Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 9, 2025 | Expresso - Andrea Brandt

Transcript

August 9, 2025 | Expresso - Andrea Brandt · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good evening.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I do have to say I jumped in full feet and all.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is my first time here this evening, and I'm speaking.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, like Connie said, I'm Andrea and I am a single mother to an 11-month-old.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: He turned 11 months today.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this is my beautiful family.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have six, six living siblings.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I do have a sister that passed away.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: She was stillborn.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but my parents got divorced when I was six.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was born in St.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, Minneapolis, and I lived there for five almost six years.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um my parents separated and divorced, and then my mom moved us here to Kansas.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is all of my brothers and sisters and their families.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then my I am a twin.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so we look nothing alike.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: We are fraternal twins, and I graduated high school in 2008.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I grew up going to a Lutheran church.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we didn't know what it was like to have a personal relationship with Christ, but when we entered high school, my mom allowed us to decide whether we wanted to continue going to the Lutheran church or if we wanted to go to a different church.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so we chose a non-denominational church that we went to and got really involved in in the youth group.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And my twin sister and I graduated, and then I went off to Fort Hayes State University.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I loved my family to death, but I had to go three hours away.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then in November 2008, I decided to get baptized and accept the Lord as my personal savior and develop that relationship with Christ.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: That was a big step for me because there have been changes since, and then I've come back.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I graduated Fort Hayes, yay! I was in, I had to go out to the real world, I had to figure out what I was gonna do in life, and I didn't know where I was going.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was lost.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I had a relationship with Christ, and yes, that was a huge part of my life.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: But again, I didn't know where I was going.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was lost.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was a new beginning.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had known for five years my community that I had developed at Fort Hayes State University, and so I worked at a summer camp, the summer of 2013, and there was a group of Latter-day Saints that had come to the camp for two weeks, and they really embellished my life and um really reached out to me, and I felt like I was supported by them.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so my life choice was to become a part of the Latter-day Saint Church.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was a part of the Latter-day Saint Church for probably four years.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was difficult for me.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: They had, I'd grown up with being able to be a free person and being able to make my own decisions and being able to go shopping on certain days of the week.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when I joined the Latter-day Saints Church, they had some, I don't want to say guidelines.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: They had recommendations of on Sundays going to church and then staying home and worshiping and spending time with family.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't recommend going shopping, they didn't recommend going out and doing anything on Sundays.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't recommend drinking coffee, which is very difficult for me.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that caffeine is was a huge part of my life.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so four years after being a part of that, I decided not to be a part of their family anymore.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I did get baptized in the Clinton Lake.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was the summer of 2017.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I decided to come back to a relationship, a personal relationship with Christ, and it has been the best thing that I've decided to do.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: 2017, I decided to go to nursing school, and I graduated as a nurse.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was a very difficult year for me.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there were a lot of job changes and schooling and studying and not a whole lot of social activity, and so I struggled, but my number one was to go to church every single Sunday.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I did proceed with that and continued my relationship with Christ.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's a part of who I am today.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I got married um June of 2019 to whom I thought was my best friend.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: He ended up committing adultery and lying to me for two years about it, and so we chose to separate the end of January 2014.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted a separation.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know if I wanted to fully divorce, and so he left.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And while we were still trying things out before he officially left, I came home from work to divorce papers.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I felt like that decision was made for me.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: He filed for divorce February 7th, 2024.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I found out I was pregnant two days later.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: To my beautiful boy Micaiah.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was a very, very, very hard time.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um February 11th was when I started coming to Topeka Bible Church.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that is when I joined the single moms group.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they have been a huge, huge, huge blessing.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Friendship, family support system, being able to talk about your struggles and be able to reach out to them in the middle of the night if you have to to see how they went through things when you're going through the same thing that they went through.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: March 2024.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was coming home from a girl's trip with my sisters, and a lovely deer ran out in front of me, and I had no option to even slam on the brakes.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: But this lovely visual aid of the rubber duck, I'm sure you guys heard me talk about it in my video.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: This was sitting on my dashboard.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in single moms, we are always reminded to duck out of the way and let God lead.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if I didn't have this duck on the dashboard, I don't know where I would have been.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to drive my car back home with they totaled it out the next couple days, but I was able to drive it home safely and not have to worry about how I was gonna get around because I did have a second vehicle.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I can't imagine how life would have been different if this isn't the only damage that happened.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So then I decide to announce my pregnancy with my wonderful dogs.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're great, they are actually a huge blessing.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: They've been fantastic with Makaia.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was so nervous about that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then Makaiah was born.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, this last year was a huge huge struggle.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I had to deal with the pain and the anger of getting divorced and how I was gonna raise this child on my own.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he came.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It has been a struggle.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I can't say it's been rainbows and butterflies.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's been ups and downs and not knowing what I was gonna do or what I was gonna go through.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: But he's been a huge blessing.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's been the biggest bundle of joy watching him grow up, watching him come to church on Sundays.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: He now sings.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if you hear him singing, it's beautiful.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I've also loved coming to Tobeka Bible Church because there have been so many people wanting to love on him and show them that they support me through that love.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this was him on Saturday.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: We went to our very first wedding, and he did fantastic.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, he's the biggest bundle of joy that I've ever experienced.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have a song that I want to close with.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that song is very near and dear to my heart.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of scars.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: One of those big scars was the fact that I came from a divorced family, and I didn't ever want to raise a child in a divorced family.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't matter what that scar is.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what that scar means, it doesn't matter what any scar means.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to leave with you guys that no matter how many scars you have, whether it be pain, whether it be sorrow, those are the Lord's scars.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he's here to guide you through all of those scars.
• 10:48
  unknown: Thank you.