As The Leader Grows with Ken Joslin

Brooke Martin | Embracing Pain: A Journey of Faith, Growth, and Connection

• Ken Joslin

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What if enduring the unimaginable could lead to profound personal growth and authentic connection? Join us as we explore this question through a heartfelt conversation with Brooke Martin, an Emmy award-winning journalist whose life took a transformative turn after her unborn daughter, Emma Noel, was diagnosed with a terminal condition. Brooke shares how her faith and the powerful word "Emmanuel" guided her decision to carry Emma to term, reshaping her path from news anchor to author and speaker. Her journey, chronicled in her new book "Control Burn," offers insights into leadership, personal growth, and embracing life's uncertainties with courage and grace.

Together, we unpack the raw and transformative power of vulnerability. As Brooke and I discuss the metaphor of fire, we reflect on how life's challenges can either consume us or transform us, much like a wildfire versus a controlled burn. By sharing her story with raw honesty, Brooke demonstrates how authenticity can foster profound growth and connection. We also delve into personal stories of loss, such as the heart-wrenching experience of twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, and the spiritual solace that can be found amidst grief. Through these narratives, we uncover the deeper redemption and gratitude that can emerge from adversity.

Finally, we explore the powerful intersection of faith and redemption. Hear about the spiritual visions that offer a vivid connection to the afterlife and the assurance of reuniting with loved ones, and how these experiences can lead to a more surrendered faith. With reflections from the biblical insights of Paul's message in Philippians, we discuss how pain and suffering can foster a deeper intimacy with faith, helping us find peace and purpose. Join us in this moving episode, as we seek to understand how life's fires can illuminate growth and connection, and how community and faith can provide strength in our struggles.

Welcome to the ATLG podcast I am your host Ken Joslin, former pastor turned coach & host of CREATE, the #1 Faith-based Entrepreneur conference in America. My mission is to help faith-based entrepreneurs become the best version of themselves by growing in our Core 5: Faith, Health, Relationships, Business & Finances. You can get more information as well as join our FREE Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/676347099851525

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of as the Leader Grows. I am your host, ken Dawson. I've got a good friend of mine, brooke Martin, brand new author, unbelievable story. She's going to be sharing a little bit about her book she just released in the past few months called Control Burn. Literally, she's an Emmy award-winning newscaster. She's in the Dallas area. She is super famous. Everybody knows who she is.

Speaker 1:

But she's going to share with us a little bit today about her new book, control Burn and about what it looks like in leadership, and anything that you're wanting to develop or grow can be difficult, brooke. How you doing, my friend.

Speaker 2:

And I'm so good, I'm so honored to be on with you.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it's fun today. Tell it, tell the audience. I tried to give it a little bit, I tried to give it my best shot on who you are. Tell the audience, real quick, a little bit about you, who you are and what you've got going on right now.

Speaker 2:

All right. Well, I'm going to correct you right off the bat, because I'm a journalist, so I'm in the Indianapolis area.

Speaker 1:

Why did I say Dallas Texas, Mike Mofan? It was Mike.

Speaker 2:

You know why? Yeah, it was Mike. We'll blame Mike. Yeah, no. So I grew up in Lancaster, pennsylvania, and then my career in news took me all around the country, country, landed kind of as a final stint in Indianapolis. Thought I was going to be here as a news anchor for the rest of my career, married here, had a son here, and then, you know, a life situation really took us in a totally different direction, and that was around 2018. And here we are now, out of news for about three years now now, writing and speaking, and life is uncertain, but it's fun.

Speaker 1:

Walk us through a little bit about 2018 and share with the audience a little bit about your story and why the book, and why have you taken that pivot in your career from being on news to being an author and a speaker?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so 2018,. Our son was two. At the time, I was the main anchor at our local news station in Indianapolis and life was just really shiny and bright. You know, it was one of those seasons where things were great and I found out I was pregnant with our second child. It was right on our timeline, fingers crossed for a little girl and about four. We announced it, by the way, to viewers, so everyone knew I was pregnant.

Speaker 2:

And then I developed a bad case of bronchitis about 14 weeks into my pregnancy and just stopped into my OB on my way into work to grab a Z-pack, and the nurse practitioner asked if I wanted to sneak in and see the baby while I was there. And I was like, of course, and I was looking forward to surprising my husband with some pictures when we got home from work that night, and instead they made a really terrible discovery, and that was that our baby had a condition called anencephaly, which is when the development is perfectly normal, except their skull doesn't close at the end of development and it is a 0% chance of survival diagnosis. And so I was alone in the ultrasound room after receiving that news and uh, and I just remember, as tears are just flooding down my face. I remember this really, really clear whisper in my heart of Emmanuel, emmanuel, emmanuel. And I'll be totally honest with you, ken, I grew up a Christian, but I was so confused why I was hearing that in the time, at the time, um, and it wasn't until much later, that much later, that I discovered the purpose behind it.

Speaker 2:

I mean, yes, we know, if you are a Christian, you know Emmanuel means God with us. So, like I knew, in essence, why I was hearing it, but I didn't understand the profound impact that it would have in my life, and so we immediately decided to carry. We found out it was a girl that day as well. We named her Emma Noel, after Emmanuel, and we started walking a road we never saw coming. You know, I normally tell other people's stories and all of a sudden I'm thrust into the spotlight myself telling our own. And for the next six months I carried Emma, knowing what was coming.

Speaker 1:

You know I don't know how much you know about my journey as well I have four daughters 28, 25, 21, and 16. Between my 28 and 25 year old I was in the middle of growing one of the largest youth ministries in the country. My wife was six and a half months pregnant with twin sons and we lost them, and so that journey was we just went into a and she worked in labor and delivery. She was a scrub tech. We went into just a regular OB doctor and had some very similar news.

Speaker 1:

So I know the pain that that can be for you and then ours, because they were already there. Actually they were already dead. Both of them were Her body did the stuff, and so Monday that was on Thursday afternoon by Monday she had delivered our boy stillborn, and so I understand the pain that goes in that for you. How did you talk to me about that journey with you and your husband, because you carried her to term? Walk me through some of the things that you learned and some of the ways that you and your husband kind of dealt with that Cause. That's an unbelievable burden, if you will, to carry and the pain to carry.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So immediately, you know, we got home and did our own research, um, and we had to cause. We weren't really given a ton of information at the doctor's office, and so we sat on our couch, I remember, and at that point we had varying degrees of faith, my husband and I, and we sat on our couch, completely broken and knowing that we had not anything close to what it takes to get through something like this. And I remember we prayed one prayer together and it was three words and it was out of sheer desperation and it was God be glorified. Because we couldn't see, we didn't know what else to pray for. It was like we know what's coming, we know our daughter is dying, we know I'm going to carry her for the next six months, knowing that we're going to have to say goodbye, like it is the most like gut wrenching reality. And so it was like, in that moment I almost feel like that prayer was given to us, but it was like God, if you do anything like, be glorified through this, and we had no idea how he would answer that prayer. And so I would say that was, that was the first step we took in surrendering our pain and truly going about it open-handed. The next step actually happened.

Speaker 2:

A photographer from the station was going to this was about a week or so later come to my house to take some still photos. I was going to write up a blog to tell, to announce to viewers the situation, cause I'm not going to lie about it for the next six months, right? Um? And I woke up early that morning with this distinct thought that I can't write this. My whole career I write. I know how to craft things, I know how to make things sound maybe prettier than they are, more polished than they are, and I said just bring a video camera. And he came and I said please just press record. My husband and I didn't know what we were going to say and it was so raw Ken.

Speaker 2:

And we just shared, and it was that video made its way around the world, and I think it's because it was like maybe the first time in my career that I chose authenticity and I chose vulnerability and I decided I don't have to be the perfect, buttoned up, polished news anchor this time.

Speaker 2:

I just need to be me and I need to be real. And there is something that people gravitate towards when you allow yourself to be exposed in that way, and that really set the tone for the next six months of me being really careful to be authentic. And there were times I would record a video, like for social media, and I would get done and about to post it. I'm like, nah, like I'm not, I'm not that, okay, I'm not that this, I'm not that this, I'm trying to make this seem different than it really is and I would delete it, and so, anyway, I didn't realize then, but it was really the beginning for me of a stripping away of facade and pretense that had been built up over 15 years of being a news anchor, and it's led me now to today, where that is still what I'm leading.

Speaker 1:

What was your hope? In that, like I want to be authentic, you've been obviously the news and the makeup and the hair and all this stuff to look perfect. What in you was like no, I want to do this in an authentic way. What do you think led you to that decision? And then, what were you hoping for out of that?

Speaker 2:

decision.

Speaker 2:

I think what led me there is is the fire is the suffering, like there's something that happens in pain and suffering that burns away everything else. It's why it's so transformative, because it leaves us nothing else to hide behind, and so you develop different, a different appetite. You all of a sudden can't rely on things that you used to rely on, and so, even more than I mean yes, it was an intentional decision, but it was also almost survival Like this is my chance. I am stripped, you know, emotionally naked. Right now, I can either try and get put everything back on as quick as I can, I can try and jump out of the fire right, like we could have chose to end the pregnancy and jump out of the fire, like we could have had so many different reactions, but it's like, if you choose to stay in it and allow others to see you in it, it is beyond transformational.

Speaker 2:

There is nothing else on earth as transformational as pain and suffering. But ultimately, really, it's up to us in how we allow it to transform us. We don't have to, and you see that all the time, and in this book I kind of use the analogy as fire either being a wildfire or a controlled burn, and we see wildfires. I mean, man, it's timely right now with everything going on in California, but you see the devastation that can happen in pain and suffering. It's the trauma that turns into addiction, that turns into death. It's the. You know, you name it, those are wildfires. It turns into death. It's the. You know, you, you name it, those are wildfires. But here I was realizing, um, maybe not in the moment, but you know, in hindsight, looking back and saying this as as horrible and painful as it is, this is an opportunity and, um, I can either take it or I can, I can jump out, and I chose to take it. How long?

Speaker 1:

in that process, did it take you and your husband to get to where you were? Maybe not necessarily at peace, but you knew? Okay, God, you put us in this situation and we're going to see this through. And then so that, let me maybe even rephrase that question how long through that suffering journey did you realize, man, this is making us better humans, this is positioning us for the rest of our life?

Speaker 2:

Wow, we're still learning it. I don't think we ever got to a point where it all made sense or it all became clear, or like we aren't hurting anymore or grieving anymore. Um, this is going to be a lifelong. You know it will be a lifelong uh, grief, Um, I think what happened. There was a turning point, though, and it was, um. So we delivered Emma um March 19th of 2019, and she survived 21 minutes and it was a sacred time and, um, she was able to be in the hospital room as I recovered from a C-section for a couple of days afterwards, because of a cooling device called a cuddle cot, so she was literally physically able to be in our room so we could have family, hold her, take pictures. It's kind of like a bonding thing, right, and so I had been through a pregnancy well, a diagnosis, a pregnancy, the delivery and the death and still the day that.

Speaker 2:

I dreaded most was the day of discharge, Because I could not fathom how a mother is expected to walk out of a hospital room out of a hospital and leave her baby behind.

Speaker 2:

It felt, Ken, like it would physically break me, like it would kill me. And so I woke up that morning, the morning of discharge, with tears already falling down my face from my sleep, already falling down my face from my sleep, and I cried out to God in utter desperation. I said I can't do this, I cannot do this. And in that moment, instantaneously, I've never experienced anything like it before. But I felt a physical strength, like started my toes and just surge through my body. I felt a weight like a piece fall like on top of like it, just like, like blanketed my fear and I realized, oh, like, this is Emmanuel.

Speaker 2:

Like it's real Like this, this God, this Jesus that I grew up, you know, claiming to believe in. It's so real, it's more real than I ever knew, and and so we ended up rocking Emma and handing her to a nurse and and leaving the hospital. I remember we got in the car and we looked at each other and we smiled and it wasn't like the grief was gone or anything.

Speaker 2:

It was like we just realized we walked through the unimaginable we we lived out. The decision, a lot of said was crazy. Um, it's like we walked through fire and we weren't burned, you know, like we didn't smell like smoke, it was like Whoa, and it was like this taste of what is available to us, that, for all of our comfortable Christianity and lives kind of running with Christianity being an accent we weren't tapping into the profound access that we have and into into the spiritual and into power and into providence, and I mean. And so it really what it, what it did was spark something in me.

Speaker 2:

I talk in the book about the species of flower called fire followers, and I don't know if you're familiar with them, but it's a real species and their seeds are only unlocked by the heat shock of fire, only unlocked by the heat shock of fire.

Speaker 2:

And so they'll lay dormant for decades awaiting one thing, and then, after a fire rolls through in the black canvas, you'll start to see these pops of color of these fire followers sprouting with incredible speed. And I believe in each of us are fire followers. There are these seeds of truth and revelation that unlock somehow in suffering and grow in us with incredible ferocity and speed, and so it was like that time in the hospital room unlocked something in me and in us and anyway we just we went after it and we just couldn't get enough and so um. So that's really kind of when you say, when were you maybe awakened to this reality? That's definitely one mile marker on our journey that I will always remember as being like, oh, like I've been taking a penny from heaven when the riches have been available to me the whole time.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Tell me how that with you and your husband. Walk me through. What did that do with your relationship with the two of you guys?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, you know, depends on the day, like there there were times where we would fight about I would accuse him of not being sad enough and you know, and he would kind of process internally and we were not seeing eye to eye on grief and um, and it's a very I mean, a lot of couples end up um, separating, divorcing, after tragedy and trauma, and I get it Like it's. It is hard but ultimately, like what came from it was that in both of us surrendering individually, god worked differently but to the same extent in both of us. And so it's like we weren't trying to just get better by looking at each other. We were both super focused on Jesus and somehow, some way, by us both looking that way, he drew us closer. And so we look back now and and you know, and it sounds so crazy to say, but we're so thankful for her, we're so thankful for how God took you know what the enemy meant for evil and turned it for our good.

Speaker 2:

Um, because you know we, we've been transformed, we've been changed and and we're not going back.

Speaker 1:

You know, we, when we, joshua and Caleb, were delivered on a Monday morning, they had what was called twin-to-twin transfusion, which one was about nine or ten inches long and one was about six inches long. And so they, dr Cox and Dr Little, both of the OB doctors, both came in that morning. Several of the nurses' friends of Christy because she worked in labor and delivery were there and I'll never forget, when they handed us our boys, god said honor me. And so I just, I held him and I just lifted him up and I said God, I said I thank you that your word says in John 10, 10, that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but you've come to give us life and give it to us more abundantly. God, I have no idea why this happened. You're not the author of death, you are the author of life, god. Let no one say that God needed two angels in heaven, because God, this isn't you and God, I honor you for doing this.

Speaker 1:

And then for me and my journey, in that about six months later, I was getting ready for my first national youth leadership conference. I was building one of the largest youth industries in the country at the time, which was hard because I'm like God, I'm doing this for you. And then this happened, just the human side of that journey. And then one morning I was in my auditorium praying for our conference, and I've only had one vision my entire life, and this was this one. And I literally, it was like in my prayer time, god peeled back heaven and I literally saw Jesus sitting on his throne and he had one of my sons on each knee and they were about five to six years old and I saw it. And it was when I knew, okay, I'm going to get to see them again. Yes, talk to me about, for you and your husband and even, maybe even in your child now sharing with them. Hey, listen, this is just a brief separation. Walk me through your faith journey in that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we had a rainbow baby Marlo. Afterwards she is four now.

Speaker 1:

So did we the very next year Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, and, and you know, and I say, um, I don't call her, that's not redemption right Like redemption isn't replacing what's lost. It sure is a beautiful gift, but redemption is knowing him Like.

Speaker 2:

that's the redemption in in what is taken from us, uh, is knowing him. And so we celebrate Emma's birthday every year, you know, can, like you, heaven, the reality of heaven, the reality of eternity, is so much more real to me. Um, I the the reality of the great cloud of witnesses and the saints who are, you know, active. I mean everything that is going on in in this, in this spiritual, um. I mean I've just been opened and awakened to all of it and I'm like, oh, it's, it's going to melt us. It is going to melt us.

Speaker 2:

Similarly, I had a vision, a picture of Emma not long ago. She was about five and the thing that struck me was Jesus said, with a smirk on his face there's someone who's excited to see you. And she looked at me. This will be the first time I can get through this without crying, if I can. She looked at me and she goes and her face lights up and she goes, mama, and she runs to me and she clinged onto my leg.

Speaker 2:

But here's the beautiful thing about it, ken. And she clinged onto my leg, but here's the beautiful thing about it, ken, the way she exclaimed mama had no ounce of missing or sadness. It was like, exactly like when I go to the grocery store and I come back and I walk in the door and the kids are like mom, like it was. There was no sadness and I just was like Like you, I was like our kids are okay, like they're okay, they're they're, they're being so taken care of and one day that reality is going to happen and so, yeah, I mean that's, that's just a whole other side of it. You know my, my awakening to, to the spiritual and to heaven, it's just been beautiful.

Speaker 1:

I love Romans 8, 28. All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. You said earlier you're like now. We're grateful that we walked through that season. Somebody who's listening to this podcast today goes. How in the world can you be grateful? Can you put that into words?

Speaker 2:

goes. How in the world can you be grateful? Can you put that into words? Yeah, I think you know.

Speaker 2:

We live in a country blessed to have Christian foundations and a lot of us have grown up as Christians. But the blessing can also be a curse, in that truth can become stale in our minds and in our hearts, and I call it a gospel blockage, where it's like we believe things up here but it doesn't get here, and pain and suffering is the antidote and the remedy to a gospel blockage. And I realized that I had been living most of my life just kind of using Christianity instead of surrendering and dying with Jesus, as the gospel tells us. And so when I say I'm grateful, I realize that without that I don't think I ever would have gotten here Without the fire to burn away everything that was holding me back from the presence of God. I don't think I would have myself intentionally surrendered anything that was required to get there. And so you know, it's why I mean the Bible, over and over, talks about rejoicing and suffering, and I don't know about you, but there were times I would read that and be like, yeah, that's for them.

Speaker 1:

You know that's a human, that's a natural human response.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, I mean, you can't fathom rejoicing in them. It doesn't make sense until until you are led through the fire and come out on the other side and understand what has been burned away and what is now growing. And you know we have this epidemic of wanting to protect against pain.

Speaker 2:

We are obsessed with it. I mean, I think there's a statistic that says, uh, we're Americans are like 5% of the world's population and we consume 80% of the opioids Like, and it's not a condemnation, it's just to say like, if we're not careful, you know it's. It's this distorted realm that we get into, where suffering is silenced and we don't want to acknowledge it, we don't want to deal with it. We make decisions to get out of it. Um, and, and it's a pity, it's a shame, because what happens in us, if we can see it, is the most unbelievable transformation. But, but you know, um, but we have to.

Speaker 2:

We have to go into it like this, open-handed and, and it's really hard to do because, especially as leaders, we are in the business of putting out fires, we are in the business of protecting our, our companies, against pain. We don't want to deal with the reality of it. And so a lot of times we, in our own personal fires, we do the same things. Well, what happens? We miss out, we miss out, and then you still walk around with painful burns that remind you of the time, but there's no healing, there's no redemption, there's no beautiful regrowth. You're just bitter and hardened and I say that's what happens in fire. You can either be hardened or forged.

Speaker 1:

And it's one or the other Two questions the pregnancy, the rainbow baby. You said how hard was that period of time for you.

Speaker 2:

For being pregnant with her.

Speaker 1:

When you were pregnant with her after your other daughter passed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was so hard, it was like I couldn't allow myself to believe it was true and, honestly, I don't think I bonded with her as much in the womb as I did, like with Max and Emma, um, because I just kept waiting for the other shoe to fall, even though we had seen God's provision through it. It was still this like innate human protection of like I can't celebrate. I can't celebrate. You know, I can't love, I can't celebrate.

Speaker 2:

I can't you know I can't love her, I can't, and so it took me, you know, a little while, not long after she was born, of course, but like, yeah, pregnancy was, was hard.

Speaker 1:

I remember the one. The really cool thing Dr Cox and Dr Little did for us was hey, kristen, cause you wasn't working in labor and delivery at the time, if you ever want to come in and just get an ultrasound, you come in, you pop in and we'll do just to show you everything is okay, because that was a fearful time for both of us. After we walked through that, so you're walking through that season. When did God drop a book in your heart? Tell me about that.

Speaker 2:

He didn't. So it was actually the one thing I always said I do not want to do. I don't want to write a book. But it was about two.

Speaker 2:

I got back to being a news anchor for two years after Emma's passing and but through my pregnancy I'd heard from countless others who were honestly just drowning in their own loss and pain and grief, and their stories I didn't really realize it at the time, but really burdened me and I thought, man, here we have experienced such profound redemption and hope in the midst of this Like, how can I help give that like to others? And so I started feeling called out of news and I had spent my whole life building this career and I was at the place I wanted to stay forever, and so the thought of giving that up was terrifying, but yet I felt this nudge out, out, out. Finally, I'm driving down the highway one day and I pray. I said God, if you are calling me out of news, will you please tell me what you're calling me into? And I'm half expecting him to say you know PR or something like that, right, you're calling me into. And I'm half expecting him to say you know PR or something like that, right, and like that. That would make sense. Um, but instead I'm driving and clear as day vision in my mind's eye of a blackened, burned out forest, and with it came the words controlled burn. And I got really quiet cause I knew I was hearing something and I just allowed him to, piece by piece. Download this concept of life's fires, you know, being either a wildfire raging out of control or bordered by his promises and provision and power. You know the science behind controlled burns is fascinating, and the same can be said, spiritually, that what they can do to rid a landscape right of invasive species, what it can do to promote new growth, but it has to be bordered.

Speaker 2:

And so, anyway, I come home and I remember telling my, my husband, like, sit down, I had this vision and I think I'm supposed to leave my job, you know, and half, more than half, of our family's salary. And you know what, ken? He looked at me dead in the eyes and without missing a beat, he said do it Because we were different, like you, you learn to trust, truly trust, the voice of God when you, you know God after you walk through something like that, we knew I mean this is crazy to the world to leave what I left. But he's in it. Just take me where you want to take me. Anyway, I left news and I thought I was going to create curriculum. I said the only thing I don't want to do is write a book. Well, we know how that goes. I end up in meetings with publishing execs that I didn't even know about, and and they were just like. You need to tell the story. We're sending you a contract.

Speaker 1:

So the rest is history and controlled. I did tell God one time I had to speak in Evansville, indiana, to a bunch of schools and I said God, I'm never moving here. If you tell me to move, I ain't coming, so you don't. You don't ever tell God you're not. I did, that's been a long time ago, so I'm not going to. I'm still not going to Evansville Indiana. I'm like there's no way I'm coming here. John 14, 27. I want to close with this. I love this scripture. Jesus says my peace. I leave you, not the world's peace, but my peace. Talk about what that is. My mantra for 2025 is seek peace. Every time I feel myself, get elevated or upset with a contractor or my video guy or somebody, I'm just like can't seek peace. Talk to our audience about what peace means to you now.

Speaker 2:

Peace is Jesus. He is the Prince of peace. And you know, he says I think it's in John when he says this is eternity that they know you, he's talking to the father. He says that they know you and they know me, jesus Christ. And so peace is knowing Jesus. And that is another beautiful thing that happens is we get to, in our pain and suffering, we get to know an intimacy with Jesus, who suffered more than we could ever suffer. We get to relate to him in his suffering. And something happens there, kim, something happens that changes us.

Speaker 2:

When we get to the point where Jesus is suffering, a crucifixion isn't just a story. It's like you're sharing, you are picking up your cross in his suffering, following after him, locking eyes with him on the Via Dolorosa and saying I know, you know, and that is what peace is, because peace is not circumstantial, like you know. So often we think it's a feeling, it's an emotion. No, it's knowing Jesus, because everything else I mean everything else is benefit, and I remember somebody saying once that you know a lot of times, in pain and suffering, people point to eternity as encouragement and hope. You know, and it's real, and it will happen. One day there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more suffering. But that means that this life, this short blink of an eye that we have here, that means this is our chance to relate to Jesus and his suffering. We're not going to have that chance in heaven, we're not going to have it. And so now is our chance. Don't waste it.

Speaker 1:

I love that, Brooke. What's the best way for people to get in contact with you?

Speaker 2:

Oh, you can find me on my website, morewithbrookmartincom. Instagram, facebook. I'm all over.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, check her out. And, like I said earlier today, Emmy award-winning newscaster from Indianapolis, Indiana, not Dallas, Texas, where our mutual friend Michael Mothan lives which is why.

Speaker 1:

I said that earlier. Brooke, thank you so much for being a part of our show today. I'm super excited to drop this episode and just the feedback that we'll get from this for people that have walked through difficult times. I have five affirmations that I created for myself. One of which that I write down every single day in my planner is I am whole. I choose to use past pain to help others find healing, and sometimes we walk through moments in our life that are very, very hard. Every time now, since I created this affirmation about four or five years ago, every time I do this affirmation or every time I walk through a season and my pastor says you're either in a crisis, you're coming out of a crisis, or you're about to go in a crisis, because life can be hard. It is okay, god. I don't understand why I'm going through this, but I know you're going to use this in the future, in this experience that I have to be able to help somebody.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. I think of Paul in Philippians when he's in prison and he's writing to the church and it's so powerful he says I rejoice right.

Speaker 1:

What we're talking about.

Speaker 2:

I rejoice because I know that, through your prayers and the work of the Holy Spirit, this will turn out for my deliverance. Through your prayers and the work of the Holy Spirit, this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed, but that Christ will be honored in my body, whether through life or death. What he's saying is what happens in suffering is that we become unashamed and Christ is honored, hallelujah.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I love how you reflect the character and nature of God. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks, man Guys, thank you for joining us on another episode of as the Leader Grows. I am your host, ken Jocelyn. Listen, I would love to connect with you. We've created a free community with a ton of resources, including our Create Conference, which is actually coming up in Atlanta in about three weeks Myself, my good friend John Maxwell, gary Brecka a lot of amazing friends but we put some free resources on there Create Conference last year. Good friends like Ed Milet, erwin McManus and others Go to growsdrivecom forward slash free. Check that out. There's a ton of stuff there and an unbelievable community of about 2,500 faith-based entrepreneurs. Thanks, and I'll see you next week on as the Leader Grows.