Ode to Fire in the Night

One year ago today I woke up with butterflies in my stomach like crazy. The Lord had moved and shifted mountains to get me to Kansas City without even breaking a sweat and what I was about to begin just felt so surreal to me. As I stood in line for registration I was actually so nervous I was holding back tears. But bless Tiffany Duong’s beautiful heart, she was standing behind me and totally started up a conversation with me which helped so much. I had no idea I would feel so anxious, I guess the unknown had really gotten to  me. I could feel the excitement intertwined within it all though. I knew the Lord had that silly little grin He gets on His face when He’s excited about something and as nervous as I was, I was ready to jump

As I think back on those three months, I am just beyond grateful to the Lord. I was reading through my journal from FITN the other day and was just praising the Lord for the work He did in my heart. A huge thing for me during my time there was going through inner healing. It was really rough at times, really lol. Those of you who saw me a bunch can probably attest to that. But at the same time it was easy and light and a weird kingdom sort of way. I had to deal with a lot of the pain and baggage I’d been carrying for the past 18 years but what made it light was that I knew the Lord was with me. The pain, longings, emotions, they were all real but by the end of the internship I saw how His tenderness, patience, and kindness walked me through it all. It’s crazy because as I’m reading my journal the other day, I realized that a lot of my dialogue with the Lord was wrestling through those things. I didn’t have too many flowers and blue skies journal entries lol. Had me some serious David “come and answer me Lord, I’m wasting away, you need to do something or I’ll perish” psalms going on there. But they truly are just as glorious. What I realized though in looking all that over, is that it is REALLY easy for the Lord to bring restoration to our hearts! It totally was not my own strength at all. Or my own ability to ya know, “do the right thing to get healed.” Trust me on that one. I felt incredibly weak and broken. But what I kept doing was just giving the Lord everything that was going on within my heart. I gave Him access. That’s been the biggest key and piece of wisdom the Holy Spirit used to walk me through everything. I’d never done that until FITN. I remember so many nights of pacing, saying the same scriptures over my self, giving Him the same pain again and again, not feeling the results right away, but choosing to believe  with what little strength I had that His word and His love is changing me. And ya know what? IT WORKED! It was so crazy. About a couple weeks after I got home, all the sudden I realized that my heart had been healed! I remember how the pain felt within me and it actually felt different within my heart post-FITN. Totally like the lady who got healed with the issue of blood and how it says that “she felt in her body that she had been healed.” I’m saying all this to encourage anyone who’s reading this really. I’m telling you, just give the Lord access, let Him in where you never have before. It may not feel so good in the process but His strength is there for you, it’s my testimony. You WILL come out restored, given double what was taken from you. He is soooooooo kind and patient. He will love you through whatever you need Him to, whatever you need Him to touch. He’ll restore your heart to walk in freedom in ways you never thought you could. Just wait and see

Okay, so that was kind of a long tangent but a huge part of my Fire in the Night experience nonetheless. Anyways, another huge gift to me from FITN was the brothers and sisters I had the honor of running with. Going into the internship I really wasn’t even thinking about the possibility of forming life long relationships with people. I wasn’t like, against it or anything, it really just didn’t even occur to me lol. But the Lord totally surprised me and has given me relationships that my heart will treasure for eternity. And what’s awesome, kind of like what I said in my post from a couple days ago, even if I don’t get to talk to some of them for a while, when I see them or talk on the phone that connect is still there…cause the connect is the Lord . That is just still so beautiful to me. To all my fellow Summer 2009 FITN-ers, I love and miss you guys tons. Loved running with you in the night and would do it all over again in a second. I am so incredibly grateful for every time one of you guys encouraged me, wrote me a note in the PR, told me to stop whining in the bathroom at 2 AM cause my Father’s a King and even just every little hug and smile. I pray the Lord releases fresh grace upon all of you guys wherever you find yourself with Him on this adventure He’s planned for you. Remember His love, remember His faithfulness, and remember He’s coming and wants YOU to partner with the desires of His heart to bring the Father home . May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirits!

Much love to you all!

And all I’m sayin is…I would do NightWatch again in a heart beat. Like I’ve talked about before but there is just something extra about watching with the Lord in the night. It’s just different, in a way you have to experience your self I think. Something about blessing the Lord at 3 in the morning just undoes my heart. Loved getting to behold and bless the Lord in the night .

And so another journey for me begins soon. In July as well haha apparently there’s some thing with me and the Lord and July. The silly little grin is back and it’s time to jump again. Ellensburg here I come

One year ago…

… I graduated high school.

One year ago next week was my first day of Fire in the Night.

Life really is a vapor.

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Ps 90:12)

Like An Apple Tree…

I’m really not one for sharing stuff from my journal (and this will probably be the one and only time I do) but after reading an old entry today I felt like I was supposed to post it. I was looking at Song of Solomon 2:3 today where it says, “Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons.” I grabbed my journal from Fire in the Night because I remembered that I had a cool journaling experience with this verse. I don’t really journal the word that often but re-reading this definitely stirred me to start doing it again because it was just good times with Jesus for sure and I strongly encourage all y’all to try it out

9/15/09 – You are the only source of food and life, nourishment, the only one with food to offer me. I’ve been looking to trees for food, to trees that produce no fruit for me to eat. Like feeding on branches and leaves of other lovers. But my Beloved, my Beloved, He is like an apple tree, the only one with food for me and I can always access the fruit of His love. Apples are accessible to people, they’re not too high to reach, they are the perfect placement for someone to easily grab hold of. Some are even on the ground! (Indebted the Dia Meyer who shared that revelation in our Song of Solomon class ) You pour Yourself out time and time again. I’ve been looking around the whole forest for someone to feed me and have given myself to what I thought to be food from others, but You are the only apple tree among the trees of the woods. I come in desperation, with thorns in my mouth, hurt from feeding off of others. You remove them and feed me with Yourself, You satisfy me with Yourself. Searching frantically through the woods for food, desperation makes the find all the more to rejoice over and appreciate. I imagine myself running through the woods looking for something to eat, frantic, starving, desperate. Trying to see if any tree will taste good, a vain attempt for satisfaction. I go deeper within the woods knowing that there’s gotta be something that will feed me. I’m starving! It gets darker as I travel deep within the woods as all the trees block the sunlight from shining through. I’m about ready to give up and pass out, exhausted. I sit down and as I turn to one side I see light! There’s an open place there! I could at least use some sunlight instead of this cold darkness of the forest around me. So I follow the light, letting it lead me carefully through the maze of trees. It’s as if the light were a Person itself, extending its hand with each ray of light that shines through. Running frantically as my desperation seems to grow with every step, I end up tripping over some tree roots and get thrown a couple feet ahead of myself.

Suddenly warmth is surrounding my body. It’s almost too much to bear after only knowing darkness and cold for years. I’m so overwhelmed by the warmth that I can’t even get up. It’s as if I was instantly wrapped in a blanket. I don’t even want to move but my curiosity compels me to lift my head.  It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust and then BAM! Something falls right onto my back. I was so scared that I curled up into the fetal position. But as I did, I felt all these …things…all around me. So I open my eyes again and am in absolute awe. There are apples, bundles of apples all around me as I’m on the ground. “Wait, then this must meeeaaaaan….” I look up slowly above myself and realize that the object I just threw myself on because I was frightened is actually something glorious in every way. “This is an apple treeeeeeeeeeeeee!!” I get up and dance for joy and excitement as a child would, the purest joy I’ve ever felt. I could feel the wind laughing with me as it danced through me. Written on the trunk it says, “to My beloved.” I’ve never felt nourishment like this before. I didn’t even know what true nourishment was! Who knew!?

I pray that this blesses you in any way As you can kinda tell, I just started off writing about what it meant for the Lord to be like an apple tree and it basically turned into this vision thing or whatever you want to call it lol. It was so clear in my minds eye, I never really experienced anything like that before then.

So here’s your assignment now . Pick a verse and just start writing about what that means. For example, if you chose “The Lord is my light and my salvation” and say you wanted to focus on how the Lord is your light you might go, “Lord, You are my light, You shine, You’re cover me with Your light, You lead me, etc.” Holy Spirit loves this stuff! As you just write, all the sudden these phrases will come out of you that make you go, “WOAAAH! That’s awesome!” haha for real though, He loves to breathe on the word. You’ll find that He’ll just start to bring you other scriptures that are related to that too. It’s an awesome way to just make the word more personal to you. So grab your bible, grab a notebook, and have fun

Random Pearl

I was looking through all my old facebook posts today from back in the summer and what not and came across this one status I put that made me so happy! CJ, one of the leaders, was sharing this pearl one night and I just have to pass it along because it’s AWEESOOMEE =D! This is what my status said:

Coolest thing ever that one of the leaders shared! Okay so it says in Isaiah that God inhabits eternity right? He inhabits it, that alone should blow your mind off. But get this, He’s placed eternity in the hearts of men too. Soooo He put eternity in our hearts BECAUSE He inhabits it and longs to abide in man! He did it so He could live in us! Craaaazzzyyyyyyyy!

Holy Spirit is the Perfect Travel Agent

Today I was reflecting on just how awesome the Holy Spirit has been this past week. My beautiful friend Jenna from FITN flew all the way from Washington (state) to come and visit me and my other beloved roommate Dora on the East Coast. I wanted to blog about how perfect Holy Spirit HOOOKED IT UP! For reals. Today my heart was just overwhelmed as I realized His leadership over it all. From beginning until the very end of the time we got to spend together, it was perfect and Holy Spirit was all over it. as much as this is me just reflecting on what we did a little bit, I also want it to be a testimony of how awesome He is.

• Fun Holy Spirit testimony #1. Jenna’s connecting flight actually ended up getting delayed about an hour or so. Not a super big deal, but the only thing was that we had plans to go to Thai Thai for dinner when her and Dora arrived from the airport to my house and Thai Thai closes at 9:30. Depending on how long the flight was and how long it took them to get there, I was estimating that they may not get to my place until about 8:45 and I even told Holy Spirit, “8:45 is really the latest we could get there sooooooooo You gotta hook it up…” Well needless to say He totally did 8) . He hooked it up so Jenna’s flight caught a crazy tail wind that shot them to New York and they ended up getting to my house at 8:30ish. Sweet deal. So we had more than enough time to rejoice in each other’s prescence, as well as the presence of delicious Thai cuisine 8) AND to top that off my dad randomly shows up at the EXACT time we’re getting the bill and pays for the whole thing. You rock Dude.
• The rest of the night we got to exchange Christmas presents which was glorious as well. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father and I was totally feelin that in the gifts I got from Dora and Jenna, as well as the gift of just having them with me too.
• Dora had to go to an orientation for Med school Friday and Saturday so after she left Thursday night it was just me and Jenna 8) . Friday was full of fun adventures. We went to all the essential stores where you just walk around for fun like Borders and Home Goods, ate awesome Jersey pizza, I scored some sweet acrylic paint from A.C. Moore, took Jenna to Washington Rock to see the skyline of NYC, all this intermingled with sweet conversation and Jesus-ness 8) It was so refreshing to my spirit to be able to just chill with Jenna and I’m so grateful to the Lord for knowing that I needed that and giving that to me without even asking really. He’s so kind.
• Fun Holy Spirit testimony #2. Okay sooooooooooo in summation…Friday night…Holy Spirit totally just manifested in my room. Now, by that evening, my spirit was just feeling really joyful and good. I kind of had a feeling that something else was up or that He was up to something extra but didn’t think much of it. It was pretty late, maybe about 2 in the morning or something when we were about to get ready for bed and it all started with Holy Spirit ministering to Jenna through me, I could feel Him so strongly and knew something was up once that began because the whole time, I could have busted out laughing with the joy of the Lord if I let myself. The only reason I didn’t was because it was the middle of the night and I would have woken people up. I just could not help but smile the whole time. Jenna and I ended up talking for a while in the midst of all this and then I think we just started talking about the love of the Father or something, I can’t remember. But by that time it was maybe 3:30 or so and we decided to try and go to sleep but Holy Spirit just took over dude! He was so thick in the room it was crazy, I literally could not move on my bed. I could feel waves of His energy come and go over my head and just the love of the Father was being manifested to Jenna and I so strongly. What I kept thinking about was Him brooding over us like He did over the waters in Genesis 1. I cant even describe how thankful I am for that. And we didn’t even have the IHOP webstream on or anything, it’s just what He’s doing and all He needed was our hungry hearts. Beautiful.
• Fun testimony from Saturday: Jenna and I got to witness to this guy at a little kid’s store in Summit =) . He got to asking about where Jenna was from and what brought her out here and what not which got us into talking about IHOP, FITN and Jesus. It definitely felt like a seed planting 8) . OH! And this was the coolest thing to me. At one point he was like, “you guys could be sisters, you can definitely tell that you really bonded out there” or something along those lines. That may not seem like a big deal but it was so cool to me because this guy could actually see that we were knit together in the Lord whether he realized it or not. I think of that verse in John where Jesus says that people will know we are His disciples by the love that we have for each other and I think that this was a cool example of that. He wasn’t just seeing close friends; he was seeing Jesus because He is the love that bonds us together.
• On Sunday Dora was reunited with us! Yay for Holy Spirit joyful times of fellowship=)!
• Monday we made our way to Dora’s place in Yonkers after listening to Mikey B talk about loving God with all of our mind, doing a fun little exercise based on that, and watching some Pride & Prej of course. Just all around good times.
• NYC Holy Spirit Testimony: Tuesday was what we planned to be our city day. When we planned this it wasn’t supposed to be too cold but it was supposed to rain. Well, Holy Spirit HOOKED IT UP! I’m still in awe about how perfect the weather was that day. It was a little chilly but it was the perfect day out of all the days we had together to go. Even the weather He planned out and tuned us in to what day to go. It was a beautiful day all around. We went to the Emp , Macy’s, Times Square, and Rockefeller Center of course. We also met a security guy at Rockefeller Center who was a Christian and talked to us for about a half hour about stuff from Genesis to Revelation and even had a word for me after we prayed for him. God is good and great.
• Final Holy Spirit testimonies: Wednesday was Jenna’s last day on the East Coast but her flight wasn’t until the evening-ish. We hit a whole bunch of traffic taking her to the airport and were praying for the Lord to redeem the time and hook something up. Needless to say, Holy Spirit was showing off again in this because Dora and I got a text from Jenna saying that she basically got there at perfect timing and that her flight was delayed 10 minutes! What’s funny is that in my head on the car ride there I was thinking, “Ya know, that’d be cool if the plane got delayed for her.” Come on! That’s crazy. He is so good!!

Some of the things that I mentioned here might seem minute. Things that seem like coincidence even. But I just know in my heart that everything that went on was all Holy Spirit. It’s just amazing what He will do when you invite Him. I think I always thought that He was only concerned with “spiritual” things or whatever. But the truth is, He wants to be apart of everything in our lives. And what’s awesome is that He cares deeply about everything in our lives. When I think of this past week, it’s like He just say three of His daughters being able to get together and fellowship with Him and one another and He could not resist hooking it up for them =) . It’s amazing the things He does when you invite Him into your circumstances, your relationships and just the simple cares of each day. I’m so incredibly grateful that He can even be involved in those things. It brings such peace to my heart knowing that He has provision, guidance, and wisdom to offer me in every arena of my life at all times. Thinking on the things He’s showed me this past week just stirs my heart to invite Him more. When He’s becomes the center from which everything else in your life flows, it’s a beautiful thing. But remember, He’s a gentleman so He will never force Himself upon you, He desires to be invited. And when you invite Him, get ready

Shout to the Lord

This song always gets me every time I hear it. I don’t think I was ever in a worship service where they played this song until I was in the prayer room this past summer. It was GBF (Global Bridegroom Fast) so us FITN-ers where in the prayer room starting at the 6 PM set and Matt Gilman was leading. I didn’t know it was this song he got to the chorus and as soon as I heard it I just started crying hardcore. The reason it hit me so hard was because I can distinctly remember being about 10-12 years old or something and I’d always see these commercials for Christian Music CD’s that were live worship songs. The commercial was on almost whenever I would watch TV at that time and I remember thinking the thoughts of, “ugggh, that’s so lame, so cheesy” and being just straight up disgusted and annoyed that the commerical lasted a long time and couldn’t stand it. And here I was, about 10 or so years later, sitting in a 24/7 prayer room, in love with Jesus, and worshipping Him through the song that years back I could not stand. Even at that young age I hated Him. I hated God, was a son of disobedience and wrath and loved darkness. But while I was dead in my transgressions as Ephesians says, God in His great mercy made me alive with Christ and did what I would have never expected and caused me to fall in love with Him.

Everytime I hear that song now it melts my heart because it reminds me of the Lord’s love for me and how HE chose me, HE lead me to Himself, HE drew me after Him. I wanted nothing to do with Him and He knew, when He saw that little girl, that one day she would be singing that very worship song she is disgusted by and her heart will overflow with love for Jesus as she does. It just blows me away. It reminds me again of His pursuit of my heart and His faithfulness to bring me into the fullness of what He has in His heart for me. It also just encourages me heart to know that the Lord’s love is greater than the coldest heart that’s against Him. No matter how much someone hates God or makes fun of Him or whatever, He can take that person and transform them into a lover of truth with just one touch of His deep love for them. The reason I know that is because that’s what He did with me.

The phrase that always comes from my heart when I hear this song now is, “Look where you’ve brought me Jesus. Look how far you’ve brought me. You did this.”

Let every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship You…

Family

Acts 2:44-47 – Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

When I read this verse, I think of family. True family. I’ve been thinking a lot about family lately. I guess it’s all the warm holiday season buzz that’s getting to me. But on Thanksgiving this year, my heart just could not help but overflow with thankfulness to the Lord for the people He’s put into my life these last 5 months. I could actually feel my heart overflowing with this pure and brotherly love for my friends from Fire in the Night that was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t even know that I could experience this, that this was what the Church is called to walk in with one another.

I remember first really feeling this when I got back from FITN. I was a mess. But a good mess lol. I remember just weeping and crying with tears of love for these people, for the brothers and sisters that I got to know those 3 months.  Even as I just think about these people my heart just overflows with this like, “family” love…brotherly love. No wonder the apostles are always mentioning brotherly love! It’s such a beautiful thing that’s fascinated me since I’ve been home and feeling all of it for what seems like the first time really.

What’s awesome about brotherly love is the fact that it has the connotation of a family, if that phrase even makes sense. There’s probably a lot of things that are significant to brotherly love, but a couple things come to mind for me when I think about it. Number one…transparency. You’re never more yourself than when you’re with your family. There’s no need to hide or try to be anyone else, you’re just you. When I was at IHOP, I’ve never felt so much freedom to just be myself. It’s like the real Brittany came out, a Brittany that I didn’t even know was inside. The Lord did sooooo much to cause that to happen and one of the main things was the people I was with. Just the love that was exchanged between all of us created this atmosphere to just be. That sense of Love allowed you to let your guard down cause you knew these people would love you no matter what. They saw you when you were feeling awesome and they saw you when you were whining in the bathroom of the Prayer Room at 2 in the morning (not that I ever did that of course ). For reals though, you just felt…safe. I guess it makes sense when you  put all the pieces together really. You have a group of young adults seeking the Lord and getting transformed by His love, then as they receive His affections over them it inevitably overflows into the people they’re around, that’s just the way of the Kingdom. And what happens when Perfect Love is released? Fear is gone 8) . Hence the feeling of safety, safe in the love of the Savior. Now that doesnt mean that it’s any easier to be vulnerable, there’s always that risky feeling and all, especially with people you haven’t known for very long. But I just remember that feeling of security when I was with these people and that still exists as I talk to them now. So beautiful.

Number two…faithfulness. You even see this portrayed in movies today. Family always sticks together and doesn’t leave you behind. My goodness, am I thaaannkkfuuulll for the numerous times my friends have fought for me, encouraged me, and talked sense into me while I was whining in the bathroom at 2 in the morning . We need each other. The Lord made it that way. The body reaaaallly does need each other and I encountered that so clearly during FITN, just how the body works together. I’m forever grateful for having people who’ve spoken life into me day after day, calling forth my beauty and identity in the Lord, and speaking words of edification, exhortation, and com-fert . I am also just at grateful for times they’ve put me in my place lol. Those moments where they’ve brought me back to the truth, sharpened me, convicted me, and told me to stop whining because my Father’s a King, and princesses don’t whine. Thank You Lord! It’s so freeing to be able to have people who you can count on to just be real with you in complete sincerity and love for you. Awesome.

I could probably go on forev. Main thing is, family is family forever when it’s the Lord who’s made us family in the first place. My beloved friend Tiffany from FITN, who basically inspired me to write this blog entry, said something absolutely beautiful about this today in a note she wrote on Facebook. She said,

I know that three months is a short amount of time but there’s just something – a truth and a depth – of the way of the heart that is forged when the Creator of heaven and earth is involved. A kind of relationship that transcends even the deepest of what is understood about “friendships” when the King of Glory ties and unifies hearts and minds toward one purpose and one reality.

When I read that sentence, something in my heart just melted. She could not have said it more beautifully. She’s absolutely right. I remember one of the last nights in the Prayer Room before we all left that the Lord comforted me as I was feeling all that Tiffany described here and grieving yet being so thankful for what the Lord had allowed me to take part in those three months. I could feel His tenderness towards me as He said, “Brittany, they’ll always be your family.” Every time I recall that it brings me comfort and peace. Like Tiff said, this kind of stuff really does transcend even the deepest friendships experienced in the world because it’s the Lord who’s knit us together and drawn us as one after Himself. I remember even just thinking about how, friends who don’t know Jesus and all, when they leave one another…that’s it really. Unless they’ve entered into the family of the King of Kings through Jesus, when they say goodbye, that really is goodbye…forever. But as a child of God, as brothers and sisters, because of Jesus, we are always going to be family. We will always be brothers and sisters. And even if I don’t get to see some of these people again on this side, I can rest assured in my heart that for all of eternity I will interact with them at some point! That is so amazing! I’m just so grateful to be apart of the best Family ever. My Dad is King and Creator of the Universe. My Husband is the King of Kings, the Lord of Hosts, the One to whom every knee will bow. My Friend who’s always with me is the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God who lives in me. And my brother’s and sisters are beautiful weak and broken people, covered with the blood of the Lamb, and forever victorious because of the triumph of the Cross.

Thank You Papa for adopting me, for adorning me and crowing me as Your royal daughter, as Your kid. Thank You Jees for making a way, for being the Way and my everything to give me new life and make me new. Thank You for those You’ve given me, for my brothers and sisters and that we’ll always be family, You know that I can’t thank You enough. Thank You for teaching me what family is really about, what Love is really about, what You are really about. Let this love abound still more and more in the heart of Your Church across the world. And bring the prodigals home. Bring home my brothers and sisters that are still orphans, abandoned, and need a home. Bring ‘em home Papa.

I don’t even know if half this blog had any type of flow to it, it’s kinda all over the place but whatev. There’s still so much in my heart that I’m feeling and want to express but I just don’t know how. Family, this true family, is just so beautiful. For all my beloved FITN-ers who may be reading this, I love y’all so much and can’t wait till whenever we get to meet again Thank you for being the awesome examples of children of God that you are!

So let this all-over-the-place of a post end and “let brotherly love continue.” Amen and amen.

Ephesians 3:14-15 – For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name…

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

#2. My weak yet, sincere love, you will never despise

A couple weeks ago, the lovely Pam Spuler asked me a particular question about my time at IHOP and being in the prayer room every night. She asked, “Did you ever not want to pray?” And I said, “Of course, you have you’re nights for sure.” And then when she asked me what I did in those times I gave a reaaaally dumb answer now that I look back on it. All I said was, “I paced.” Afterwards when I was thinking about that I just realized how lame of an answer that was, I have no idea why I only said that. #1 – that wasn’t the only reason I paced for sure, and #2 – that wasn’t what I mainly did when I didn’t want to pray. It’s those moments that I discovered the value and power of our weak “yes” to the Lord and it has changed the way I interact with Him in a major way. So Pammy, this is my real answer to your question my dear

I’m not gonna lie, I struggled a lot with feeling just straight up apathetic during the first month and a half or so that I was there. It was like senioritis bled into my time with the Lord or something. I would have nights where I just didn’t feel like being in the prayer room, had no desire to read the Bible, and looked forward to talking to people in the bathroom rather than sitting before Jesus. Throw in some comparing myself to others and it’s not exactly good times. Yeah. Now this wasn’t every night, I had awesome times with Jesus throughout the whole apathy stuff but that’s just what I was mainly feeling for a lot of the time that I was in the prayer room. I may have looked like I was doing alright, and it’s not that I wasn’t, but deep down I just encountered my barrenness hardcore. So needless to say it was kinda rough at times and it was weird because that room was exactly where I wanted to be but the desire to pray and read the Word and all was just not happening for me.

There were two major moments that happened to me in relation to all this. The first was courtesy of the lovely Wendy Miller during a group burn team one night. See, the whole time I was feeling all apathetic and all, I was feeling the whole, “I want to want to read the Bible, and I want to want to pray more, etc” but it just wasn’t really happening yet. And I did the worst thing you could do when all that’s going on, compared myself to others around me. So then I just felt bad and frustrated with myself and the lies of the enemy were all over the place it was ridiculous. But one night before we were about to head into the prayer room, Wendy spoke and just broke something off of me. I don’t even specifically remember what it was exactly she was talking about but one phrase that sticks out is, “You’re not doing the prayer room wrong!”She was just talking about how it doesn’t matter what we feel like at the end of the night, if we’ve loved Jesus with our weak yes, then successful night! It counted before the Lord. And it just really hit me to forget about yesterday and even whatever I was feeling the weeks before and go into that room and sit before Him, believing that it’s not in vain. I remember going into the prayer room that night and it was just different for me. Her words did something in my spirit and it just felt like the apathy stuff was broken off.

But. Even though there was a little bit of breakthrough I was still having a bit of a hard time. Then there was this one night…

I remember I have never experienced the lies of the enemy just swarming around me like I did that night. Condemnation was all over me as I was frustrated with myself not reading the Bible, thinking I’m missing out on stuff and everyone else is going deep with the Lord but me and yada, yada, yada. And the funny thing is, I knew it was the enemy. I knew they were lies, but I just kept listening. I was straight up miserable that night. I had awesome friends fighting for me and ministering to me throughout different times in the night but when it came down to just me, it was not good my friends. I just sat there and let the enemy slime me with lies. I would cry to the Lord, telling Him that I want to have a greater love for His word and the place of prayer but instead of waiting to hear His response to my cry, I just listened to the lies of the enemy. I was longing for the Lord but just had junk hovering all around me. By the last set, the lovely Hellen Lee was singing a song that I think is by Jason Upton, it’s called Freedom Reigns. I was sitting in my chair, annoyed at myself as ever, and she starts to sing the chorus “Freedom reigns in this place, showers of mercy and grace, falling on every face, there is freedom…” And it was like something in me or around me or whatever just went, “Freedom…that’s stupid, I don’t feel freedom, I don’t have freedom, I’m not singing this.” It was just gross and not of the Lord. And by the mercy of the Lord I just like, came to my senses and said to myself, “Ya know what? This is ridiculous, that’s not God and I’m gonna sit hear and sing this song and mean it because this is the truth right now.” So I sat in that grey chair, raised my hands and started singing. And then the tears came. As I just sang the song the Lord started to wash me in His love and affirmation over me. I looooove Luke Wood’s song where he says, “Just one word from you, could shatter a thousand lies.” I literally experienced that! As soon as He started to speak to me, all that junk was gone in an instant. It was amazing. And this is where it goes back to the whole seeing the value of our weak yes.

During this whole time, the Lord kept asking me, “Brittany, do you love Me?” He just kept saying it over and over. I’d suddenly found myself in the position of good ‘ol Peter. I just kept crying and finally said something like, “Lord, you know that I love you. I do love You. You know that. I love You so much.” Just like with Peter, the Lord wasn’t looking to get an answer for Himself when He asked me that question. He was completely confident in my love for Him. He didn’t need to know that I loved Him, He wanted me to know that I loved Him. He wanted me to see that my love was still genuine and true. He was reassuring me that the reach in my heart to love Him more in the midst of barrenness was enough for Him, that it counted before Him. He just kept asking me that and each time I said, “You know that I love You” something in my was changing and it was restoring my heart.

It was that moment that really started to change the way I viewed things whenever I didn’t feel like doing something or didn’t feel His presence one bit. He’s just been showing me the glory of those moments when we don’t feel like doing something and yet our heart still reaches. Something so beautiful goes on in our spirit when we don’t feel like doing something and yet we just say, “I love you Jesus.” I have this little theory that it’s actually those moments, those dry times, when we barely have the strength or desire to do anything and yet we still set Him before us, that the most goes on in our hearts. Because think about it, you’re not feeling Him, you can’t see Him, and we can’t hear Him audible all the time, in fact that’s really rare in our walk with God. And yet you still say, “I love You.” Do you have any idea what a statement that is to Heaven? How much that moves the heart of God? I can just see the angels peering down and going, “I don’t get it!! She doesn’t see Him, feel Him, and is crying out to love Him more! What is this mystery?!” I think the Lord takes those weak steps towards Him and runs like crazy 10 x’s closer. That just who He is.

I remember by the end of the track, whenever I didn’t feel like reading the Word or something or praying or whatever, I just did it anyway because I knew it was still doing something in me. I kept saying to myself, “This is not in vain. It truly is unto something. As I draw near to You, whether I feel you’re nearness or not, you are drawing near to me and I really am being transformed from glory to glory.” So now if I find myself feeling something like that, I have this like, gladness in my heart to be able to say, “Jesus I still love You.” I know that something is going on in my heart that is glorious. I almost wish I could see some behind the scenes footage of my spirit in those times. I think we’re gonna be so surprised when the Lord revisits those moments with us and we see what was really going on and all that He was doing with our weak little “yes” to Him.

[Just a sidenote: When I'm saying that I just did stuff anyway even if I didn't want to or didn't feel anything, what I'm noooot saying is that I did it because I felt like I had to gain the Lord's favor. I didn't just do it anyway because I felt like He wouldn't be pleased if I don't do what I set apart in my schedule to do for this next hour. If you feel like you're just doing stuff because you feel like if you don't read your bible right now the Lord won't be pleased with you then you need to close your bible, open your hands and receive His love freely . What hit me is that I already had His love and all that we do must be inspired from that truth. We don't do things with or for the Lord to try and gain His affections, we do it because we already have them . Just wanted to make that clear. ]

Learning this has brought so much freedom to my heart when I sit before the Lord now. It’s like I’m learning to realize that, as MikeyB says, I love God and He loves me, therefore I’m successful. That’s it. No matter what I’m feeling, what my circumstances are or whatever, my identity and success at the end of the day comes from loving God and believing that I’m loved by Him, that my weak little heart is more than enough.

In the words of Ashley Prior: “My weak yet, sincere love, You will never despise…”

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.’”