September 25, 2024 • 14 mins
Join us in this deeply moving episode of the Love Times Two Project's official podcast as we delve into the heart-wrenching yet hopeful journey of Brooke Martin and her husband, Cole. Brooke shares the sacred 21 minutes they spent with their daughter, Emma Noel, and the profound impact it had on their faith and lives.
Through a candid discussion, Brooke reveals how they navigated the fires of grief and found strength in their darkest moments. She discusses the transformative power of suffering and how it can lead to spiritual growth, testing and refining faith, and ultimately, a deeper intimacy with God.
In this episode, Brooke also talks about her new book, Controlled Burn, and the five purposes of pain that God revealed to her. She emphasizes the importance of embracing suffering with faith and how it can unlock profound truths and revelations about God's love and presence.
Whether you're facing your own fires of grief or seeking to understand the role of suffering in your spiritual journey, this episode offers powerful insights and encouragement. Brooke's story is a testament to the hope and strength that can be found in the midst of life's most challenging moments.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:08):
Official podcast of the Love Times Two Project. Change the culture and the politics will follow.
Life can bring about the most profound hope that is available this side of heaven.
That's really fascinating that you use that word hope.
In your book, you describe the 21 minutes that you and Cole had with Emma Noel after she was born.
(00:30):
Your description of that is a sacred 21 minutes. And that's a beautiful way
to describe every single one of those minutes.
Your description of that time is just so powerful. You know,
that wasn't the end of the journey for you because after these 21 minutes of
this sacred time, life goes on.
So tell us about the fires of grief that were ahead for you.
(00:52):
Yeah. I mean, even just three days ahead, we spent in the hospital beside Emma
as she was in a cuddle cot, which is a cooling holding bassinet to keep babies viable for closure.
And I'd been through the diagnosis and the pregnancy and the delivery and the death,
and it was still ahead the day that I dreaded the most because I couldn't understand
(01:15):
how a mother could walk out of the hospital without her baby.
And I woke up that morning of discharge with tears already streaming down my face. And I.
Part. I can't do it.
And instantaneously, I just felt a physical surge of strength from starting
(01:42):
my toes, and it just went through my entire body.
I felt peace fall on me tangibly.
It was like a weight that just decimated my fear.
And it was in that moment that I realized, oh my goodness, this is it?
God is with me and I can do this.
(02:05):
And we rocked Emma that morning and said our final goodbyes and walked out of the hospital.
And we got in the car and Cole and I looked at each other and we smiled.
And it wasn't that grief was gone, like not at all.
It was that we realized that we just walked through the decision that some called crazy.
(02:26):
We just walked through fire and we weren't burned. We didn't even smell like smoke.
And it's like in those moments where you realize everything you said you believed
your entire life is actually true,
that death couldn't defeat Jesus and it can't defeat us.
(02:48):
And that's what sparks these revelations, these unlockings of truth that make
you hungry for the things of God,
that make you realize you've settled for something so much less than what He offers us.
And that was the awakening. That was the awakening for Cole and I.
I say suffering is an invitation, and we have the right to say no to it.
(03:13):
But oh, when we say yes, there is so much more to be had.
I mean, let's face it, in the world today, which just increasingly seems to
be spinning getting faster and faster away from God rather than towards God,
even rejecting God that he even exists and so forth.
For folks that are walking in a world where God is not a part of their life,
(03:33):
there's just this huge horizon of hopelessness. There really is.
What you're sharing in this book and for those listening who are thinking,
well, that's kind of where I'm at. I see total hopelessness ahead.
You're really showing how in the most difficult circumstances that one might
be able to imagine, God is there and that he's in the fire.
And you have this great section in the book that says, it really talks about
(03:55):
how God has shown you five purposes of the fire. Can you touch on those?
Sure. I even say in the book, I hesitate.
On this part of the book specifically, because assigning purpose to pain can
sometimes feel cruel, right?
When you're in the middle of it, but it's so essential that we get this.
(04:16):
And a lot of times as I was writing this book, I felt that the truth that God
was leading me to write felt hard.
And I'll be honest, I had conversations with him that sounded like,
God, who is going to want to read this?
Don't people just need a hug? And ultimately, what he said to me is that truth
(04:37):
will lead to the greatest comfort.
And so we do, we talk about purposes of pain, kind of quickly going through them.
I talk about sharing in Christ's suffering, testing and refining faith,
attaining spiritual growth and maturity and accepting God's discipline and correction
and ultimately pursuing God's glory and honor.
(04:57):
There is profound purpose that God can lay upon us in suffering,
but ultimately it is our choice whether we walk through the fire with faith.
A lot of times, Mike, as we see with abortion as a great example,
is that we do anything to try to jump out of the fire.
(05:18):
Things that we don't want, things that will be uncomfortable,
things that we think will be hurtful,
we jump out and what happens is we end up walking around with painful burns
that remind us of the times that we were hurt instead of staying in the fire
and being forged by the flames.
And that is what this is about. Pain and suffering ultimately lead us to know Jesus.
(05:46):
And when I say know Him, I mean an intimacy that can only be forged in the fire.
God is so willing to walk with us through it, but really it is our choice.
And you see in our society time and time again, we are just doing anything to
either try and put out the flames ourselves or run away.
(06:09):
And in this book, what I'm encouraging people is that when you draw close to Jesus in the fire, near.
He has a perfect track record of redeeming every ounce of your pain and suffering.
Now, has God opened up doors for you and Cole to minister to other couples or
(06:29):
maybe just single moms that have an anencephaly diagnosis?
Have you been able to communicate in person and have a ministry at that level?
Not in person per se. We have done some speaking and talking to different groups.
And I hear from a lot of people, actually, who have received similar diagnoses,
(06:50):
and I do reach out to them, usually via phone or text or email,
and have been able to walk with some of them through that, which is an honor.
But no ministry in person yet. Maybe something that controlled burn is going
to open that wide open door, so we'll wait and see what God's going to do with all of that.
Now, I noticed that in the closing chapters of the book, you mentioned the Holy
(07:12):
Spirit's role in taking you and your husband, Cole, to brand new levels in your walk.
How did that understanding or maybe the better word to say is awakening?
How did that come about? What was what was the process? And I mean,
was there was there a moment where it was like suddenly it just kind of started
to all fall into place? Walk us through that a little bit.
(07:34):
Yeah, I think it was the moment in that hospital room. It was my taste of the more,
you know, it was this, this experience that I just realized I became insatiable
for the things of God that I had not pursued previously.
And I started to get around people who I felt had the same power.
(07:59):
You know, they were operating from this like divine horsepower.
Power. And I was just like, what is this?
Because it's what I want. It's what we want.
And so we ended up visiting a church and realizing as we walked out that God
was opening up a new path of just kind of awakening, of revelation.
(08:21):
And so we started pursuing the Holy Spirit.
I grew up in a very conservative Christian environment, sound biblical teaching,
but perhaps not complete.
And so the Holy Spirit always just felt like this oddball cousin that I didn't
really know what to do with.
And, you know, I was careful not to do anything too weird.
(08:41):
And, you know, and so it wasn't until we started truly inviting Holy Spirit
into our lives to encourage and to correct and to really have an equal place
in the Trinity in our lives that really our...
Our perception of the gospel was just like magnified.
(09:02):
I say in the book that, you know, it's like when you, when you stare at a fire,
you become kind of consumed and the flames continue to become more and more enrapturing.
And it's like, that is the gospel to me.
Like no longer is it just this stale piece of theology that lives in my head.
(09:22):
It now consumes my body. And I am constantly learning and God is constantly
revealing new aspects because of our continuous inviting of the Holy Spirit,
you know, to make way for him.
And I say it's kind of like, you know, what happens in a fire to a forest?
Jesus calls it the rivers of living water, right? He was referring to the Holy Spirit.
(09:47):
And I thought as I was writing this book, what happens to a river in a fire?
Well, what happens is that it burns away the vegetation around the banks of
the fire and in turn creates a rush of water.
The river flows with more intensity and more power than ever before.
(10:07):
And I say this is the potential for our life's sufferings. It can burn away,
you know, fear of man and preconceived ideas and all these kind of things that were keeping us tame.
And it can unleash a profound flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
This is just one example of what fire can do in and through us,
(10:29):
really what God can do in and through us if we submit and surrender our suffering to him.
Hey, we're talking to Brooke Martin, author of the new book,
Controlled Burn. It's an excellent book that I really encourage everyone listening to buy.
It's a very powerful book and very deep insights.
But Brooke, we might have someone listening to this and they're still thinking,
(10:50):
okay, powerful story, but in their mind, they're saying, you still don't know
what I've gone through. You don't know the fire that I'm in right now.
You don't know the fire that may be burned in my past that I can't get over.
For those folks that are out there that are hearing this, they're wanting to
go deeper, but they just can't get past it because they feel like everything's
burned to the ground. It's scorched earth.
(11:11):
There's no hope for me. What do you want that person to hear?
What do you want that person to feel and take away from your book?
I want them to know that you're right, Mike, like, I don't know.
I don't know. And most people don't know when we walk through the fires of life,
they can't relate. But Jesus can.
Jesus experienced every single level of pain and suffering that we can imagine.
(11:37):
And he took it to the cross and he said, it is finished.
And then he rose again and gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to usher us into
this beautiful beautiful reality of eternity and life with Him in the here and now.
It's not just something for the future. It is here and now.
And I just want people to know that God is at work in your pain and suffering
(12:01):
more than you can possibly fathom.
And it's so much about our perspective of how we view our suffering.
In fact, Oswald Chambers has this quote that I love, and he says,
As most of us collapse at the first grip of pain, we sit down at the door of
God's purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity.
(12:24):
And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed, but God will not.
He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of his son as if to say,
enter into fellowship with me, arise and shine.
It is so contrary to what the world wants us to believe about pain and suffering
that we just need to get through it. We just need to survive or we just need
(12:46):
to succumb or numb the pain.
And God's saying, no, no, no, I'm not going to let you just survive or numb this.
Take my hand, arise and shine.
Controlled Burn is a powerful book. What you're listening to today,
just in this interview with Brooke, is just a very tip of the iceberg of the
deep dive that you're going to find when you check out Controlled Burn.
(13:07):
It's going to be a book that is very meaningful to you individually and a book
that you can share with others. How can people learn more about Controlled Burn
or contact you for more information on how they could have you come speak at an event?
So you can go to my website. Thanks for asking.
Morewithbrookmartin.com has all the information. I'm also on a lot of social
media platforms. So feel free to reach out, email. I'd love to connect with anyone.
(13:32):
Okay. Thank you, Brooke Martin, author of the new book, Controlled Burn.
Brooke, thanks for being on the podcast.
Thanks, Mike. Hey, that's it for this episode of the podcast.
As always, I encourage you to subscribe to the podcast and make sure you never
miss an episode because we have a lot of great interviews that are coming up still.
And never forget, change the culture and the politics will follow.
(13:56):
Thanks for listening to the official podcast of the Love Times 2 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.
Music.
(00:08):
Official podcast of the Love Times Two Project. Change the culture and the politics will follow.
Life can bring about the most profound hope that is available this side of heaven.
That's really fascinating that you use that word hope.
In your book, you describe the 21 minutes that you and Cole had with Emma Noel after she was born.
(00:30):
Your description of that is a sacred 21 minutes. And that's a beautiful way
to describe every single one of those minutes.
Your description of that time is just so powerful. You know,
that wasn't the end of the journey for you because after these 21 minutes of
this sacred time, life goes on.
So tell us about the fires of grief that were ahead for you.
(00:52):
Yeah. I mean, even just three days ahead, we spent in the hospital beside Emma
as she was in a cuddle cot, which is a cooling holding bassinet to keep babies viable for closure.
And I'd been through the diagnosis and the pregnancy and the delivery and the death,
and it was still ahead the day that I dreaded the most because I couldn't understand
(01:15):
how a mother could walk out of the hospital without her baby.
And I woke up that morning of discharge with tears already streaming down my face. And I.
Part. I can't do it.
And instantaneously, I just felt a physical surge of strength from starting
(01:42):
my toes, and it just went through my entire body.
I felt peace fall on me tangibly.
It was like a weight that just decimated my fear.
And it was in that moment that I realized, oh my goodness, this is it?
God is with me and I can do this.
(02:05):
And we rocked Emma that morning and said our final goodbyes and walked out of the hospital.
And we got in the car and Cole and I looked at each other and we smiled.
And it wasn't that grief was gone, like not at all.
It was that we realized that we just walked through the decision that some called crazy.
(02:26):
We just walked through fire and we weren't burned. We didn't even smell like smoke.
And it's like in those moments where you realize everything you said you believed
your entire life is actually true,
that death couldn't defeat Jesus and it can't defeat us.
(02:48):
And that's what sparks these revelations, these unlockings of truth that make
you hungry for the things of God,
that make you realize you've settled for something so much less than what He offers us.
And that was the awakening. That was the awakening for Cole and I.
I say suffering is an invitation, and we have the right to say no to it.
(03:13):
But oh, when we say yes, there is so much more to be had.
I mean, let's face it, in the world today, which just increasingly seems to
be spinning getting faster and faster away from God rather than towards God,
even rejecting God that he even exists and so forth.
For folks that are walking in a world where God is not a part of their life,
(03:33):
there's just this huge horizon of hopelessness. There really is.
What you're sharing in this book and for those listening who are thinking,
well, that's kind of where I'm at. I see total hopelessness ahead.
You're really showing how in the most difficult circumstances that one might
be able to imagine, God is there and that he's in the fire.
And you have this great section in the book that says, it really talks about
(03:55):
how God has shown you five purposes of the fire. Can you touch on those?
Sure. I even say in the book, I hesitate.
On this part of the book specifically, because assigning purpose to pain can
sometimes feel cruel, right?
When you're in the middle of it, but it's so essential that we get this.
(04:16):
And a lot of times as I was writing this book, I felt that the truth that God
was leading me to write felt hard.
And I'll be honest, I had conversations with him that sounded like,
God, who is going to want to read this?
Don't people just need a hug? And ultimately, what he said to me is that truth
(04:37):
will lead to the greatest comfort.
And so we do, we talk about purposes of pain, kind of quickly going through them.
I talk about sharing in Christ's suffering, testing and refining faith,
attaining spiritual growth and maturity and accepting God's discipline and correction
and ultimately pursuing God's glory and honor.
(04:57):
There is profound purpose that God can lay upon us in suffering,
but ultimately it is our choice whether we walk through the fire with faith.
A lot of times, Mike, as we see with abortion as a great example,
is that we do anything to try to jump out of the fire.
(05:18):
Things that we don't want, things that will be uncomfortable,
things that we think will be hurtful,
we jump out and what happens is we end up walking around with painful burns
that remind us of the times that we were hurt instead of staying in the fire
and being forged by the flames.
And that is what this is about. Pain and suffering ultimately lead us to know Jesus.
(05:46):
And when I say know Him, I mean an intimacy that can only be forged in the fire.
God is so willing to walk with us through it, but really it is our choice.
And you see in our society time and time again, we are just doing anything to
either try and put out the flames ourselves or run away.
(06:09):
And in this book, what I'm encouraging people is that when you draw close to Jesus in the fire, near.
He has a perfect track record of redeeming every ounce of your pain and suffering.
Now, has God opened up doors for you and Cole to minister to other couples or
(06:29):
maybe just single moms that have an anencephaly diagnosis?
Have you been able to communicate in person and have a ministry at that level?
Not in person per se. We have done some speaking and talking to different groups.
And I hear from a lot of people, actually, who have received similar diagnoses,
(06:50):
and I do reach out to them, usually via phone or text or email,
and have been able to walk with some of them through that, which is an honor.
But no ministry in person yet. Maybe something that controlled burn is going
to open that wide open door, so we'll wait and see what God's going to do with all of that.
Now, I noticed that in the closing chapters of the book, you mentioned the Holy
(07:12):
Spirit's role in taking you and your husband, Cole, to brand new levels in your walk.
How did that understanding or maybe the better word to say is awakening?
How did that come about? What was what was the process? And I mean,
was there was there a moment where it was like suddenly it just kind of started
to all fall into place? Walk us through that a little bit.
(07:34):
Yeah, I think it was the moment in that hospital room. It was my taste of the more,
you know, it was this, this experience that I just realized I became insatiable
for the things of God that I had not pursued previously.
And I started to get around people who I felt had the same power.
(07:59):
You know, they were operating from this like divine horsepower.
Power. And I was just like, what is this?
Because it's what I want. It's what we want.
And so we ended up visiting a church and realizing as we walked out that God
was opening up a new path of just kind of awakening, of revelation.
(08:21):
And so we started pursuing the Holy Spirit.
I grew up in a very conservative Christian environment, sound biblical teaching,
but perhaps not complete.
And so the Holy Spirit always just felt like this oddball cousin that I didn't
really know what to do with.
And, you know, I was careful not to do anything too weird.
(08:41):
And, you know, and so it wasn't until we started truly inviting Holy Spirit
into our lives to encourage and to correct and to really have an equal place
in the Trinity in our lives that really our...
Our perception of the gospel was just like magnified.
(09:02):
I say in the book that, you know, it's like when you, when you stare at a fire,
you become kind of consumed and the flames continue to become more and more enrapturing.
And it's like, that is the gospel to me.
Like no longer is it just this stale piece of theology that lives in my head.
(09:22):
It now consumes my body. And I am constantly learning and God is constantly
revealing new aspects because of our continuous inviting of the Holy Spirit,
you know, to make way for him.
And I say it's kind of like, you know, what happens in a fire to a forest?
Jesus calls it the rivers of living water, right? He was referring to the Holy Spirit.
(09:47):
And I thought as I was writing this book, what happens to a river in a fire?
Well, what happens is that it burns away the vegetation around the banks of
the fire and in turn creates a rush of water.
The river flows with more intensity and more power than ever before.
(10:07):
And I say this is the potential for our life's sufferings. It can burn away,
you know, fear of man and preconceived ideas and all these kind of things that were keeping us tame.
And it can unleash a profound flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
This is just one example of what fire can do in and through us,
(10:29):
really what God can do in and through us if we submit and surrender our suffering to him.
Hey, we're talking to Brooke Martin, author of the new book,
Controlled Burn. It's an excellent book that I really encourage everyone listening to buy.
It's a very powerful book and very deep insights.
But Brooke, we might have someone listening to this and they're still thinking,
(10:50):
okay, powerful story, but in their mind, they're saying, you still don't know
what I've gone through. You don't know the fire that I'm in right now.
You don't know the fire that may be burned in my past that I can't get over.
For those folks that are out there that are hearing this, they're wanting to
go deeper, but they just can't get past it because they feel like everything's
burned to the ground. It's scorched earth.
(11:11):
There's no hope for me. What do you want that person to hear?
What do you want that person to feel and take away from your book?
I want them to know that you're right, Mike, like, I don't know.
I don't know. And most people don't know when we walk through the fires of life,
they can't relate. But Jesus can.
Jesus experienced every single level of pain and suffering that we can imagine.
(11:37):
And he took it to the cross and he said, it is finished.
And then he rose again and gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to usher us into
this beautiful beautiful reality of eternity and life with Him in the here and now.
It's not just something for the future. It is here and now.
And I just want people to know that God is at work in your pain and suffering
(12:01):
more than you can possibly fathom.
And it's so much about our perspective of how we view our suffering.
In fact, Oswald Chambers has this quote that I love, and he says,
As most of us collapse at the first grip of pain, we sit down at the door of
God's purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity.
(12:24):
And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed, but God will not.
He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of his son as if to say,
enter into fellowship with me, arise and shine.
It is so contrary to what the world wants us to believe about pain and suffering
that we just need to get through it. We just need to survive or we just need
(12:46):
to succumb or numb the pain.
And God's saying, no, no, no, I'm not going to let you just survive or numb this.
Take my hand, arise and shine.
Controlled Burn is a powerful book. What you're listening to today,
just in this interview with Brooke, is just a very tip of the iceberg of the
deep dive that you're going to find when you check out Controlled Burn.
(13:07):
It's going to be a book that is very meaningful to you individually and a book
that you can share with others. How can people learn more about Controlled Burn
or contact you for more information on how they could have you come speak at an event?
So you can go to my website. Thanks for asking.
Morewithbrookmartin.com has all the information. I'm also on a lot of social
media platforms. So feel free to reach out, email. I'd love to connect with anyone.
(13:32):
Okay. Thank you, Brooke Martin, author of the new book, Controlled Burn.
Brooke, thanks for being on the podcast.
Thanks, Mike. Hey, that's it for this episode of the podcast.
As always, I encourage you to subscribe to the podcast and make sure you never
miss an episode because we have a lot of great interviews that are coming up still.
And never forget, change the culture and the politics will follow.
(13:56):
Thanks for listening to the official podcast of the Love Times 2 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.
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