what would you brett you're the youngest here you've got the tightest skin and the
highest metabolism um and so i'd just be interested to know because you're
you're young but you're grown you've got an amazing marriage five gorgeous kids and god
is using you in dramatic ways but you're still you're still relatively young if you could go back
to your 16 year old self and when you're kind of going okay who am i what road has god called me to
walk what would you tell the younger brittany now about the importance of real relationship
i am fortunate enough to have friends who i've been friends with since i was in six seven i was
young when i met my friends and they grew with me thank god but i would tell my younger self
to not try so hard to be perfect to not try to be the fixer of everything to not try to be the one
to always lead and carry the weight of everybody else and to allow myself to be vulnerable with
them in order for them to help me grow yeah and um i would definitely tell my because i went
through a lot of season where a lot of seasons where if my friends spoke something into me
it i don't know they were afraid to speak things to me because it felt like well you already have
everything together you're a fixer you help all of our problems but there's nothing that we can
really tell you and um i i felt lonely at some point because then i started crying i'm like
well who's there to save the hero you know i and i went through that season it's like people have
songs like who's there to save the girl you know after she says the world and it's like
well that's your fault you created that narrative you know you you put that you know on yourself you
wanted to be the hero how does that feel right you know and i i really had to become vulnerable
and realize that i don't know everything even though i felt like i did and just allowed
the people that god placed in my life to speak directly into my life to be able to help me to
get to places to see things differently to help me experience different things in life that actually
prepared me for ministry prepared me for being a mom prepared me for being a wife because i was
able to see different vantage points right tim keller is one of my favorite living theologians
and he in a commentary on you know in mark chapter 10 when you've got the transfiguration but then
you've got they come down from the mountain and and it's kind of a train wreck because
the disciples have forgotten to pray and but but the kind of the only admirable human in the latter
part of that chapter is this really honest dad and he's worried to death about his son
and he tells jesus if you wanted to you could heal my son and usually jesus is is you know i've heard
so many pastors preach and they're like yes if and i'm like i don't think jesus spoke like that
to him based on the latter part of that passage i think i think he was just filled with compassion
because the man's response is oh i believe yeah i believe you're the son of god i believe you i
believe you're the christ but i need you to help me in my unbelief and tim keller
says it's nothing whatsoever and and and of course he heals his son um
but tim keller says about that passage and i think this is profound he says and it comes back to what
you're just saying he says it is not holiness that is the first step to accessing intimacy with god
it's helplessness it's acknowledging i can't make it by myself i actually think
some measure of that is true for friendship i think for us to go i need you to help me
where i don't have it all together i mean i'm going to peel off my emotional spanx with you
and show you the stuff i hide from the rest of the world because i trust your walk with the lord
you've seen me crying at conferences we've been to together when i was in really broken places
and i trusted you enough to know you'll walk alongside me because
you know where all the bodies are buried basically and i trust your walk with the lord i had a
surgeon years ago tell me that i was one of the worst patients he'd ever had
and i was like gosh that hurts my feelings and he said because you haven't been honest with me about
where you hurt wow and he said based on your mri and based on what you say to me he said i i have
been so confused about your injury and it wasn't until i cut you open and got into your spine that
i realized everything that was going on because you told me it didn't hurt that much and he said
you have not trusted me as your physician and i thought i was being a good patient
to be dishonest and i've done that a lot in friendships i've tried to be the non-needy one the
one that gives the one that doesn't complain and i haven't what i've basically said to my friends is
i don't respect your walk with the lord because if we respect each other and trust
each other then i'll call you in a hard time and go lisa i really need you to pray for me i think
i think vulnerability is inherent in intimate relationships at tbn our mission is to use
every available means to reach as many individuals and families as possible with the life-changing
gospel of jesus christ thank you for helping make the gospel of grace go around the world
and it's because of you that partner with us that this ministry continues god bless you