New Doors Open

For those of you who don't know, I have a deep passion for children with special needs, I'm particularly fond of children with down syndrome. I've recently started praying about going into special education and just asking God what he wants me to do with this passion. Literally the next day, after school, my mom called me and told me some spectacular news. The school that she works at with her therapy dog, Glacier, had offered to let me volunteer in the department with the down syndrome children. Not only will this look AMAZING on my resume, but often they hire their volunteers part time later on. This will also open doors for people there to mentor me in my choices for college, what degrees I'll need, and learn the ropes of being a teacher at a school for kids with special needs.  I wanted to update my blog and tell everyone what new awesome things God is doing with my life. I'm so blessed to have this opportunity.

& The Blind Girl Saw.

When I went to Brazil in summer of 2009 I was blinded by my own problems, I was debating weather or not to break up with my boyfriend, I was worried about friendships, I was homesick, and I was scared out of my mind of talking to people who couldn't understand a word that was coming out of my mouth. I remember talking to my friend Elisa on one of the first nights that we were there and asking her how in the world God could use someone like me. I was so blinded by my own issues I was questioning God's awesome power to use a crazy, hormonal, and confused teenage to share HIS good news!!

While in Brazil I was helping in a children's church/nursery, this little girl was telling a story about how she was going to get on the bus and she fell, being blind, the little girl struggled to get up, no one helped her, not even her own mother. She said that people were laughing at her, and mocking her. This broke my heart, but I started to think, how often are we blind? How often do we stumble in the world and no one helps us up? All the time, WE CAN'T RELY ON HUMANS TO CATCH US WHEN WE FALL!! We have a Daddy who is SO much bigger than us who scoops us up and holds us when we fall. And not only that, he opens our eyes so that we can see again! This little girl has NO idea how she has impacted my life, she never will know until she stands before her Father in heaven and receives her jewels at his thrown. This little princess, has taught me to see clearly how AWESOME God truly is.

I had actually forgotten about this story, it's been over a year now and there has been a lot that I have forgotten about Brazil. But this week God brought this to the front of my mind to share with all of you. I know it's the Christmas season (yes CHRISTmas, not Holiday) and we so often get blinded by the sparkly lights, trees, Santa, Elves, funny movies, and gifts. This year let me encourage you to stop for just a moment and think what this holiday is celebrated for, Christ's birthday. For me, personally, to remember that I have decided that I will not receive any gifts this year because, well, I don't NEED anything else. Instead of gifts I'm asking for money so I can give a donation to St. Jude's Children Hospital. So many commercials say to "give the gift that keeps on giving" Do they truly know what that is? To me thats Salvation from my Jesus, the fruits of the spirit, the spiritual gifts God gave to each and every one of us, and the JOY from serving Him. I have my Salvation, I'm praying for God to continue to work on my heart so I can get the fruits of the spirit down, and my spiritual gifts are mercy, giving, and evangelism. I have received the gift that keeps on giving, and I want to bring joy and hope to someone who might not have had joy and hope this Christmas.
God Bless You.
Brittany Lauren<3

Thankfulness

I'm sitting here typing this blog entry from my Aunt and Uncle's home in Jackson, Mississippi. Let me set the scene for you, I'm in the downstairs den/play room, spongebob is on, and my four year old cousin Kenzie is asleep in the recliner. I've spent the past couple of days playing with her and her little brother, and what a JOY they are to be around! I love them to peices! Yesterday was Thanksgiving and we had over 30 people at the house. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Kids, Grandparents, you name it, they were here. I was SO thankful to meet, see, and get to know my family more and more!

My aunt Jewel got married a few months ago, she's in her 80's, and I finally got to meet my new Uncle Kurtis, he was a missionary in Japan for 25 years right after the war! Not only was he a wonderful person to talk to, but he was precious. He gave me (and everyone else) a copy of his testimony. Another person I was blessed to meet was my sweet cousin, Mary Kathryn. She is so sweet! We have been facebook friends for a while now, but this was the first time we had ever met and I just LOVE her! I'm so thankful for my sweet family!

My uncle Kurtis said that "Thanksgiving is the most Christian holiday" He's right, its true meaning hasn't been blured like Chrismas or Easter's have. He said "We don't worship Santa Claus" to which my little three year old cousin Joseph screamed "YEAH WE DO!" (we had a good laugh at that). But really, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to reflect on all the good things that God has blessed us with! I wanna list what I'm thankful for on my blog.
1. My parents, they've raised me to be strong, to believe in myself, and to believe in the good in others.
2. My grandparents, they are so wonderful!
3. My extended family.
4. My friends, idk what I would do with out them
5. My pets, they bring so much joy into my life.
6. My mentor, Elizabeth!
7. The bad times in my life that have helped me to grow
8. My future husband, even though I don't know him yet, I'm still thankful for all the things he will do for me and with me.
9. The roof over my head
10. Finantial stability
11. my school
12. My church home and family.
13. freedom
14. and last but not least Christ, his love, and his saving Grace.

Dreams

"A Dream is a wish your heart makes,

 when your fast asleep.

 In dreams you will lose your heartache, 

whatever you wish for you keep.

 Have faith in your dreams and someday 

your rainbow will come smiling through. 

No matter how your heart is grieving 

if you keep on believing 

the dream that you wish will come true"- Cinderella <3

I believe that your dreams reflect the desires of your heart. No lie, most of my dreams at night are about meeting Taylor Swift, because right now that is the top goal in my life. My dreams used to be about the boy I liked. I dream about my friends, my family, my dog. I dream about spiritual things too. I have nightmares that wake me up. Recently I had a serious of nightmares about demon possession and they were the SCARIEST things I have ever experienced I had to call my sweet mommy into my room to comfort me, I actually cried over these nightmares and was fearful to sleep again that night. It felt real, and that was scary. I had to pray for God to protect my heart and mind while I slept so that those nightmares wouldn't haunt me again. God was faithful in doing so, that night I had dreams about my passions, church, special needs children, and the elderly. It was precious to see everything I loved in front of me in a dream. The next night I stayed at my friend's dorm, but still prayed for that protection again. I didn't dream, or if I did I don't remember it. And again the next night, I had a dream about Taylor Swift coming to my home for a big party my mom was throwing, she then invited me to attend one of her concerts front row, I got to hang out with my celebrity hero backstage at her own concert in my dream. That is cool to me, that I can accomplish whatever I want in one of my dreams. I could hug her whenever I wanted and she didn't care. I could make her laugh and I could be her friend. In my dream about the children, church, and elderly I was able to minister to all these precious people in my dream. That is the true desire of my heart to minister and love on people and worship God. My dreams never concern my future, its always my present day life and I think that is because I have accepted that my future is unknown, and I don't care to know it until it gets here. I used to have dreams about my wedding, but those would just frustrate me because I could never see the man's face. But we would get married and dance the night away. That was the desire of my heart then, to find "the one" but now, I could honestly care less. I know I'm supposed to be single for this season and I don't want anything to do with dating or boyfriends or anything like that. Right now I'm fully content with being single and not liking anyone. I'm curious to see what I dream about tonight, if it will be one of my repetitive Taylor Swift meeting dreams or something new. I never know.

What are YOUR dreams? What do you desire most?

Peace.Love.Blessings,

Brittany Lauren

Speak Now

For those of you who know me well you know that I'm pretty much unhealthily obsessed with Taylor Swift and anything involving her music or life. I love her love for people, I love that she goes out into the audience and hugs her fans. She gives so much to them. When Cooper and I broke up I couldn't listen to her music for about a week because it all reminded me of Cooper. Today Taylor's new CD came out I was at Walmart at midnight to get it, BUT I failed to realize that the delivery truck wouldn't be there until the next day. Today I purchased Speak Now at my local Target along with a Speak Now shirt which I am proudly wearing right now. Its a great CD and I would recommend it to anyone. :) 

Now on the the purpose of this blog post, I've been trying to think of a way that I could incorporate my love for Taylor Swift to my blog about Love. I was bitter toward Taylor for a few days for giving me an unrealistic view on how falling in love should be but she says it best herself "Its all wrong until you get it right, right? I have to keep telling myself that". I don't normally go all crazy with celebs, I see them as normal people who just happen to be a little more popular than myself. I think why I like Taylor so much is because I can relate to her, we have so much in common. Her personality just puts a smile on my face, and I've been told my personality does the exact same thing. Her sense of humor is almost exactly like mine. We have the same interests, singing and writing. She expresses herself through her music and I express myself through journalling and blogging and writing the occasional song. I realized that I can use her new CD's theme in my blog "Speak Now" as in "Speak now or forever hold your peace" in a wedding ceremony, she states in her secret message that I decrypted from the album booklet "You Always Regret What You Don't Say" I can't say how many times that I have wanted to say something or felt like I needed to say something but didn't. Why didn't I Speak Now? There are countless reasons, the biggest one is fear, the next is pride,and then the awkwardness it could cause. I regret it every time (unless it was something mean) and I wish I could go back and say what I needed to say. I've felt the urge to share the Gospel with someone and didn't I felt the need to talk to someone more popular than me, but I didn't. I get so shy, especially around older more mature adults. I always get worried that I'm going to say something stupid. That's why I hate phone conversations I would much rather send a text message or a facebook message than talk on the phone. I'm learning to Speak Now because the right moment is just that, the only right moment to say something. 

Difficulties

Sometimes I fail to follow my own advise. While on my journey for True Love I didn't quite get the "Loving Others" thing down. In loving others that also means loving and praying for people who I may not particularly like. Now I like MOST people, I give anyone and everyone a chance but some people completely demolished my trust and well...the friendship just kinda failed. Recently I was put into a situation where I was at a social event and a girl that I don't really care for was there, I said hello to everyone else but completely ignored her. I felt bad for it later and wanted to talk to her, just to see how she was doing. Before I did that though I kind of made a joke about it to my friends, and I didn't really handle the situation maturely or in a Christlike way. After I approached her and told her hello and asked how she was doing I felt awkward, and I knew I shouldn't have, well I mean I should have, but I shouldn't have sugar coated it. I felt bad for faking kindness and love...Thats not what Christ would have done. Later I was approached by her and we ended up fighting. For those of you who know me, I'm a lover not a fighter. I tried to flee from the situation but I was pursued. I felt cornered and lashed out. I'm not in any way justifying things that were said on my part. I ended up leaving the social event early because I was so worked up about the situation. When I got home I called Liz right away and talked to her about the whole thing. After she got me calmed down I started to really think about what had gone on. Part of me was replaying everything in my head and thinking of things I SHOULD have said, and the other part of me was thinking about how I was extremely stupid. I wish I could get a chance to apologize to this girl and really share my heart with her. But I doubt I will see her again and that is heartbreaking to me. I hate leaving on a bad note and I hate not settling drama that is half way my fault.

I learned that loving those who have hurt me and loving my enemies are two separate and two difficult things to do. I learned that you're only affected by what people say and do if you CARE and LOVE them in the first place, like when Cooper broke up with me, I cried for days BUT I still love him with every fiber of my being. With this girl we are hard core enemies, I didn't care what she said because I had no connection in my heart with her. She didn't hurt me, and I don't think I hurt her, I didn't say anything hurtful anyways. I am still called to love her though, even though I have NO connection to her in my heart. I'm called to pray for her. That has been the hardest sitting down and praying for her. It shouldn't be, if I'm a pro at Loving others like I think I am. I guess I'm not as good at this as I thought I was. I guess you could say I hit a bump in the road on my journey to mending my spirit and finding the True Love God wants me to have. As the saying goes "We live and we learn" but I wish the learning process was a little bit easier than this.

If the person that this is about ever reads this, know that I'm sorry for my actions and I wish I could go back to last night and change words that were said on my part. God Bless you in everything that you do.

Peace. Love. Blessings.
Brittany Lauren <3

Loving Others.

I just got done Skyping with my lovely Mentor, it's really difficult for me to be so far away from her (she's in Florida for college). But she always gets me thinking, When I think about people who love others Elizabeth is the first person to come to my mind. I've known her since 8th grade, I met her the first time I attended my now home church and we became friends pretty much instantly. She is someone that I look up to and someone who inspires me. She is one of those people that I can share my deepest darkest secrets with and KNOW she doesn't judge me. When I first met her I was this awkward middle schooler who just wanted a friend and she showed me love by listening to me, and hugging me and taking me to star bucks. Tonight we skyped for two hours when she still had homework to do. I don't really know where I'm going with this paragraph, but I guess I wanted to let y'all know that I have an amazing sister/mentor who keeps me in line.

While I was talking to Liz I was thinking about witnessing and I also was thinking about loving others. My friend Zach preached to my youth group and he said "How much do you have to hate someone to NOT share the gospel with them" and that hit me hard, if we are to love others, why don't we share the greatest gift of True love with our neighbors and their neighbors and their neighbors neighbors. I've always heard the saying "You can't love others until you love yourself" I would think "yeah right" but recently I found that statement to be true. In loving ourselves we are accepting Christ's love for us. You can't stand in front of a mirror everyday and hate yourself and then turn around and say "Hey, God made you and he loves you just the way you are" No, because thats hypocritical. You must accept that God made you who you are and embrace it...humbly of course, their is always that line between seeing who you are and being prideful and conceited. My thoughts for this evening are this, Love yourself and love others don't be afraid to share your faith with someone, it's always worth it.

Peace, Love, & Blessings<3,
Brittany Lauren

True Beauty

True beauty has SO many definitions, models, tv stars, and musicians are what most people seek after when looking for beauty. To me, there is nothing more beautiful than a confident, happy, tender hearted girl. To me their is nothing more beautiful than a girl embracing her inner princess. To me there is nothing more beautiful than a sun dress and cowboy boots, flowers from someone you love,figure skating, or a horse running.

 But in all reality true beauty is Christ. True beauty is the cross and what Christ did for you and me on it. True beauty is when the prostitute washed Jesus' feet with her own tears and precious oils. True beauty is Ruth and Naomi who stayed together and were true friends. True Beauty is Esther humbling herself to her husband and asking him to save her people, even if it was to cause her own death. True beauty is Mary's faith in God when she was to give birth to His son. True beauty is when Mary of Bethany sat at the Lord's feet and listen to his teachings while Martha rushed around the house cleaning. 

There are so many examples of true beauty in the Bible, and I hope to live up to all of them someday in one way or another. For me, I take joys in the simple beauties: Mountains, rivers, animals, music, indie clothing, flowers in hair, and kind words. I felt like I needed to share with you what I've discovered true beauty to be, I know I want to be found beautiful. I've struggled with seeing my true beauty and worth for a long time, you see, I looked at the worldly definition of beauty and not my own inner beauty. I would see all these gorgeous girls on TV on CD covers and even at my own school and church. I didn't see that I was knitted together in my mother's womb by my Father in Heaven, I didn't see that I was fearfully and wonderfully made. I got my worth from compliments from people or from a boy telling me I was beautiful. I still sometimes struggle with realizing just who I belong to and just who gives me my worth. It is something that I lay down at the cross over and over again. God loves me and He loves YOU too.

Peace, Love, Blessings,

Brittany Lauren.

New Blog, New Motives.

I've tried this blogging thing before and it just didn't catch on. I used to write on baking, but I don't have time to bake anymore. What I do have time for, though, is God. God has taught me so many truths in just the past two weeks. I'm going to make a simple list of what I have learned and then elaborate on it (for the sake of my scatterbrained ADD self)

1. My best isn't always God's Best.
2. God never ignores a child with a broken heart
3. I can't change my past; but I can take what I learned and apply it to my future.
4. Friendships are a gift.
5. Girlfriends beat boyfriends ANY day!
6. It matters more what God thinks of me than what people think of me.
7. God's wants us and loves us and fulfills us more than any man ever could.
8.Heartbreak comes in waves, first you cry, then you get mad, and then you pick up your heart, give it to God and move on with life.
9. The choices I make now, WILL affect my life in the future.
10. God has a plan and call on my life RIGHT NOW. I don't have to wait until I'm in my 20's or 30's

These are the TOP 10 of what I learned over the past two weeks. I know there is a lot of stuff in my list about boys and relationships but that is because two weeks ago the man that I thought was the MY best broke up with me. I'm not telling you this for a pity party or for you to say "awwww poor Brittany" but to let you know WHY I'm growing in the Lord so much. I'm 17, just turned 17 two weeks ago. My boyfriend broke up with me six days before my birthday and it shattered me. I have NEVER felt so broken in my life. I literally laid on my face from 9:30pm till 3:30 am crying. (Again I'm not telling you this for you to feel sorry for me.) One of my sweet college aged friends called me at 2am to talk to me about everything, and honestly talking to her was what got me to this point. Minutes after I changed my relationship status to "single" on facebook I started getting text messages and facebook chats from people I hadn't talked to in two months (because during my relationship I was so focused on the boy that I didn't talk to anyone but him) my friends made me realize that I AM loved in a time when I was so desperate for love and I can't thank them enough for being there for me.

When I say that GOD'S best is better than MY best I mean this, Cooper was what I thought was best for me, I thought I knew what love was and therefore deserved my definition of love. God knows what REAL Love is and wants to fulfill it in me before I can truly Love a man. God's best for me right now is HIM and for me to be 100% in LOVE with him and to learn what True Love is by seeing what he did for me on the Cross and dying to myself every day.

God never ignores any of his children in general, but God has a special place for His heart for the weary and broken hearted. He never leaves us out in the cold. He becomes Abba Father and wraps us in his Holy arms for comfort. How COOL is that?! I mean really that the God of the universe cares about MY breakup! He cares about my hurt, my pain, and my heart. That is so precious to me, that the All Mighty God of the Universe cares about the little stuff.

I was talking to a friend this evening and she mentioned something about regret and I knew what I said back to her was God talking, because I never could come up with it myself, "learn from the mistakes you made this round and apply it to the next time. Can't change the past, might as well use it to make the future better" I made mistakes last round...but I'm applying what I learned to the next time I go out with someone. What's so important about not looking back to the past? In life you don't move forward by looking backwards, looking backwards only takes you in a circle. Examine what you messed up on and say "Okay THIS is what needs changing" and change it. Life is a whole lot easier if you don't repeat the stuff you messed up on.


Friendship is a gift, you don't earn it. If you earned it that would be awful, to constantly work for friendship. I have done NOTHING to earn the friendship of SO many people. I'm a generally kind person, but I also drip with sarcasm, and have a nasty temper when I want to. When I was distracted with this whole boyfriend business I talked to ZERO people. I didn't hang out with any of my girlfriends and if I did ask them for advice I would turn away and ignore it. I was a huge jerk pretty much. But once the relationship ended, like a I said before, SO many of my dear friends contacted me and made me feel so loved.


Oct 8th (my birthday) I went on a Girls Night Out with my church youth group. Just shopping with the girls, staying in a hotel, and iceskating ministered to me so much. I realized then that girl time is MUCH better than date night. Our pastor's wife came and spoke to us the next morning and shared so much of her heart with us. God sent her there to talk to us for me. I needed to hear everything she said. I went up and thanked her after her lesson and she gave me a huge hug, it's so amazing how a simple hug can minister to a girl with a broken heart. I've never felt so much love from a woman I hardly knew.


I'm going to skip number 6 and move on to number 7 and then I'm going to end this because its TOO long. GOD WANTS TO BE THE MAN IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW! How in the world could I know what love is if I don't let the GREATEST example of true love teach me!? For real, I mean, yes as a human I am capable of the emotion of love, but I want to love like Christ love. I want people to be able to look at me and say "she is shining with the Love of Christ." In order to fully understand love I need to let God love me. I need to let Him take the place of a husband or boyfriend right now and rely on him. I need to learn to TRUST Him to lead me to His best and not push Him away in order to get to my best. 


This is just a small summary of what is going on in my teenage brain. I hope to be able to continue blogging and sharing what I'm learning. The purpose of my blog name "Broken Heart, Mended Spirit" is that though a boy "broke my heart" it caused me to come broken before the Lord and for him to mend my spirit. Before the breakup I stopped attending church, but since then I started again and I feel truly wonderful. I pray that this hope, joy, and peace that I fill continues to stay with me for the rest of my life, but I know that will only happen if I continue to stay on God's path.


Peace, Love, and Blessings.
Brittany Lauren.