My Epiphany

I wrote this blog three years ago, and, once again…I wanted to post it on here because it’s actually a big part of my testimony.  This time in my life is probably when I grew the most in a short amount of time.

Over this past year, there has been a constant storm going on inside of me. I had been in a serious relationship (yes, I know…) and I had to end it. Of course it ended very badly, and while I was over the person I wasn’t over the situation. It still hurt deeply to look back. It’s so hard to watch something you held so close just deteriorate before your eyes, and feel completely helpless. I tried so hard to fix a shattered relationship and all it did was make things worse. I just wanted him to understand how he hurt me and why I did what I did, but no matter how hard I tried to beat it into his head, he just couldn’t.

There comes a time when we have to stop seeing people for who we want them to be, and start seeing them for who they really are. We can’t make someone understand, we can’t make someone care. We have choices to make, and sometimes that choice is having to let somebody go. So you have to choose a path you don’t necessarily want to take, but it’s the path God is calling you down. Sometimes those choices hurt people, and no matter how hard you try you will look like the bad guy, because the other person just won’t understand why you did it. And that’s just something you have to deal with. You can’t always make everyone happy. God calls you to do something, and it is for the best, even if it doesn’t seem that way at the time. It may hurt for awhile but God sees the bigger picture, so while you may know what you want…God knows what you NEED, and only He can truly guide you.

I also learned that I have been hurt a lot by people in the past, and I have been letting that hold me back from having real relationships with other people. I’ve realized that I don’t want to be that way anymore. I had been knocked down on the ground and for too long I just lay there, fully capable of standing back up but choosing not to. The whole time I thought I was afraid of standing up because I thought I was just going to get knocked over again, but that wasn’t it. I was in a hole, so deeply rooted in my pain and heartache and I didn’t want to be pulled out because after so long I was comfortable there. I think that’s the problem with many people. We prefer staying sad because we just don’t want to get over some things, all for different reasons. There were times when I tried to climb out of the hole myself, but of course I was unsuccessful because I’m just not strong enough. I remember thinking to myself so often “You’re such a failure, you’re not strong. You can’t do this.” And I truly believed that. I was a failure. I moped around feeling sorry for myself for months. Even when I finally got over him, the heartache over the whole situation remained.

The truth is, my heart was shattered, and God had been standing there the whole time with his hands open, waiting for me to hand it over to Him so He could make it new again. Make it His. But I just wouldn’t. I couldn’t, no matter how much I wanted to. I prayed but of course nothing happened because no matter how hard I prayed, deep down I wasn’t willing to let go. God was speaking to me but I was so wrapped up in myself I wasn’t hearing Him. Over the next year I grew closer to God, and slowly started to let it go, very slowly. But I was still not free from this because part of me was still holding onto the sorrow. I think I was afraid to be happy, I don’t know why though. I found happiness in Christ, of course, but no matter how happy I was there was still this deep sorrow in my heart.

I slowly became more aware of my flaws, of the pain I wouldn’t let go of. I thought about it a lot, prayed about it, I read “Captivating”, and it was amazing and taught me so much about letting go of pain, but I was still unable to apply it. My heart was still not free. Tuesday night I was sitting in Bible study, listening to the lecture. I should have been paying attention but thoughts just started swirling around my head. I thought about how pitiful I had been, still holding on to this heartache and letting that control my life. Letting that dictate how I viewed people. Not trusting anyone and not letting anyone in because of it. And I randomly just decided…I’m not gonna live this way anymore. I don’t want to hold this in, I want to let go…so finally…I did. I don’t want to be the girl with a lot of issues, I want to be better than the worst thing that ever happened to me. I am ready to move on to the wonderful things I know God has planned for me. Those walls that were so firmly intact around me are now slowly being taken down. I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I realized that we can’t get over some things because there is something inside of us not letting them go. And as long as our hands are full, holding on to certain things in our life, our hands aren’t free and open for God to hand us over newer, better things. We can either choose to let go and receive the blessings God is waiting to give us, or we can hold on dearly to something that is no longer there. Either way, the choice is ours. It took me about a year, but I know God was waiting until I was ready.

And now I can finally say with full confidence that my heart is free. It’s in God’s hands and from now on I will trust Him and let Him decide who comes in. And also I have learned that I’m not strong, and that’s okay. God doesn’t call us to be strong, He calls us to draw on Him for the strength we so desperately need. I know all this doesn’t mean that my life will be pain free, pain is necessary because it helps us grow; and God knows I still have much growing to do. I know there will always be storms ahead, that’s just how life is, but as for now the storm going on inside of me for so long has cleared, and I am soaking up the sunlight, finally.

“I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free” – Psalm 119:32

The Solution

I was listening to this song and really started thinking about the words… so I just wanted to post them on here because I feel they are so powerful.

Solution by Hillsong United
It is not a human right to stare, not fight
While broken nations dream
Open up our eyes, so blind that we might find
The Mercy for the need

Singing, Hey now
Fill our hearts with Your compassion
Hey now, As we hold to our confession

It is not too far a cry, too much to try
To help the least of these
Politics will not decide, if we should rise
And be Your hands and feet

Singing, Hey now
Fill our hearts with your compassion
Hey Now, As we hold to our confession

God be the solution
We will be Your hands and be Your feet.

Higher than a circumstance, Your promise stands
Your love for all to see
Higher than protest line and dollar signs
Your love is all we need

Only You can mend the broken heart
And cause the blind to see
Erase complete the sinners past
And set the captives free
Only You can take the widows cry
And cause her heart to sing
Be a Father to the fatherless
Our Savior and our King
We will be Your hands, we will be Your feet
We will run this race
On the darkest place, we will be Your light
We will be Your light

Great Expectations

As you have all heard, the nation of Haiti was devastated last week with a 7.0 earthquake.  It is our job as humans and as followers of Christ to help those in need.  The pastor of my church, Clay NeSmith, the care pastor, Jim Evans, and Greg Hoff went down to Haiti last May to help with a church down there through Grace Mission.  Jim Evans has been to Haiti so many times, so when the news hit; they wanted to do something.  The idea soon came to begin collecting items they so desperately needed down there.  At first, I was under the impression we were going to see if anyone would donate a trailer to us to fill up.  I thought, that would be awesome to fill up a small trailer and take it down there.  Well, I got to church and instead of a flimsy little trailer…there is a 53 foot truck sitting right in front of my church.

My first thought was…wow…. that’s really big.  We only had the weekend to spread the word and get it filled up.  So everyone started twittering like crazy to get the word out.  The news came to us and started covering our efforts to get the word out, so people heard and started bringing specific items that Haiti needed.  I was unsure of whether or not we’d get it full, but deep down knowing that if we are attempting anything for Christ we need to think big!  And they certainly were thinking BIG!

Last night the church accepted the last items…and that truck was filled right up until the last pallet.  We met to pray over the truck and Pastor Jim before they both headed down to Haiti.  I was incredibly overwhelmed last night though.  The thought hit me…what if we did just get a little trailer to fill up?  When God wanted to fill a 53 foot truck instead?

How many times do we do that?  We put limits on what God can do.  We come to Him with our little box and say, fill this God!  Fill it with blessings…needs…whatever we are desiring.   And God says why did you bring me that little box?   I want to fill an entire ocean with blessings for you!  Why do you think I will only fill this much?

Instead of just attempting to do something small for God, my church said NO!  We believe this is a need God wants us to fill, so we are filling all 53 feet of this!  We believe He will pour out His blessings for the people of Haiti!  We believe He will stir in the hearts of people to give!  And give, they did.

Let’s stop coming to God with little expectations…and come to God with BIG and GREAT expectations.  And believe He will show up!

Matthew 19:26 says: “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’”

Imagine what the world would be like if every Christian believed and lived by this statement?  Imagine the world we could see?

<3 B

The First of Many Posts about Passion 2010

If any of you know me, you know I just got back from the Passion conference in Atlanta, Georgia.  I know you know this because I cannot stop talking about it.  I was blessed to attend the two-day Passion conference back in 2008, when they were going global so they were not doing the usual 4-day long conference.  So the experience did not hit me as hard as it did this year, getting the full Passion experience.  Man, I have been to numerous churches, conferences, camps, you name it, I’ve been there.  I have NEVER been so overwhelmed with the power and glory of God as I have been this past week.  Ever in my life.  From the entire experience.  The deep wisdom delivered through the speakers, and the break out sessions.  I haven’t been challenged like that mentally in a long time, my brain was going into overload.  The quality and genuineness of the worship…when you get 21,000 people and somehow we all sang with one voice and one heartbeat.  Not only were we there to be fed and served…but Passion offered opportunities to serve the world.  With their Do Something Now exhibits, we were able to see and give to different causes all over the world.  And just the overall glory and presence of God!

It was so incredibly overwhelming to me, but in a good way.  Driving home from Passion, after I dropped my friend off; I just started crying.  It wasn’t a bad cry or anything, it was just a mixture of so many emotions over the last few days and I just had to let them out.  I still feel overwhelmed and I don’t ever want to lose that feeling.  I think we aren’t overwhelmed enough with God, and we should be!  He is GOD.  We should feel incredibly overwhelmed and insignificant.  We should never forget who God is and what He can accomplish.  And I think too often we do.   We get caught up in all the little things and think God either doesn’t care enough to fix them, or that He can’t.  Well both of those thoughts are so wrong.  God DOES care about the little things, He is always at work in the smaller details; because He knows it’s the smaller details that put together the bigger picture and God sees it all, even when we don’t.  Something I have learned from BSF this year is that there are NO coincidences.  If we truly believe in God we believe every single thing happens for a purpose.

The more I try to find words to describe the week, the more I feel they just don’t do it justice.  Even the best words would be an understatement.  During worship one night, I felt in my heart that this was a small taste of what Heaven was going to be like.  It’s bad, but all my life I have been apprehensive about dying and going to Heaven.  I just always felt like there was so much I still wanted to accomplish on Earth.  Over the last few months I have realized my heartbeat is for worship; and the night Hillsong led us all in worship, I realized, “Hey…this is what I love to do.  Worship God, and that is all I am going to do in Heaven!!! How awesome is that!!!”  It was such an incredible feeling.  I didn’t want the night to end, but when it did… I just reminded myself that I get to do that for an eternity.  And I can continue to worship God wherever I am, it doesn’t have to be in an arena filled with 21,000 other passionate believers.  Worship isn’t about who is leading or which song it is, it’s simply about praising God for who He is.  Not for what He’s done in our lives, because that’s pretty self-centered to praise God for blessing us, then that is making worship about us.  We praise God because He’s GOD!

As much as I loved Passion, I have never left a conference feeling so ready to take the world on.  Usually I’m bummed, and just wanting to go back and just stay in the bubble for a little bit longer.  But I am pumped!  How awesome is that!

Oh goodness, i have so many new thoughts and wonderful notes from the sessions to talk about.  But I shouldn’t go overboard.  I don’t want this fire to fizzle out.

<3 B

Love

“Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.   It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.”

I know this sounds kind of crazy but I always wondered about these verses.  I’ve had a hard time with love; but you know what I think one time I heard someone say we need to put our name in here.  So I did that today.

“Brett is patient, Brett is kind.  She does not envy, does not boast, she is not proud.  She is not rude, she is not self-seeking, she is not easily angered, she keeps no record of wrongs.  Brett does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  She always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Brett never fails.”

Hmm how many of these are lies when I look at it like this.  So many of them.  There is something wrong with this picture.  It goes on to say “When perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.”  Once we receive Christ (He is our perfecter), our imperfections should go away.   But so many of them do not.  We still struggle because we don’t believe that the same God who conquered the grave and so many other things can conquer our doubts, our fears, our struggles.

“God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him… There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:16,18

I need to stop doubting and being fearful and just embrace what God gives me.  My negativity has driven out my ability to love for too long.  I need to stop, I need to stop being afraid of getting hurt or things ending badly; even if they will who cares.  We should never be afraid of being vulnerable and positive.  Even when it hurts when we get our hopes up; so what.  God calls us to love others as He loves us; and His love for us is unconditional.  He gets his heart broken every single day, probably a couple billion times a day.  So what if I feel not even a fraction of His pain for us.  God call us to love, despite how that love is received.  Even if we get the shaft, we did our part.  I need to start living that and not be afraid anymore.  Not look for reasons to doubt.  It’s not fair to God.  This probably makes sense to no one but me, but I am just writing it on here anyway cause these are my thoughts.

<3 B