixed for FREE! The story behind this is awesome and makes me fall in love with the ways of the Kingdom even more, it’s fun dude! Stay tuned for the full story!

Man, I dont even know. The Lord is just so good. Even beyond all this stuff, just bringing myself to think upon the gift of His leadership in my life and how good He’s been to me through it all. The best gift I could ever receive is to know His love for me more deeply and to feel that for Him and I know that this whole season I find myself in now is the means for doing just that. As much as I may not always feeeeeeel the blessedness of it lol I know it’s the best and most perfect thing for me. I love Him so much for leading me cause I really don’t know what’s best for me. I used to think I did buuuuut I’ve come to terms with the fact that I don’t and that’s quite alright with me

It’s time to learn to lean

Thoughts…

Just some thoughts to share at the end of this cold day in Jersey:

• Skirts. I really like those. I have this sudden urge to want to buy some.
• Laura Hackett’s new single There’s A Gap is beauuuutiful, get on that for sure 8) Her full album comes out November 2nd it’s gonna be good times for sure. Yay looooraaa hackIItt! [insert high british accent much Elizabeth Bennet's mother's ]
• I want to be more sincere with customers I talk to at Old Navy.
• Heard Christopher Raspberry (aka Cory Asbury) was dance-partyin’ it up tonight and I miss those times, they are epic in their freedom 8)
• I had a precious moment with my dad tonight! He umpires for the little ones still (can never get him away from those little league fields) and he was telling me how sometimes when he sees these little 6/7 year old girls, he sees me. He sees me in their batter stance and such. So cute. This was the killer, he said this with a smile and a laugh, “and sometimes when they come up to bat I have to try not to play favoritism.” Presh. Something about that little moment just warmed my heart so much, almost makes me want to cry to be honest. I could totally feel the warmth in my dad’s heart towards me as his little girl and it’s beautiful. And then! He goes on to tell me how he’ll never forget when I was about 9 or 10 years old and won the championship game for my team. I had him re-explain it because to me I never thought it was a big deal, I hit the ball and ran and didn’t really see how awesome of a moment it was. It was so cute to hear my dad explain it and get all excited. That was almost 10 years ago and he still remembers it like it was yesterday, oh the beauty of a father’s heart. It’s like I got to see a deeper part of my dad’s heart towards me that I never really did before. And I also got some pretty sweet Father heart revelations as well which I’ll let you see for yourself
• Moving on…I would kind of like to go one day without hearing about “the swine.” There was no talk of the swine flu out in Missouri and it’s all over the place here. All I’m sayin is…I ain’t gettin no swine.
• Just been thinking a lot lately about king David, but shepherd boy king David. I’m just like, “man, what kind of encounters with the heart of God did David have as a little unseen shepherd boy on those fields?” I’m just so fascinated lately about those hidden years with the Lord that David had. I remember when Vanessa told me that she wanted to call The Pursuit “David’s Field” first and I still absolutely looooooove that name and all the implications of it. It’s the place of gazing upon the beauty of the Lord; the place of encounter with God in the secret place. David’s Field. Beautiful.
• I really like just being able to “be.” The Lord brought that reality to my heart so much through these last 3 months and being at IHOP. It’s so liberating. As we begin to see who He really is and His affections towards us, we begin to love ourselves in the midst of it and I’ve been really enjoying the beautiful woman of “Brittany” that I am and wanting to more My beloved roomate Courtney has this beauutiful song (as all of them are:)) that touches on this too and I love listening to it so much for that. At one point in the song she goes “If we all just were/If we all just were/Maybe we’d stop/Maybe we’d stop/Stop tryin’ so hard” Ah I love it! Yay Courtney! I love how she actually calls us to that place of just “being,” with ourselves and with others. She causes us to stop and realize, “hey if we could all just “be” and accept and truly and sincerely love ourselves, we’d stop trying to be everything we’re not and not meant to be.” Whenever I hear that part it makes me go, “yeah dude that’s just straight up right.” It brings me back to that place of “being” that Jesus so desires us to live in. And the best part is…it’s found in Him Acts 11:28 – “For in Him we live and move and have our being…” Ah! So cool! I just got that right now, yay Holy Spirit ! I looooove that I find that place of being in Him! Good times dude, always 8)

That is all for now. I’ll leave you with some more lyrics from Courtney because I love and miss her so. I was looking through the notes I have in my phone and came across these lyrics that I jotted down when we were listening to Court’s CD from her support-raising concert thinger. I think she said that she asked the Lord for a song about Him or something of the like, you’ll have to correct me Courtney if I’m wrong, and well…He gave her one that was totally a song from His heart and it’s beautiful. I can’t remember any of the other words, these were the only ones I took down, they hit me hardcore when I first heard ‘em, thank You Jesus Yay for songs that erupt from the heart of the Lord into your soul and into the hearts of His people Courtney !

“You keep asking and waiting

If you could only fall in love

But I say, ‘Fall in love with Me.’”