//No End to my Journey//

Hey there readers! Long time no see! This year has been absolutely crazy. Ever since I joined Youth Staff at our church's youth group it's been difficult to find time to write. I finally graduated from college so now I have oodles of time to write! I just haven't -.- I've been thinking about this blog recently and how so much has happened since my last post in February. Since then, our youth staff has gone to a leadership conference, our youth group has gone to Evoke youth conference and we all took a trip up to Lake Stevens for a week long youth camp. God has been rocking the lives of the students AND of the leaders! Many were called into ministry and it's been such an adventure! There has also been a lot of struggle over the last few months. One of our youth staff as been in the hospital for a number of weeks fighting sickness, one of our church elders is back in the hospital for cancer treatment, and then friends of Kevin and mine were in a car wreck and are recovering, one still in critical condition and the other was able to go home. We thank God for His healing power and for the work that He has been doing. Through all of these events we have all been drawn closer together as a church in prayer and hope that we are going to witness God moving in his people and bringing the sick back to us completely restored! I have had the incredible opportunity to witness this firsthand. A woman in my church has a son who was in a terrible accident leaving him unable to fully control his muscles and move around like before the accident. As a result he lost a lot of muscle and they have me come in a massage him twice a month. It has been such a blessing to get to visit him every other week and see his progress with each visit! We are expecting a full recovering one day because we all have faith that God is going to completely restore his body!
Now I am going to come back to the focus of my post today. Remember the reason why I started this blog? Well, I finally found my answer. I have finally reached the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, only to discover that there was a whole train of rainbows and pots of gold after that one! Yes, I finally discovered what it means to love but I also realize that this is not the end of my journey.
Let me tell you a little bit about my relationship with my boyfriend, in case you don't know any of this or haven't read any of my previous posts. Ever since the beginning of my dating "career" (ugh I hate to call it that!) I have been almost afraid to use the word love in fear of using it and not really meaning it. I have always known that it was a very strong word, especially when using it with a significant other. When I first started dating my incredible boyfriend, Kevin, I made it extremely clear that I would not be using that word anytime soon. In fact, I didn't plan on telling him I loved him until we were at the altar getting married!!! So for the next year and a half he very patiently waited and our relationship got stronger and we fell for each other more and more every single day.
The moment that I finally discovered that I was in love, I was sitting on my bed getting ready to fall asleep and I was thinking about all of the examples of true love that I see every week in the church and at my home. All of a sudden, it was as if God just started speaking to me and pouring all of these definitions of love into my head and I quickly ripped out a piece of paper and started writing a letter. Keep in mind that I have written and rewritten this letter many MANY times in the past but I was never able to get it quite right. It just wasn't the right time. When I finally finished writing, I had used every single line of the page, front and back, signed it, and immediately called my best friend to read it out loud. She couldn't believe how perfect it sounded! I actually couldn't believe that I had written it either.
The next day I had the letter in the pocket. Kevin and I have written each other letters in the past but we usually save them and read them later. For some reason, he knew that this letter was different and he asked if he should read it now. I couldn't believe it! This was exactly how I imagined that he would read it. I hugged him as he read my letter out loud and we both got a little choked up at some parts. After finishing reading the letter, he looked me in the eyes and gave me one of his perfect off-the-top-of-his-head discourses that seemed pre-written. It is a gift that he has the I lack. I have to spend an hour writing a sentence that he could think of in ten seconds. I think that I almost cried listening to his poetic speech. Then we hugged it out and our relationship has been absolutely thriving ever since!
We have since then taken up a challenge of over using the word love and arguing over who loves the other more. It's all very cute stuff.
So, that is all that I have for you right now. Love you all! Thanks for reading(:

//Brittany Danielle//

//Share the Love//

Over the last few days, God has been speaking so much into my life!! It's been so exciting to hear what he has to say. Yesterday, He spoke to me through a classmate and then later that evening though my boyfriend. Today, while I was preparing a pizza for class tomorrow and listening to music, God basically told me what I was going to do with this Blog and where it was going to go. He didn't give me and details or tell me exactly how it was going to work. All He have me was a few words. "Share the Love Campaign." I immediately pulled out my ear buds, stopped rolling out the pizza dough I was rolling out, and began to talk to God. "What does that mean? What do you want me to do?" But I was honestly just so excited. God is finally giving me the first directions for where He wants me to go!
My Youth Pastor has assigned the youth staff to read a book called "Greater." If you have the time to read it I highly recommend it. It will change your life. The last couple of chapters have been about Elisha and his works for God. Chapter 4 was called Burn the Plow and this chapter completely blew my mind. Essentially, when Elisha was called to ministry, he burned his plows, which were his working tools. This was symbolic of him getting rid of what he was holding onto so that he wouldn't have anything to go back to and so that he could focus on what God had in store for him. Chapter 5 was called Digging Ditches and that chapter told of how when an army was facing a drought and needed water before a war, Elisha told the king to have his soldiers fill the valley with ditches and that God would provide the water that they needed. This involved a lot of faith because the soldiers had to act on faith that God would bring rain to hydrate them. The more that they prepared for God to bless them, the more they were blessed. Okay, I'm done recapping.
The author of the book and I share a similar "plow" that needed burning. We both grew up wanting to be rock stars and living a life on the stage. Yes, I've always wanted to be in a band and sing for the rest of my life. Surprised? Didn't think so. I had actually been messaging someone I knew in a band about recording a song with them and I was so excited that when He didn't respond immediately to my message at 12 am... I actually cried. It seems silly now that I look back to it but I was probably just really tired. After I was done pouting, I started praying to God and I had been kind of fighting this feeling that this wasn't the direction that I was supposed to take. It has been my life long dream but it's just not God's plan for my life. So I completely surrendered my life to God that night and I told him that I would burn that plow and prepare for what God was going to have me do in my life. I was going to dig ditches everywhere because I wasn't sure what exactly God wanted me to do. Almost the next day, I received a message from the guy in the band saying "I'll talk to the guys." I just kind of stared at the message like "Oh, man." It sparked up hope for my rock star life but I remembered that this isn't going to be my future. Instead, I saw it as a blessing from God. I could almost hear Him saying "Thank you for listening. Have fun but remember not to get caught up in it!"
Back to tonight and my pizza. "Share the Love Campaign." I'm still waiting for God to tell me exactly what this project is going to be exactly but I know that I need to start digging ditches for God to bless this work. This is my first ditch: spreading the word. I almost see this project as a series of conference type get-togethers with speakers and such to spread the word of God and the true meaning of Love. My purpose on this earth is to love others that way that God loves them.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope that you'll be a part of this ministry or whatever God wants "Share the Love Campaign" to be. I hope that you'll pray about it with me and please share your thoughts! I apologize if this post seemed a bit scattered or if there are any glaring grammatical errors. It's really late for me and I'm very tired but it was really important that I got this written out. I'll keep updating this blog as God gives me more to share!

If my little summery on "Greater" intrigued you, here's part 1/4 of the video series! http://elevationchurch.org/sermons/greater

//Brittany Danielle//