In Saying Yes, sharing a BIG SECRET!!!!!

Good morning friends! I have not been too active with writing in this space here of mine. I would LOVE for you to join me on instagram and over at Happy Heart Box to stay connected. For right now writing here is being less frequent but I love this sweet community here and will be sure to follow along as your hearts bless mine. Join me on Happy Heart Box & on Instagram @brittany.willard 

I hope you are doing well today! This morning I have decided to share something the Lord has been doing in my life over the last few months. It feels very scary to write the words that I am about to but not listening to the Holy Spirit’s leading is far scarier for me.

About four months ago the Lord began whispering to me when I would least expect him to. Encouraging me to pursue a dream he placed in my heart a few years ago. So instead of running from his whispers I leaned into them. Leaning into Him and the Holy Spirit has been a daily experiencing I am learning to embrace with open arms. Let me encourage you friends, this is the right choice – to lean into him. I promise it is worth all the uncertainty, anxiety, and fear of listening to his every direction given. Clairty comes with obedience. 

Over the last month I have slowly been writing a devotional and book that will hopefully be complete by the first of the New Year. I could keep quiet until it is finished but as you may know, living authentically and transparent is how I feel called to live. Sharing the struggles of life in all its vulnerable glory is the way I choose to live life. Living in another way to me is by far worse than baring my soul. 

In Saying Yes.

After spinning my wheels to try to come up with the most clever or catchy name to call this book I finally gave in to simply sitting still with the Lord. He sweetly spoke the phrase, In Saying Yes. Year after year the Lord has asked me to do things to make him known, to stretch me, to bless others, to fulfill his plans and purposes and each time I say yes he gives me a little more of himself.

Saying yes to the Lord is a choice.

Agreeing to listen to the Holy Spirit on a daily basis is a decision that I desperately long to make every day. In saying yes to the Lord we shed a little more of who we are to embrace more of him.

Over the next month I will be writing freely over here at Happy Heart Box as a way to prepare my heart to challenge myself to listen to the Holy Spirit’s leading in writing. The book he has given me to write is a reflection of his grace, goodness, faithfulness, authority, and sovereignty in my life. Before fully embarking on this journey of writing an entire book I want to stretch myself to grow in writing as well as in listening to him. Some entries from this next month will make their way into the book but most will not. This next month is to simply listen to his voice in saying yes to his direction in writing. 

Last year I attempted to participate in a 31 day writing challenge but failed miserably at posting daily. This year I have decided to try again because its better to try in life than to just allow opportunity to pass by. Tomorrow I will post a little more about what the next month of writing freely and saying yes to him holds for myself and us on Happy Heart Box. Join me on instagram @happyheartbox and @brittany.willard to challenge ourselves over the next month to learn to listen to his leading in saying yes for our lives.

~Brittany Willard

www.happyheartbox.com

Breathless

Tonight I almost feel breathless 

Like each breath is a little harder to take in

My lungs slower to take in the air 

My chest working harder to push it back out 

Consciously reminding myself to keep breathing 

Because I feel out of breath 

My heart aches tonight 

Literally my soul is heavy 

The enemy attacking loved ones

Sickness tearing apart vibrant lives 

lies overpowering minds to pull people deep down into the pit of depression 

addictions over taking precious lives, minds, and hearts. 

Fear crippling perfectly healthy bodies

Worry stripping away promises of the gospel 

Judgement decaying the body of Christ

Unforgiveness festering in hearts leading to destruction 

Women tearing apart women with their eyes, thoughts, and critical attitudes 

Men refusing their roles 

Youth learning to disrespect  

A society feeding off of anger

Communities hating others. Ignoring problems. Developing new ones. 

Me forgetting to pray. 

I feel breathless. 

My heart aches 

My soul is overwhelmed 

A righteous anger must overtake our hearts cries to fight with powerful truths from a savior who defeats all. 

God replace my breathlessness with your truths to fight in a place that exhausts. 

A righteous anger in my battle cry. 

One that never gives me opportunity to forgo praying to sit still in exhaustion. 

A righteous anger to change things, motivate my movements, be an aid in restoring situations by you, breath life into the broken by your grace, and speak your truths above all. 

Give us our breath. 

Let us stand righteously in you. 

Summer in Texas

Summer has been the sweetest ever! Although we are suppose to be getting buckets of water dumped on us, I am not going to let it put a damper on the fun we are having!

These two have been the sweetest little things. Lots of kisses, hugs, playing good together and eating popsicles. (I'll leave out the clobbering each other & fighting that is inevitable in brother/sister relationships on a weekly basis.) 

 Olivia did hate the pool with a deep fear & passion up until a few days ago. 

A good week of me taking her into the pool slightly against her will has turned her into a little daredevil swimmer. 

Lots of jumping in without warning and trying to swim off on her own.

Swim lessons are around the corner. 

It has been a sweet summer so far & we are just getting started. Crawfish, Mexican street corn, pool parties, dinner parties & more. Oh and the best part of summer are lots of late night dates with this guy swimming. 

How is your summer going? 

~Brittany 

A Perfect Me. To Replace a Perfect You.

Jesus help me.

Help me to get it right more than I get it wrong .

Cultivate patience within me.

Help my overwhelmed soul sinking in this sea of sticky counters, cheese covered floors and my unrealistic desire to successfully balance motherhood, wife, ministry, and my dreams come to the surface of your shores.

Into the arms of your grace. mercy. love. 

Jesus I'm calling out from the deeper parts of me.

Asking you to help me get it right.  

Jesus help me.

Help me to get it right more often than I get it wrong.

My desire is to not to be the perfect woman; 

the unflustered mother, 

having it all together, 

maintaining an uninterrupted routine (one not even you could set astray), 

a mother who never raises her voice in frustration

a mom whose makeup doesn't sweat off before she enters the sanctuary doors 

the woman who never repeats her outfit from the week before

the mom who works out 5 x's a week & never drinks coke

a wife who meets her husbands every daily need

all while keeping a tidy home and a working mom from home.

Jesus help me.

Help me to get it right more than I get it wrong.

My soul longs to never be perfect.

God, then I wouldn’t need a perfect savior.

My heart longs to be patient in these waves of daily life.

To yearn for your Holy Spirit to find me day after day as I sweep my floors again & again.

I need this longing to always last within my soul to have your joy released in my home in moments of frustration. 

To speak truth over my body - the temple you have created for me to best serve you from.
Protect my thoughts from harmful words centered around my temple.
Keep my mouth shut never spilling out words of harm over it.
Guard my heart Lord.
Keep me God.

Jesus thank you.

Jesus thank you for helping me.

Helping me to get it right more than I get it wrong.

To notice when I get it wrong and to be encouraged to set my eyes on you. 

To pursue you when my thoughts gravitative towards a perfect me to replace a perfect you.

~Brittany 

Everyday. Fill Me Up.

Lord fill me up every day. Your mercies are new every day and you are faithful!
Lamentations 3:22-24

Lately my friends & I have been talking about how lost we would be without God. How low we would feel in life without the constant presence of the Holy Spirit.

Honestly, I would most likely not be alive today without the Holy Spirit carrying me through the darkest places of life. If I didn't know God in a deep everyday kind of way and have the Holy Spirit in my life I would be in a constant state of worry, anxiety, and frustration. Probably anger would weave its way in there too.

But God.

Because I have a relationship with Jesus I have never been that woman. The woman the enemy wants me to be. At pivotal points in our lives we make the choice to decide to follow Jesus or to stay in the places we are in. Even if we already have accepted Jesus as our savior there will still be moments of great hardship, trials, temptations, fears, doubt, lies, anxieties... that we have the choice to allow those to take over our thoughts & life or we make the choice to allow the Lord to take over.

Everyday is a choice.
Everyday is not easy but the more we allow God to fill us up everyday & the more we say yes to his ways the more natural it becomes. The less we think about it & closer we get to Him. He becomes are everything and everything else in life becomes the afterthought.

Butterflies

When I think of you I think of butterflies 

While pregnant with Olivia before we knew we were having a girl all I could think of were butterflies. 

Beautiful, soft, unique, graceful, light, full of life - butterflies. 

I started making things with butterflies.

Gravitating towards art with butterflies.

I bought a small journal with butterflies on the cover. (The journal is hers, full of precious memories of her life so far.) 

I knew our sweet baby was a girl. 

Once the ultra sound confirmed it my my heart smiled a little bigger. 

Unsure of why butterflies were what I saw when I thought of our baby I took some time to think about it. Pray. 

I handmade her mobile, complete with roses and butterflies. Her room like a garden with flowers everywhere. 

A desire to know about plants, gardening, and beautiful living things became a love of mine. 

Understanding the lows my heart had been in - the doubt of never having another baby, the uncertainty of my pregnancy - the Lord began encouraging  me with butterflies. 

Glimpses of hope in beautiful glances. 

Noah and I seeing them daily in the yard. 

My heart reassured that our baby would be beautiful, full of life, graceful, and a constant reminder of faithfulness in the broken parts of life. 

Sweet girl, when I think of you i think of butterflies. 

With love,

Your mommy