Beauty in Brokenness

I think I can do anything. Not because I'm good at everything. Oh no, trust me, I know when I'm NOT good at lots of things. My parents always taught me that I could do anything, because I have Jesus on my side. With Him, nothing is impossible.


Reinvent. No, that's not the right word.
Recreate. That's not it either.
Understand? Getting closer.
Figure it out...I guess.


One of my dear friends asked me if I could describe myself. "Of course!" I replied quickly. She looked at me, with love in her eyes. "Describe yourself as if you're on a first date with someone." My response? My mouth was hanging open.

Pause that thought for a second, I'll come back to it, I promise...but first, read this. 

{The Lay Counseling Program that I have going to since September has been reshaping me (there's a better word!), breaking me, showing me new things and challenging me to see truth. It is not easy. In fact, it is probably one of the most difficult things that I've done in my few years on this earth. It has taken every belief, thought and truth about myself, and questioned it. Good, right? More like, earth shattering. Everything that I knew about myself is being reevaluated.}

Back to my previous story. 

I sat down with my journal. And I wrote short, sweet sentences to describe myself. 
It went something like this... 

• I like to write
• I love to travel
• I don't want to just have one identity (one thing I'm known for)
• I love volleyball
• I'm afraid of the dark
• I don't like being alone for too long
• I worry 
• I have to understand things
• I like learning about different cultures

then it got deeper...

• I want to belong
• I need to be needed
• I don't understand why someone would want me
• I need to know things to think I'm worthy of attention
• I don't want to see my beauty in my brokenness

Looking at this list made me want to change something. I started praying. My wonderful mentor made sense to me about being wanted and needed. I am both. [But these were lies that I have believed for so long that they became truth to me.]

My challenge to you is to write those things down. 

The things that you know and think about yourself. 

Not the things that everyone tells you that you are. 

Read your list.

Which ones are truth? Which ones are lies? 

-Take them to Jesus.-

Ask Him to reshape, refine, renew.

The Burn in My Soul

Have you ever felt that you needed to do something so deep in your soul that you know nothing can ever stop you?

For some reason, that is happening to me again. This is not the first time.

I'll let you in on a little secret, I was the little kid who played sports so passionately that the other kids would get angry with me. When I was in 6th grade, I played on an all-girls basketball team. The girls would all complain that I would play too aggressively. I was just passionate the game. I wanted to win. I HAD to win. You might think I'm too competitive, but I'm not. I had a passion for the sport.

People still tell me that I'm passionate about things. To this day, when I go on a rant and start talking about Jesus, I get so worked up that I laugh and move around like a crazy person.

God has been showing me so much about myself. The way I'm wired. The things that make me tick, the things that I cry about and the things that will move me to take action.

These past few months, God has been reigniting the passion that I have had since I was a young lady in high school. It was something that I never thought would be a defining role in my life. And yet, here it is.

I must work with young women. 

I need to show them they are valuable. 

I need them to know they are loved,

they are cared for,

they are understood. 

I don't claim to know everything about life. I really don't know much about it, but I do know that each young woman is unique, loved and valued beyond words. My mission is to show that to every young woman I come in contact with. That is what I shall do. 

But it does not stop there. It continues with writing books, speaking and telling the world that they can't keep us down! The insecurity, pain, brokenness and trauma that every young woman has experienced does not need to be kept in the dark. It needs to be dealt with! It needs to be talked about! God wants those things to be out in the open so that he can walk with us through those things. 

PHEW! I had to get that out. There is more and more that God is doing. He has been working in this since I got back from Thailand. I know that going to school will only increase my passion in this, because I will be discovering my story and working through it. I want the same for every young lady I meet.

Representing SIN!

I hate being sick. This is my 9th week of being sick. I got a little bug early January, then by mid February I went to Urgent Care and got some antibiotics because it was a sinus infection. It is now March, and I am still sick. I am so sick of being sick and tired. My energy is gone. My enthusiasm is diminishing, and I just don't feel like Bre. I know, I know. I am Bre. But I don't feel like Bre.
I'm not one that rests very often. Most people, like my mother, attribute this to why I am still sick. I don't fully understand what resting means. Granted, I have gotten better at it as I've gotten older. But I'm still not great at it.

Usually, when I get sick, I think God is trying to tell me to rest. He wants us to rest. He wants us to be healthy and well. He's given us our bodies and he tells us that they are temples. I forget that.

But what I also think he is trying to show me is a picture of what sickness represents.

We, as humans, live on earth, obviously. As I sit, coughing and feeling so weak, I think of God. In his infinite wisdom, he is allowing me to be sick. He knows that I am a terrible sick person; he knows I'm not pleasant to be around. He knows that I hate blowing my nose and coughing constantly. He knows that I like to be energetic, and I'm not, when I'm sick.

To me, this is a representation of what sin is. We battle sin and temptation every single day, just like I have fought this battle with sickness for the past 2 and a half months. When I'm sick, I take vitamins, medicine, and other things to pump my body full of things to fight off the sickness. It's the same with fighting our spiritual battle, we have to read the word, listen to worship music, and fill ourselves with Jesus. How appropriate this lesson is on Easter week.

Today is Good Friday. Today, we remember so many years ago that Jesus hung on a cross for our sin. In just a few minutes, so long ago, the sun went down and pitch darkness filled the earth for three hours. Then, because of his love for us, Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know what they do." It is a Good Friday. Jesus took the punishment for our sin.

The veil was torn.

Jesus died for us. 

He is with us, 

now and forever.