Broken

Without going into a lot of detail, there is just a lot of brokenness in my family right now...
My precious baby cousin Kiera is in ICU with respiratory issues and there are other things going on that make me feel so helpless. Most of the time, I am beyond fine with not being in control of life in this crazy world. Situations like this make me feel so differently. I just want to step in and fix everything and save Kiera from going through so much pain...

...but I can't. I have to trust in Jesus with all that is within me. He knows everything about Kiera's sweet little body and loves her way more than I ever could. At this point, the words of Pslam 51:17 are bringing me so much comfort.

"Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice."

My Uncle Tommy just came home from a different hospital yesterday. He had congestive heart failure but is doing much better and just needs to take it easy. I really really want to take a weekend off and go home to be with my family but I know that me being there would not change any of the situations and would probably not be good for my life. If you guys could just pray that Jesus would have his hand in these situations and that the Holy Spirit would cover our family with peace, that would be so great.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."-John 14:27

Warning: be sure to enter all digits correctly.

So I have a great story to tell....at least I think it's really amusing. Hopefully you do too!

I'm having dinner with my friend Aubrey tonight but didn't have her number in my phone, so I called Lindsay to get it from her. She sent it in a text message and I memorized it quickly and retyped it to send a text message to Aubrey. Our conversation proceeded as follows:

Me: Hey girl!! Are we still good for dinner tonight?

Them: For sure. Where and when.

Me: Well, we had talked about tflats...is that still good?

Them: oh yeah

Me: What time? Does 6 still work for you?

Them: ok

Sounds like a normal conversation, right? WRONG. I realized quickly after that that I had mistyped the number and was texting a complete stranger! He actually called me and I had to explain myself. He told me that he thought I was a friend playing a joke on him and asked me what city I was in to which I responded that I wasn't really comfortable giving him that information. Then, he told me that he was driving from north to south Florida so he probably wouldn't be near me anyways.

Awkward? Yes.

Amusing? HECK yes.

Prayer works.

Can I just say that seeing how the Lord has been working in the lives of so many people I love has been totally overwhelming recently?
Precious Jesus, thank you for moving in lives...bringing freedom, healing, and life! You are so good to us.

Crazy people....

In reference to the crazy "pastor" who wants to burn the Koran:

"The idea that we would burn the sacred texts of someone else's religion is contrary to what this country stands for. It's contrary to what this nation was founded on. My hope is that this individual prays on it and refrains from doing it."-President Obama

I don't think I could say it any better myself, except to add the fact that what this man is wanting to do is contrary to the Jesus that I know. I don't know what "god" he's talking to, but it's not the One that speaks to me. Praying that the burn doesn't happen this weekend and that crazies like that pastor might one day see people the way that Jesus really sees them.

Observations from fall thus far...

I'm just not in the mood to really write anything, so I think I'll just write a list of some things that I thought were amusing/exciting/part of life in the past week.

• Today in my Foundations of Reading class, we had to go around with a bingo card and find people that satisfied the requirement. One of the objectives was to find something who was on a professional sports team. I had TWO people come up to me and ask me if I played sports because I looked sporty. I laughed me head off and took it as a compliment. Maybe running club is finally paying off! Haha...
• Speaking of that class, the teacher (bless her heart...) is EXTREMELY wordy. I think I'll enjoy it for the most part, but I'm going to have a really hard time not tuning her out. She spent 3 hours going over the syllabus today.
• I totally threw my shoulder out somehow. It's gradually getting better, but I'm desperately trying to take it easy so that I don't further hurt it. I must have had violent dreams or something one night...
• Freshley is going to be AWESOME this year. I've only met a few of the wonderful students that we'll have in our group, but I am so in love with the leaders that we have and I'm super excited to see how the Lord works this year.
• I am ridiculously already in love with my Children's Literature class. I forgot how much I loved reading when I was younger. The major assignment for the class is a huge reading journal where we have to write about 37 children's books. Can you say heaven?
• I might be getting a job at the library! My every-good-adjective-ever friend Lindsay told me that there was an opening where she works in the copying/printing office and I have an interview for tomorrow morning at 8 AM! It's basically a job checking machines occasionally and offers a lot of free time for homework and such. Praying that it goes well tomorrow!
• My roommates are awesome. End of story. This summer was great with people moving in and out, and I loved living with all of them, but I'm so thankful for Ali and Jaclyn and for them being settled in. Hooray!

So that's basically been my life lately. Hope you are blessed!

Love,

Brit

Heartbroken

You know how some things that you have to do are so much harder than you ever realized they would be? I do.

I've had the privilege of sponsoring a sweet little girl named Kalkidan from Ethiopia these past 4ish years. Because of my lack of a consistent job and rising expenses, I had to call and cancel my sponsorship this morning. I was months behind on contributions and just do not have the resources to be a good, consistent sponsor.

I called Compassion this morning and the man I talked to was so nice. He suggested that I write her one last letter letting her know that I love her and that I'm always praying. I know that God will provide for her, but it doesn't do much to stop the tears.

Now, on to writing this letter. I love you, sweet girl. So much.

Helllloooooo, summer!

You know, hanging out in a vineyard. What a beautiful wedding it was!

We went to a fabulous thrift store and found these gems...

Playing around some more...

Princess party!

The whole road trip crew...

I felt like it hadn't been that long since I had updated my blog, however, it appears that a whole summer semester has passed since the last update! It's unbelievable how time tends to fly...

Summer semester was so interesting. I do not suggest trying to cram already difficult classes into 8 weeks. It is simply obnoxious. However, now it leaves the rest of the summer completely class free, so I have much to be thankful for. Speaking of thankfulness, I really feel like being thankful is what the Lord has continually been reminding me of lately.

Life has been relatively calm for me in these past few months (thank the Lord), however, it has not been that way for so many people that I care so deeply about. For about 2 weeks I just felt like life was crashing down for many of my dearest friends and it was so overwhelming. I'm a "fix-it" personality and it killed me on the inside to not be able to change the circumstances that were causing them so much pain. Before all of this happened, I had kind of lost touch with the Lord in that I was not making the effort to go deeper in my own personal journey. I'm frustrated with myself for not seeing that earlier, but I'm also so thankful that He was so present in every hard time. I was at the end of my human helping abilities, with no words left to speak to bring any comfort at all to the people that I loved. Jesus was there all along working in ways that I was never capable of in the first place. I love being reminded of that. I need to be reminded more often than I realize...

As far as everything else goes, there have been so many fun events going on lately. For instance, we had a princess party, a birthday bowling fest, a latin/chinese food and dance party, an epic road trip to GA to celebrate the wedding of the one and only Katie Nash and to have many adventures otherwise. I'll post some pictures to give a better look at all the fun.

I realize that I ask for prayer on here a lot, but here I am...going again. I am really looking for a job. I've applied at Publix and it looks like a good possibility if some positions open up in the next few weeks. I talked to a manager today and she said to come back in 2 weeks to check again, so it would be really fabulous if you could pray that something would open up in that time, or that God would open a door somewhere else.

Hope your summers are really wonderful so far! Praying that God reminds you of all there is to be thankful for this week, and that you are not quite as thick-headed as I tend to be. :)

Love,

Brit