Brooke Martin's Journey: From News Anchor to Author of Controlled Burn - Part I

Welcome to the official podcast of the Love Times Two Project! In this exciting season premiere, we are thrilled to introduce our special guest, Brooke Martin, an Emmy-winning news anchor turned author and speaker. Brooke shares her powerful journey and the inspiration behind her debut book, Controlled Burn: Rising from the Ashes to Forge an Unshakable Faith.

In this episode, Brooke recounts the heartbreaking diagnosis and loss of her daughter, Emma Noel, and how this profound experience transformed her faith and life. Through her story, she illustrates how life's most challenging moments can lead to growth, beauty, and hope. Brooke's insights offer encouragement to those grappling with their own grief and suffering.

Don't miss this compelling conversation that delves into themes of faith, resilience, and the transformative power of love. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform so you never miss an episode, especially the upcoming part two of this interview with Brooke Martin.

Episode Transcript

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Music.

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To the official podcast of the Love Times Two Project. Change the culture and
the politics will follow.
Hey, welcome back to the podcast and welcome to our brand new season.
I'm really excited about all of the things that we have planned.
So just a very quick reminder to subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform

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that you listen to so that you never miss an episode, especially in this upcoming
season, because we have some really great stuff lined up.
Now, today, to kick everything off for this brand new season,
we have a very special guest.
Season's premier guest is somebody that I'm just thrilled that we can have on the podcast here.
Brooke Martin is an Emmy-winning news anchor, turned author and speaker,

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and for 15 years, she has told the community stories, never knowing that she
would one day be compelled to tell her own story.
After the fatal diagnosis and death of her daughter, Emma Noel,
Brooke has worked to show others how life's fires can bring new growth,
great beauty, and everlasting hope.
Brooke, welcome to the Love Times 2 podcast.

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Thanks, Mike. It's such an honor to be with you. We're here to talk about your
powerful journey and your debut book.
It's called Controlled Burn, Rising from the Ashes to Forge an Unshakable Faith.
Let me just say right up front before we dive into it. Great job.
It's a book that I found to be very, very compelling, very much done in a storyteller's

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type of way that pulls people along into the process and just really great job.
I mean, I know it's difficult to write books. So how long did it take you to
write Controlled Burn? Yeah, I thank you. First of all, that means so much to me.
I wrote it in four months, which I now have been told is not a very long time to write a book.
But that's the deadline that I was given by my publisher when I signed with them.

(02:01):
And so I cranked this thing out. But luckily for me, I had the concept in my
mind and my heart for a little while before I started writing.
Yeah, it was a process for sure. So when I heard that you had this book coming
out, I was really looking forward to reading it and just see what God is doing in your life.

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How did the entire idea of this book even come about?
This idea came about when I started feeling called out of news.
I was a news anchor for 15 years and thought I would do it my whole career.
But two years after the birth and death of our daughter, I just started feeling this call out.

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And, you know, we'll get into our story, I'm sure, a little bit more.
But I heard from so many people throughout our journey who were just drowning
in grief of their own loss or just despair that felt really burdensome to me.
And here, we had experienced the opposite. We had experienced just transformation

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in our lives, in our faith, in our marriage.
And I wanted to figure out how to connect, how to build this bridge with others
who were experiencing the opposite.
And so this idea of controlled burn came one day as I was driving down the highway,
and And I prayed a simple prayer.
I just said, God, if you're calling

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me out of news, can you please tell me what you're calling me into?
I'm expecting like a call into PR or some kind of natural bridge after news.
And instead, I just saw the clearest vision in my mind's eye of a burned out forest.
With it were the words controlled burn. And I just got really quiet because
I obviously didn't understand it at all.

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But I also realized this is something. and piece by piece, God just kind of
downloaded this concept of suffering as fire, right? That's how it's often referred to.
And our suffering can take one of two divergent paths.
It can grow out of control and turn into a wildfire that can destroy for generations.

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Or if our pain and suffering is bordered by God's promises and his provision and his power,
our suffering can actually burn away what is holding us back from him and in
turn leave nutrient-rich soil that can grow things in us that could have never
grown without the flames.
And so it was just this profound illustration of suffering. And I realized...

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I need to do something to get this out to people who need it.
And I thought I might develop curriculum, you know, just kind of do a grassroots
effort to just get this resource into people's hands. Never wanted to write a book.
In fact, I actually said that out loud, like the one thing I don't want to do is write a book.
And, you know, as it so often goes, when you tell God your plans,

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right, doors just started flying open that I couldn't deny and that I knew I
needed to walk And so here we are with Controlled Burner. And you set the stage
right up front in the book. I think it's in the introduction.
You made this statement. I underlined it immediately when I read it.
And it's this, life has a way of bringing us down when we least expect it.
And I'm sure that's going to grab everyone's attention because everyone can relate to that.

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And one way or the other, everybody knows exactly what you're talking about when you say that.
Some people may be listening to this and they think, okay, I get it that we can lean into God.
Or at least, you know, that's what you say, but you don't know what I'm going through.
And maybe folks are saying, I'm dealing with all of this in my life.
And they're maybe listening to this podcast and they're saying,

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have you really walked through fire?
Like I'm walking through fire, but you have walked through a fire that few of us can imagine.
You're using that experience and one precious little girl's life to bring glory
and to point folks to God. So tell us about that story.
Yeah. So I was pregnant with our second child in 2018.

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We had a son who was two years old at the time and we had our fingers crossed
for a girl to complete our family.
And everything was just really shiny and bright in life. I had my dream job.
Our family was growing. We were putting down roots in Indianapolis.
And so we made the announcement that I was pregnant to the viewers and they

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become like family and everyone was very excited.
And shortly after, about 14 weeks into my pregnancy, I got a bad case of bronchitis
and went into my OB just to get a Z-Pak before I was going into work one day.
Before I was leaving, the nurse practitioner asked if I wanted to see the baby,
which of course is always yes.

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And so I was alone in the ultrasound room when they made a terrible discovery
that our baby had anencephaly, which is a condition that their skull just does
does not fully close in development,
but everything else continues perfectly.
But it is a 0% chance of survival diagnosis.

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And I was in shock when I was told that news.
But in the ultrasound room, when everyone left, in the silence,
I heard the word Emmanuel, the name, over and over and over in my mind.
And to be honest with you, I was very confused in that moment.
I could only associate see it with Christmas, and I didn't know why I was hearing it.

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But as you might know, Emmanuel is God with us.
And he was starting a divine conversation with me to really understand what that means.
I had grown up as a Christian most of my life, and I had a pretty solid understanding of these things.

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But what I didn't realize was the depth and the scope out.
Of what that means. And that was the beginning of our journey of living out
my pregnancy the next six months,
six, seven months on air as a news anchor growing,
you know, and deciding to keep this baby because it wasn't until we got home

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that we found out that she would likely survive full term and we might even get some time with her.
In fact, after that diagnosis in the the ultrasound room. My husband rushed
to the office and we were sent to the maternal fetal department.
And we knew very little at that point. And I assumed that it meant that our

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baby would die in utero at any moment and that we would have to walk through
a procedure after that, which I had never been through.
And so my first question to the doctor was what happens next?
And her response, and this was at a Catholic hospital, was we don't do it here,
but you can go to Planned Parenthood.

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And I was so confused.
I literally in the moment thought, why do I need to go to Planned Parenthood for a DNC?
And it was my husband's voice that kind of shocked me out of my confusion.
He said, we're keeping the baby.
And I looked at him and I looked at the doctor and it hit me all of a sudden.

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I'm like, she's assuming we want to abort this baby. be.
And like I said, it wasn't until we got home, did our own research,
realized the potential for life.
You know, all we were told about was the death and, and, you know,
and then continued on to just kind of make plans for the rest of the pregnancy.

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And that's how our story began.
Yeah. And I noticed in your book, it certainly appears that you were approached Approached.
About the entire situation, almost as if it were taken for granted that you
and your husband wanted to go ahead and just end your daughter's life at that point.
That's certainly, was that the way that it felt to you?

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It felt very assumed. I know why now, you know, it's about 85% of pregnancies
with encephaly diagnoses are terminated.
And that's really kind of a fluid number. No one really knows for sure, but it's very high.
And so I understand the confusion and the haze when you receive a diagnosis like this.

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I can't imagine the parents who receive that news in a facility where they say,
you can go up three floors right now and take care of this, Because you really
are in just a cloud of confusion.
And so I have such a heart for parents who have made different decisions.

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I just can't imagine when they actually realize what could have been.
And I've heard from multiple parents in that exact situation.
And so I'm just really grateful that we had the mindset to make that decision right then and there.
But it is so real and it is so hard. My heart is for the parents to understand

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that this isn't just an inconvenience.
This isn't a tragedy. This is life, and life can bring about the most profound
hope that is available this side of heaven.
Hey, that's all the time that we have today for this part one of an interview

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with Brooke Martin, author of her debut book, Controlled Burn.
I encourage you to come back next time because we have a lot more of this story to share with you.
In the meantime, please make sure that you are subscribing to this podcast on
whatever platform that you're listening to so that you never miss another episode.
And you sure don't want to miss part two of this interview.

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Never forget, change the culture and the politics will follow.
Thanks for listening to the official podcast of the
love times two project be sure to subscribe to
the podcast so you never miss an episode and never forget change the culture
and the politics will follow are you looking for the perfect speaker for your

(12:12):
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Music.