Brandi’s Story

"What am I supposed to write?" was my first thought when I was asked to write the blog to preface my Made Lemons episode. I've never done a blog but here goes nothing.

My name is Brandi (but my mom calls me Nikki) and I am the quintessential example of putting one foot in front of the other, led only by gut feelings dropped in my spirit by God, not really knowing what's going to happen until I've reached the end of my yellow brick road. I then look back and say "OHHH!! Now I get it God! Understood!" Every aspect of my life is riddled with trials that turned into triumph, rainy nights that turned into sunny days, mourning that turned into dancing (yep I love the Word of God and Elevation Worship Music LOL!)

I won't go into a lot of detail in this blog because you're clearly going to listen to 30 minutes of my rambling about my experiences as a teen parent wanting to create a life worth living for my daughter, a wife refusing to give up on the man I love (and believe in) and an aspiring professional laser focused on helping people. What I will say is...this is pretty scary! To talk 1:1 with people about my experiences has always been easy for me, even sharing parts of my story during speaking engagements hasn't caused me to blink an eye; but my conversation with Sarah felt different (and actually led her to asking me to be her co-host...go figure!). Every word uttered is true, of course based on how I experienced it, shared in love with full transparency. I keep rethinking what I said, wondering if I said too much or not enough. After contemplating it for much too long God settled my spirit in the fact that it came out the way He intended it to. I have peace with that.

My prayer is that I have been, yet again, moved into this space to help someone. Whether it's 1, 10 or 100 of you; I hope my story helps you develop faith, create hope, and find love in your broken places.