Share Post – Follow Me
Summary:
Hear more about me, my testimony, and why I want to serve women. Also, I’m sharing some of the things I’d like to see happen in my ministry and how I’m working to keep God at the center.
Podcast Transcript:
Content Warning:
Hi, Brigette here. Before this episode begins, I just want to warn you that I do discuss an attempt I made on my life during the beginning portion of this episode. If that is something you’re sensitive to, you can skip ahead to about minute 7 of the podcast and you should skip over that discussion completely. Again, it’s a really brief mention, but I just want to let you know in case you’re sensitive to it. And if you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of taking your own life, please don’t wait to get help. You can call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 if you’re in the United States. You can also visit focusonthefamily.com/christian-counselors-network to find a Christian Counselor near you. And you can also speak to your Primary Care Physician the next time you see them and they can help you get the help you need.
New Podcast Name
Hi beautiful sister in Christ, I’m Brigette Henry. And as of this recording, you are not listening to the Journey Together Podcast. You’re listening to One Spiritual Journey, where I share stories from my spiritual journey and teach you how to walk closer with God on your spiritual journey. In today’s episode, I’m going to share a little bit about who I am, and I’m going to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what God is doing in my life and what I want to do through this ministry.
Introduction
It has been a rough couple weeks over here. I have been spending a lot of extra time with God. He’s been pruning me. I’ve been processing. I’m experiencing lots of spiritual warfare, lots of health issues, migraines and depression and illness.
I’ve been really unsure of the direction for this ministry and so I’ve been praying and asking God to give me clarity and give me direction. And He led me to the book of Colossians, which is what I talked about in my last podcast episode. But today I want to share with you a little bit more about me and also give you behind the scenes of what’s going on right now in my life and in this ministry.
About Me
So let’s start by talking about me and like, who I am. Who is Brigette, and who is this woman who keeps talking to you on her podcast? I’m Brigette Henry. I grew up in a Christian home and I accepted God when I was 5 years old. And I remember that conversion because of a couple different things, I guess.
My Salvation Story
I remember right afterwards, my mom asked if I felt different and I said no, but I think I did kind of feel different actually. I just wasn’t sure what she meant by that. And I also remember that the reason I accepted Christ is because I thought salvation was inherit, inherent. Like, I thought everyone was just saved. And I didn’t realize that you actually had to accept the gift of salvation.
So when I first grasped that concept, I was working on a worksheet for an after school Bible program that my grandma ran and my mom was working on the worksheet with me, and she kind of explained to me what salvation was. And I was like, “oh, I didn’t realize I had to say yes to that. Yes, absolutely yes!”
Revealing A Heart of Flesh
So I am very confident that at five years old, I truly did accept Christ, but since then God has been as I like to say, chiseling the stone from my heart and revealing a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
And I guess that’s kind of how I feel. My heart is surrounded by stone and God is like slowly chiseling that stone away. And I guess what that stone looks like in real life is guilt and shame and depression and fear and anger and anxiety. All things that I have always struggled with, and I still struggle with to some extent.
Some of that is because I’m predisposed to mental illness. And some of that is just my personality, and Satan knows how to get under my skin.
Confused About Who God Is
I think my biggest issue from the age of five until now at age 31, is that I’ve always been confused about who God is. So the way that I explain the gospel, and I have a podcast episode about the Gospel of Grace and Truth and I will link that in the show notes.
But the way I explain the gospel is that the gospel is made up of grace and truth. The Truth of the gospel is that we are sinners and we cannot save ourselves, and because we needed a savior, God sent His Son to die for us and pay the penalty for our sin. The Grace of the gospel is that God chose to do that because He loves us and He wants a relationship with us. Growing up, whether it was my personality or what I was exposed to, I soaked in the Truth of the gospel, but not the Grace of the gospel.
So I’ve always had a hard time accepting grace for myself from God, from other people. I can extend grace to other people, although I would say it’s flawed because I don’t truly understand what grace looks like in my own life, so it’s hard for me to fully extend grace to people. But generally speaking, I think other people deserve grace, but I don’t think I deserve grace.
In My Twenties
So, in my 20s I got my Bachelors in Worship and Music Studies with a Specialization in Women’s Ministry. And yes, that is a ridiculous mouthful of a degree. I got married and then I went back to school to get my Masters in Pastoral Counseling. And I went back to school because I had a lot of questions about what I had experienced. Back when I was 19, I attempted to end my life, and the church did not have good answers for me and that frustrated me a lot because I grew up in the church and I always saw answers in the church and I was like, “why don’t you have answers for me? There has to be answers in the Bible somewhere.”
So, I went and got my Masters in Pastoral Counseling to help me work through some of that. And I had every intention of counseling after I got that degree. But unfortunately there was a miscommunication about the requirements for my state, which is different than the state where I got my degree online. And I finished my degree and discovered that I couldn’t use it the way that I wanted to. I couldn’t use it to be a counselor in my state, so I decided I wanted to start a ministry. And I have tried coaching twice. I’ve blogged. I’ve focused on content creation on Instagram and Facebook. I’ve done a lot of different things. This is the first time I’m really trying podcasting. But I’ve always felt kind of lost about where this ministry is going and what I should be doing.
My Priorities
So then, two years ago, I had my daughter. And I started to do some more work on myself because I realized I wanted to model spiritual maturity for my children and I didn’t feel that I really exemplified spiritual maturity. There was also a huge emphasis on spiritual formation in my Masters program and I really enjoyed my spiritual formation classes. I’m just really interested in spiritual growth in general and what that looks like. So, I read the book redeeming your time by Jordan Rayner, and in that book he talks about what he calls The Five Floors of Priority.
Mission
It starts with our Mission. Our Mission is on top. And then it goes to Callings and Long-term goals. And then I think it’s short-term goals and something else. I really only latched on to like the first three floors, but that seems to do it for me. So, the first floor, the top floor is our Mission and our Mission doesn’t change from person to person. For every human being on the planet, our mission is to glorify God.
Callings
Then we have our Callings and our Callings are the roles that we choose to carry out that mission of glorifying God. My callings are a wife, a mother and a teacher.
Long-Term Goals
And then after Callings you have Long-term goals, which is what you want for each of your callings. So as a wife, my goal is to have a good, healthy marriage that reflects God’s design. As a mother, my goal is to love my children and show them that God loves them too. And as a teacher, my goal is to present women mature in Christ, which we’ll talk about a little more in a second.
I Always Wanted to Teach
It’s really funny because I used to have this, like, uh, scrapbook, I guess.
And, from when I was in kindergarten, and there was like a question in it that said, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” And I wrote, I want to be a teacher, and I actually went to school to study education. Music education because I’m very musically gifted.
And so I went to school to get my Bachelors in Music Education and first semester I was like, “I hate my education classes. Like, this is awful. This is miserable. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
And I ended up switching to Worship and Music Studies. So, this has been the past few weeks have been interesting because God has reminded me like, I made you to be a teacher. It just looks different than you thought it was going to look.
It’s just been a good reminder that God doesn’t put us in the same little boxes that we put ourselves in. And on that note, I just want to say these callings that I have and the long term goals that I have attached to them, they’re not meant to be boxes. They are meant to help you be intentional. And so like every week I go over my Mission and my Callings and my Long-Term goals, so I can remind myself that those are the things I really want to accomplish. So that I make sure that I’m intentional about how I spend my resources, my time and my energy and my money. I just want to be intentional.
My Ministry
So I mentioned that as a teacher, my goal is to present women mature in Christ. And that actually comes from Colossians 1:28-29, which says
“We proclaim Him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (This is Paul speaking.) I labor for this striving with His strength that works powerfully in me.”
So, three things I’m learning from this passage.
- I want to warn and teach with all wisdom.
- I want to present everyone mature in Christ, although specifically I feel called to present women mature in Christ.
- It’s through God’s strength, not mine.
That one’s really difficult for me to grasp. But I love that at the end of verse 29, Paul says he’s striving with His strength, God’s strength, that works powerfully in him. So right now I’m kind of at, like, a weird crossroads where I’m learning how to work as hard as I should and leave the rest to God. And I’m also learning what my limits are and how to work in flow with God because I have a lot of limits, a lot of weaknesses. I constantly have migraines. I experience depression and anxiety.
And it’s hard to know when I need to push through and when I need to give myself a break. So, I’m at this weird crossroads where I’m kind of figuring all that out. And God is teaching me how to work through those things and live the way He intends. Still making room for rest, but also not being lazy.
It’s a difficult balance sometimes.
Recent Struggles
So, in the last few weeks, there’s been a lot of spiritual warfare and my gut reaction is to try harder, like to work harder to spend more hours on things. And when I do that, I kind of put these blinders on.
And I miss my other callings like I miss my family and taking care of my home and taking care of my daughter. Like they just don’t get as much of my attention as they should have.
So, I’m learning that when my family and my ministry are under attack, I need to lean into God. The answer isn’t creating more podcasts or blog posts or Instagram content. The answer is to soak in Him and see where it takes me. So that’s where I am right now, which means that these podcast episodes might not be weekly. I’m not really sure what’s gonna happen here. I’m just trying to stay open to what he’s asking me to do.
Changing the Podcast Name
And the podcast name change was a bit of a surprise. It’s kind of funny. I’ve wanted to change the name of the podcast since I started the podcast, but I didn’t have any ideas. Nothing sounded good to me and I didn’t know what to do. And the other day I was driving and I was just thinking about some of the things that I’ve been struggling with.
One of them, I was like, “Oh, God, I really want to change the name of the podcast but I don’t know what it should be. I have no ideas and I don’t know what to do. And God was just like, “just name it One Spiritual Journey and I was like, “OK, it’s kind of random” and He’s like, “no, it’s fine.” So I’m like, “OK, I guess that’s the podcast name now.” And I think it makes sense because the stories that I tell, it’s my spiritual journey. It’s not yours. Everyone’s spiritual journey doesn’t look the same. And I want to share my one spiritual journey to encourage yours so it works. And I guess we’re keeping it.
The Prayers I Pray
So, One of the things I wanted to share with you before I wrap up this podcast is as I was going through Colossians, God inspired me to write a couple prayers for myself, for my ministry and for you, the women I reach. And I wanted to read those to you. They’re short. You will also be able to find them on my website. Although, my website is currently in maintenance mode, because I’ve been doing a lot of work on it. So eventually these will be available on my about page. And if you’re listening to this a couple weeks after I publish it, it’s very possible that page is ready for you to look at. So you will be able to get a physical, to see a physical copy of these.
For Myself
So the first one, the first prayer is for myself and the prayer is “that I would warn and teach women with wisdom as a labor to present them maturing Christ through God’s strength, which is working powerfully in me. That I would have compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience with the women I serve. And above all, that I would love them the way that God loves them. I’m praying that I give glory not to myself, but to God because of His faithful love and truth.” And that prayer is based on Colossians 1:28-29, Colossians 3:13-14 and Psalm 115:1.
For My Ministry
And then for my ministry, my prayer is “that my ministry would present women mature in Christ, that it would portray the truth and simplicity of the gospel. That it would be encouraging to Christian women on their faith journey that it would communicate knowledge and wisdom, and that above all, love will be the foundation of every part of my ministry.” And that’s based on Colossians 1:28, Colossians 2:2 and Colossians 3:14.
For the Women I Reach
And then lastly, I have a prayer that I pray for you, the women that I reach. And my prayer is “that the women I reach be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that they may walk worthy of God, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of him that they would be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. That they might have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to Him who has enabled them to share in the Saints, inheritance in light.” And that’s based on Colossians 1:9-12.
If you’ve never prayed Scripture before, I highly recommend it. It has changed my life. Even if you just start by picking out a verse or two to pray over yourself. It is totally worth your time to learn how to pray through scripture.
Conclusion
That’s all I have for you today. Like I said, I’m not sure how frequent these podcast episodes are going to be, but my goal is to help present you mature in Christ. If you have any ideas of how I can help you do that. I would encourage you to e-mail me. You can find my e-mail address in the show notes.
If you find yourself thinking about me, I would really appreciate if you would pray for me. I’ve been struggling with a lot of spiritual warfare, just a lot of health issues, there’s a lot going on. And I definitely feel Satan pushing me back and I just need some encouragement to help me continue forward. So if you think of me and you have a chance to pray for me, I would really appreciate it.
Connect with Me
If you want to get connected with me, you can subscribe to this podcast. Also, as of just a few weeks ago, Spotify added the option to comment. Which I don’t even know how to do that, but if you figured it out I would love if you commented on this podcast on Spotify. I don’t know if other platforms like Apple Podcast, or Amazon Music also let you do that, but if that’s possible, I would love to read your comments. That’d be great.
You can also e-mail me at brigette@brigettehenry.com. My name has an interesting spelling, so again refer to the show notes to get my e-mail address.
Social
Please follow me on Instagram.
And you can also join the journey together Facebook Group. I’m keeping that name because the whole point of that Facebook group is that we’re going on our spiritual journeys together, that we’re sharing those journeys with each other. So I am keeping that name as Journey Together. The Journey Together Facebook group. You can find the link to that in the show notes.
Subscribe
And you can also find a link to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter. That’s where I share some background about me and usually remind you that new podcast episodes are coming out if you’d like a reminder. And I also talk more in the e-mail newsletter about new products and projects that I’ve been working on, so if that interests you, I highly encourage you to subscribe to the e-mail newsletter. That is where I communicate first.
Speaking
Also I am located in Northeast Ohio. Kind of east of Cleveland. And, I’m looking for speaking opportunities. You can e-mail me at brigette@brigettehenry.com if you’re interested and we can kind of talk about what you’re looking for and what you need. I would love to be a speaker for your event.
So that’s all I have today. Thank you for joining me today on One Spiritual Journey and I’m looking forward to encouraging and teaching you in the future. Bye.
LINKS:
CONTACT ME at: brigette@brigettehenry.com
Join the JOURNEY TOGETHER FACEBOOK GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/journeytogetherchristianwomen
FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/onespiritualjourney
JOIN MY MAILING LIST: https://brigettehenry.com/subscribe
Things I Mentioned Today:
Focus on the Family Christian Counselors Network: https://focusonthefamily.com/christian-counselors-network
Colossians Brand Episode: https://brigettehenry.com/colossians-is-my-new-brand/
Grace and Truth Episode: https://brigettehenry.com/a-gospel-of-grace-and-truth/
Redeeming Your Time by Jordan Raynor: https://www.amazon.com/Redeeming-Your-Time-Principles-Purposeful/dp/0593193075
Prayers I Pray for You, Me and My Ministry: https://brigettehenry.com/about/#myprayers
Other Fun Links:
Visit MY WEBSITE: https://brigettehenry.com
Music: by Audio Coffee via Pixabay
Notes:
All scripture is CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
All Greek word definitions come from Strong’s Definitions. You can get access to this resource and more at blueletterbible.org.
Share Post – Follow Me
