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Summary:
In 2022, God gave me the word “Expect” to dwell on throughout the year. As the year progressed, He used that word to teach me more about Himself, myself, and His plan for me. Join me as I share the amazing story of my daughter’s conception and birth, and how God taught me to “Expect” in 2022.
And snag a FREE “Word of the Year Workbook” to help you choose your own word for 2024!
Podcast Transcript:
Welcome to Journey Together, a podcast for Christian women who want a deeper relationship with God. I’m your host, Brigette, and today we’re going to talk about why you should choose a Word of the Year.
Hi friend! It’s the beginning of a new year and I am starting the year off with a big brave leap and starting a podcast! I am not sure where this is going but I am confident this is the direction God is leading me in and my word of the year for 2024 is Trust, so I am trusting that where God is leading me is where I need to be!
Just a little background if you don’t already know me, my name is Brigette Henry and I am a Spiritual Formation Coach. I help women pursue a deeper relationship with God by helping them address the things that are getting in their way. I coach 1-on-1 but I also share resources on my website and in my weekly newsletter. If you’re interested in any of those things, you can find links in the show notes.
Introduction
Now I mentioned that my Word of the Year for 2024 is Trust and I am super excited today to share with you how powerful choosing a Word of the Year can be. So, if you haven’t chosen a Word of the Year before or you don’t have one yet for 2024, stick around because I have a great tool for you to help you choose a Word of the Year and that tool is absolutely free. And if you already have a Word of the Year, stay and listen to some awesome stories of how God showed Himself to me in 2022 with the word Expect.
I do want to stop really quick and mention that the stories I’m going to share today may be triggering for some people. There is nothing graphic or violent, but I do talk about some of the struggles I had conceiving and some of the problems I had while pregnant. I have recorded this podcast with your heart in mind, so if those are things you relate to, I encourage you to listen to this podcast in a safe environment so you can hear how God showed Himself to be good during those times in my life. I firmly believe that if God showed Himself to be good to me, He can do the same for you.
Expect in 2022
So, let’s talk about why I think you should choose a Word of the Year.
I used to think that having a Word of the Year was some sort of bid for control. Like if I chose a word for my year that was me saying “this is what I want to happen this year” and I was somehow taking control away from God.
But then at the end of 2021 I got this intense urge to choose a Word for 2022 and the word that God kept directing me to was Expect. Which is a really weird word. You don’t typically find it on any Word of the Year lists or anything like that. I actually got a week-long study from a friend of mine to help me choose my Word of the Year and at every step God just kept saying, “Expect. Your word is Expect.”
So I chose the word Expect for 2022. I had no idea what that meant or where God was going to take me with it.
I Expected Bad Things From God
Fast forward two weeks and I’m sitting on the edge of my bed waiting for the timer on my phone to go off so I could walk to the bathroom and check the pregnancy test on the counter. In 2021, we had tried to get pregnant and every time we started trying, my doctors would find something wrong with me and we’d have to stop trying. Like one time, my thyroid numbers were off and they wanted us to wait until they determined if I had hypothyroidism. Just strange things that I’d never had problems with before.
So in the middle of January 2022, I’m sitting on my bed, almost three weeks late, and the words just pour out of my mouth: “God, I don’t know how to expect good things from you.” I had never thought that phrase before, but in that moment I realized I didn’t know how to expect good things from God. I expected He would hurt me and make my life hard, and I didn’t know how to give this situation over to Him because I was CONVINCED it was safer in my hands than His. And in that moment I’m also realizing that this was never in my hands. That I was never in control.
I Learned to Expect Good Things From God
The phone alarm went off and I convinced myself I had to check the pregnancy test immediately because if I didn’t I was pretty sure I’d never check it, and those results do expire. So I take the three steps into the bathroom and it feels like a literal mile. And guess what? The test was positive.
I should not have been surprised because between you and me, that was the THIRD test I’d taken in the last three days. And they were all positive. But I convinced myself that the first two were wrong because I bought cheap tests on Amazon. Clearly, I did not know how to expect good things from God. After I read the results, I literally fell on the bathroom floor shaking and said to God between sobs, “I believe, help my unbelief.” And that was the first three weeks of 2022 with the word Expect. I was learning how to expect good things from God. And I won’t miss the irony that He could have told me my word was “hope” and it would have meant pretty much the same thing. But He told me my Word was Expect, and three weeks into 2022, I found myself “Expecting”. God has a pretty great sense of humor.
And if you liked that, just wait, it gets so much better.
Hearing A Promise From God
Back in December of 2021, my husband and I had attended a conference held by his uncle. It’s a very small and intimate conference, with only about 8-10 people present that I can recall. This is by design, because the conference dives deep into childhood wounds and how God designed us to live versus how we are actually living.
Partway through the day, a friend of my husband’s uncle stopped by to sit in on the conference.
Now I need to preface this by saying, I am very cautious about the gift of prophecy. I don’t consider the gift to be gone, but I think a lot of what is referred to as the gift of “prophecy” in the church today is just showmanship, and is not truly receiving a message from God. But this was a very different situation.
The friend asked if he could speak and share some of the things God was sharing with him. He was a little shy, like he was trying to muster courage. I felt a strong sense that he was sharing out of obedience to God, not for attention or to show off a special gift.
He looked at my husband and I and said, “Eric and Brigette, I don’t know what you’re going through, but God wants me to tell you that you’re going to have a baby girl, and she’s going to have your dimples.”
By the way, If you’ve never met us in person, my husband and I both have dimples. He has one and I have two.
Expecting God to Fulfill His Promises
I of course broke down because no one there knew that we were trying to get pregnant or that we had recently discussed that my body may be trying to tell me it wasn’t safe to get pregnant. We had also considered pursuing adoption during the next year, and had already done some research to figure out the best way to do that in our area.
And then we heard this, and I, who had not learned to expect good things yet, wasn’t sure whether I could believe I would get pregnant.
So fast forward to January of 2022 and we’re pregnant! And I’m starting to think, “maybe we’ll have a girl.”
Four months later, it was confirmed that we would in fact have a girl. I started to learn to Expect that God would speak to me, and that He would do the things He promised to do. And for those of you who are wondering, her dimples started to show by the end of that year.
Why You Should Choose A Word of the Year
Throughout the rest of 2022, we faced a lot of concerns about our daughter’s health, but in September, our beautiful baby girl was born. And she is a literal miracle. Her birth was a testimony to everyone around us that we can Expect good things from God.
And that’s why I think you should choose a word of the year.
Not because choosing the word Expect made any of these things happen. But because they would have happened anyway, and I would have missed the miracle. I would have missed seeing God in all of it.
Choosing a word of the year opens your mind and heart to watch God work in a specific way. I came away from 2022 with a better understanding of Who God is and how He loves His children. And choosing the word Expect gave me hope, hope that others witnessed when it seemed I was going to lose the pregnancy, or my daughter would not be born safely.
Just the simple act of choosing a word opened the doors for God to show just how awesome He is. It’s not about us. It’s about Him.
So, have I convinced you to choose a word of the year yet? If not, I’ve got one more story for you about how God used the word Expect to speak to me in 2022.
Labor: An Opportunity to Expect
My daughter only had one artery in her umbilical cord. You’re supposed to have two, and one vein. Instead, she had one artery and one vein. Because that was the case, I had TONS of ultrasounds. In all, I think I had about two dozen ultrasounds during my pregnancy. I also saw a specialist and had genetic testing done because only having one artery can be an indication of a more serious issue.
But, everything looked clear, so the specialist was comfortable sending me back to my regular OB as long as she did more frequent ultrasounds and the typical Non-stress tests later in my pregnancy.
Then, about a month before I was due, I felt a shift. At first I thought my daughter had dropped, but it didn’t seem like anything had moved. Two days later I had an ultrasound that revealed my daughter had wrapped her umbilical cord around her neck. Twice.
Since I had noticed decreased fetal movement, my OB was on high alert. She told me she would get me as close to my due date as possible, but that she would likely have to induce me.
Seeing God Work
Over the next month, I visited the hospital at least twice a week for monitoring, and two of those visits were overnight. One of the overnight visits started as an emergency room visit because my daughter had failed her kick counts. We managed to get to 10 days before my due date and my OB made the call. She induced me that night, and long story short, my daughter didn’t drop, I didn’t dilate, and my daughter was born by C-section the following day at 6:01 pm. She had her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck three times.
And this is the miracle. If my daughter had a normal umbilical cord, we never would have known she had her cord wrapped around her neck. My OB wouldn’t have considered induction and would have had me carry to term. My daughter might not have made it. And, if my OB had been any other OB, my daughter may have been delivered too early, and had problems breathing, or my OB may have induced me too late, and my daughter would not have made it. Another OB also could have pushed a vaginal delivery, which my daughter would likely not have survived.
God aligned everything so perfectly so that my daughter would have the best care. She had the right doctors, the right nurses, and the right problems. All that, so that she would survive. And if Expect had not been my word for 2022, I would have missed the miracle. I wouldn’t have noticed how blessed we were. I wouldn’t have seen God working, not just in me, but in my husband’s life. In my daughter’s life. And in the lives of everyone who witnessed the miracle my daughter is. I saw God because I chose to Expect.
Conclusion
SO, have I convinced you? Want to know how to choose a word of the year? You can head over to my website at brigettehenry.com or click the link in the show notes.
There you’ll find my FREE Word of the Year workbook with exercises and guides to help you get with God and find the word He’s calling you to for this year. And if you have any questions, you can always email me at brigette@brigettehenry.com You can find my email in the show notes too.
And if you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and share it with your friends! I am passionate about helping women grow in their relationship with God and I would love to help you and your friends in your Spiritual Formation Journey.
That’s all I have for today! I’m praying you’ll have a happy new year and God will make His will for your year clear to you as you pursue Him to find your Word of the Year. See you next week! Bye!
Links:
Music by: Morning Garden – Acoustic Chill by Olexy on Pixabay
My website: https://brigettehenry.com
Interested in 1:1 coaching: https://brigettehenry.com/coaching
Subscribe to my weekly email: https://brigettehenry.com/subscribe
FREE Word of the Year workbook: https://mailchi.mp/57cc39e568e6/word-of-the-year
Transcript available at: https://brigettehenry.com/why-you-should-choose-a-word-of-the-year-in-2024/
Contact me at: brigette@brigettehenry.com
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