Brianne Henry

Tonight I spent a few lovely hours with some ladies from my church making hair bows for the girls at the orphanage in El Salvador. As women, we love to talk while we work and spent some time getting to know each other. The topics bounced from our husbands to our pasts to our families to having kids (or current kids) and so on. Ladies, I know you understand how topics can bounce quickly from subject to subject when we get together! Needless to say, we covered a lot of material in those short couple of hours. On the way home, I was thinking over all that was said, especially the parts about having/raising kids, and I was struck by a couple of thoughts. First of all, how do you raise godly children? That question led me to "what are the most important things to teach your children?" I obviously don't have the answer but I did think of two very important things I have learned that I want to instill in my children from a young age. And I also hope I continue to live by this

Generally (well for the past two Christmases that we've been married), I have sent out a Christmas letter documenting our year complete with a few pictures. This year I am #1 - a little lazy to address & stamp all those envelopes and #2 - on a pretty tight budget - so I have decided to use technology and send out our Christmas card via my blog. (And I also can't find my address list!!!!!!). 2011 has been a pretty crazy year for the Henry family. Really crazy actually. In February, after about 7 months of prayerful consideration, we resigned from our jobs, effective the beginning of June.   The Lord had called us to seminary, which required a move to Kansas City. We put our house on the market and prepared ourselves for the “big city.” The Lord blessed us with a great buyer for our house near the end of May (nothing like cutting it close). On June 14, we loaded up our borrowed Harley trailer and we set out for Kansas City. We moved from a 1300 square foot home into a 700 s

My 25th birthday was last week. At first, I was going to do 25 things I loved about myself to celebrate my birthday...but then I decided that 25 was a little much and that I might not be able to think up that many things!  I am going to take this time to appreciate the things that I love about myself. Every woman should do this! I must say that I am not trying to be conceited or brag on myself, I am only teaching myself to love ME! Top 10 Things I Love About Me  10 - My choice in men. Bahahaha! I love my husband. :)  9 - My musical ability. Well, all I can do is play the piano, but I can play it darn good!  8 - My way with people. In my most recent job (and especially through the training aspect) I have realized that some people do not converse easily with strangers. I don't seem to have a problem with this! In fact, I enjoy talking with people.  7 - My family. I am so glad I came from where I did! I wouldn't trade my family for anything.  6 - My body. It's not perfe

The Bible study that I am currently doing now is taking me through the Lord's prayer and showing me what each part means. The Lord's prayer is a group of "index sentences" which is supposed to show us HOW to pray (not necessarily WHAT to pray). By following these index sentences, you can then fully grasp the greatness and power of prayer. Today I was looking at "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." I can quote the entire Lord's prayer (although I think I only know King James Version!) but have I ever stopped to really think about what that means? I did today! For one, this short sentence is way of saying, "Jesus we can't wait for Your return so that Your will may be done on the new earth with You as our King." It's also saying..."while I'm waiting for that to happen, I will be submissive to your will in my life." Submission, not an easy task...for some anyway. Matthew 7:21 is a real kicker if you think about

How is your prayer life?  I ask this because I am currently reading a book and doing a study on prayer. I am trying to strengthen my prayer life. As I'm learning, prayer is our connection to God...when we pray He takes us in His outstretched arms and holds us while we talk and listen to Him. I feel like I'm one of those people whose relationship with God goes in waves. If there's trouble or I need something from Him, then I'm praying and reading that Bible of mine. Before we moved and then once we got here, I was very diligent and disciplined about prayer. I have a prayer journal that I wrote in nearly every day. However, things are becoming routine here now. We've been here almost five months and we are settled into our new life. Why is it that when our lives become routine, we tend to slack off with God? Do you do this also? Or is it just me? You can look at other things in my life and notice how I am becoming a slacker! I worked so hard over the summer and wa

Okay, so funny story. Well, it was NOT funny until yesterday evening and now it's only semi-funny because I'm not quite over it and sure the threat is gone. But still, I'm sure it will be fine. At the beginning of this month, I was desperate so I started applying for random jobs on Craigslist. Really? What was I thinking? One of the jobs I had applied for was a personal assistant to....someone/thing? I sent them my resume (which unfortunately has my email/address/phone on it). I get an email back telling me what this "person" does for a living, the job requirements, AND that I have been hired (along with my first job assignment). I email back saying that I don't accept jobs from people that I have never met and if they want to interview me to let me know. End of story, I hear nothing else.... Fast forward to yesterday...there is a knock on the door at about 8:30am. Its the FedEx man with a package! Luke opens it and it's a random $3,200 check from peop

My last post ended with something I would like to pick up on today. I finished with asking where your identity was. I have been learning about my identity in Christ through Romans 8. I have learned so much about the love, grace, forgiveness and mercy of God through this study. If you take a look at Romans 8:5-17, it lists the differences between flesh and spirit. Proudly, I am OF the spirit and so are you provided that you are a believer. Read through that and take note of the differences between flesh and spirit. The flesh is death, hostile to God, can't submit to God's law, please Him and doesn't belong to God. The spirit has life, peace, we are children of God, we have no fear, we are a slave to no one and we are glorified with Him (to name a few). Wow, I am so incredibly happy to be a part of the spirit instead of the flesh. But if you think about all the unbelievers around you...they are walking zombies. They will die - they have no hope. Not only do they not want pl

So I was watching "The Today Show" this morning (as I do many mornings). A segment came on about the secrets of a strong marriage. I thought I would take a look, just to see what they said. Wow, they said some crazy things. According to their survey, 70% of women married 15-70 years think seriously about divorce at least once every 6 months. WHAT? There's a book out now (I can't remember the name of it) but, according to the book, some of the suggestions for keeping your marriage strong were: spending time apart, finding an activity to do by yourself, focusing on your children, one woman even said that she meets her college boyfriend every couple of months for "lunch and making out" and that's okay, even good for her marriage, because it's not an affair. Uh, seriously? Is this what people buy into? I can't even imagine how many women were at home this morning, watching that clip. Maybe even considering something so crazy as meeting another man

I just got back from a weekend in Branson with the ladies of Northland Baptist Church. The theme for the weekend was "Rest." Now, let me just tell you right now...I don't think I rested a whole lot over the weekend. We were up pretty late! But I did learn a few important things that I wanted to share. First off, there are two types of rest. Eternal rest and physical rest...they very much go hand-in-hand. How's your life when you aren't focused on God? What seems to happen when you take matters into your own hands instead of relying on God? Disaster, stress, chaos, failure. Right? Our minds must be focused on God (and our eternity with Him) or else physical rest cannot come. Isaiah 40:28-31 goes through a few characteristics of us as humans and then of God. They are the exact opposite. So we can rest in the fact that when we grow faint or weary...God never grows faint or weary. He empowers the weak and increases our strength. Take a look at the beginning of Isaia

Good morning blog readers! I hope you are having a great Wednesday. I told everyone I would provide more information about our upcoming mission trip. Here is most of the letter that I sent out to family. If you can support us in any way we would truly appreciate it!!!! God has truly been at work in our lives since we moved to Kansas City. He has provided us with an amazing new church, Northland Baptist Church, where we have been blessed with great ministry opportunities and a wonderful church family. I would like to share with you a challenging ministry opportunity that God has laid on mine and Luke's hearts.   From January 1 to January 8, we will be travelling to El Salvador to participate in a variety of ministry opportunities. Northland Baptist Church has a partnership with a church plant in El Salvador, as well as with an orphanage for sexually abused girls. While there, we will split our time between outreach projects with the church plant and ministering to the y

So, we went back to visit family in Ramsey this past weekend. I must say, last time we were there, we had only been living in KC for about 3 weeks so I didn't notice much. But this time...things felt different. I think I'm beginning to get the hang of the "city life" if you will. Once we were on I70 in Illinois, I noticed how dark everything was. No street lights, no building lights, not very many cars. We got to my parent's house and it was soooo quiet. We can't hear traffic from our apartment (hallelujah!) but we do have neighbors, lots of kids around, an airport about 15 minutes away and an occasional siren or two. The whole atmosphere is just...different. Which brings me to my next point - I saw many people over the weekend that I hadn't seen since we had left. People at church, people from my old job...they all wanted to know "Are you happy there?" Here's my answer... Absolutely, 100% YES in all capital letters. I am very happy here. I

Do you ever put words into God's mouth? Do you pretend like He's telling you something when maybe He's really not? Or do you get super excited about a possibility and tell yourself, "Yes, I believe this is the plan that God has for me!" Maybe it's just me that does this, not you. I have been absolutely overwhelmed with career possibilities, job opportunities, going back to school and such since we moved out here. I have prayed about it, pondered over it and did lots of Google searches. But what if I have it wrong?  What if I'm putting my two cents in and NOT listening to what God is telling me? For the past month or two, I've been consumed by becoming a financial adviser. Anything in the financial world, really. I've even applied for secretarial positions at financial firms just to get my foot in the door. And I got nothing. I seriously thought my life plan was to become a financial adviser. Do you know what financial advisers do? I do, because

Good morning blog-reading friends! I hope this Thursday finds you happy and healthy! I recently wrote a Facebook post that said this, "Do I take advantage of half-price tuition at Midwestern and get my Master's in Christian Education? Do I pursue a career in finance? Or do I simply wait and try for a teaching job again next year? Ugh, the decisions I must make!!!!" Moving to Kansas City has been such a whirlwind. It's a fresh start...I can change careers, I can go back to school, I can basically do whatever I want. It's a re-do, fully and completely. Some people welcome a new start, some people wish they could start over at the ripe old age of 24. But me? It stresses me out...way too much! A few people wrote back saying to pray and have patience (yeah, I've been doing that for over 2 months here!). But my brother-in-law wrote, "Relax and enjoy the point of life where you are at." I don't like admitting Josh is right. And when I first read it,

I apologize for the lack of blogs here recently. It seems that we are really busy, but nothing's going on. Ever feel like that? We've had a whirlwind few days here in KC. Lots of family visiting, which I love! Mom and Dad came last Saturday. However, their visit was cut short because we lost power for 7 hours and Mike Hayes doesn't do well in a strange place with no power. Needless to say, they left Sunday evening instead of Monday morning. Monday afternoon Will, Candi, Maddi & Hayden came to visit. We had so much fun with them and I hope they had a blast too. I met them Monday afternoon at the Legends. When they spotted me, Maddi & Hayden came running with outstretched arms. I nearly cried! I forgot how much I had missed them!!! While Hayden was hugging me he asked, "When's Luke gonna be here?" I said, "Sorry buddy, he's at work tonight and you won't see him until tomorrow." Hayden replied, "Are you kidding? I was in a car for

I was recently approached by someone to blog about my job. Most of you know that I am currently serving at Olive Garden. I call it serving because waitressing is now politically incorrect, I think anyway! I can think of two jobs (well, now three) that I have had in my life that I can honestly say were super hard work. The first was housekeeping at Oak Terrace, the second was waitressing/bartending at Oak Terrace and the third would be now. Serving is HARD work. Housekeeping was hard too, but serving takes the cake. There are no people to deal with in housekeeping, it's just physical (and gross!). Serving requires long hours. I have worked over nine hours for seven of the last 12 days. These nine hours a day are spent on my feet, maybe sitting for 15-20 minutes the entire shift. Not only am I standing, but I'm walking (nearly running) when we get busy. My uniform is long pants, long shirt buttoned all the way up and a tie. Not cool or comfortable in over 100 degree heat, whi

Good morning reader friends! I felt as though I hadn't written anything of substance for a while so here goes! I have been attending a Bible study with women who are on campus or have previously been on campus. This past week, someone told me they hadn't seen anyone get through seminary without a car breaking down (in a disastrous way), someone close to them dying, or serious financial woes. My first thought was, "Get me out of here!" But in all honesty, why do seminary families have so many troubles? I can tell you why, Satan is an attacker. An evil being who does not want any human growing in their faith in his nemesis. I remember a few things happening before we even moved that made me think that Satan was attacking us. He was doing everything in his power to make us stay where we were and lose faith in our Lord. But he didn't win, we're here. He's still attacking us though. Luke's job hasn't started yet...every time he calls they tell him t

Last night I celebrated Jesse's birthday with some fabulous ladies. I had a fantastic time! I haven't laughed that hard in SUCH a long time...it was needed! We went to Bucca di Beppo, which is an Italian restaurant on the Plaza. The restaurant is in the basement (the name of it actually means Joey's Basement, we asked). The food is family style, it's a great place to be really loud because no one cares! Our poor waiter probably thought I was crazy. It seemed he always came around at the wrong moments. The girls were doing silly things and I said, "I need to get a shot of that," meaning with my camera. He happened to walk by at that moment and says, "You want a shot?" (of alcohol). Ummmm...no, thanks. Towards the end of our night, I quoted a movie...something about "you filthy animal." Little waiter man happens to come check on our table at that point...he was like, "I don't get the joke." Poor guy, we left him a hefty tip fo

Proverbs 30:1 says, "The man declares, I am weary, O God; I am weary, O God, and worn out." How many of us (especially us women) occasionally (read: always) feel worn out and weary? I started a Bible study last Monday with some ladies from campus ("Brave" by Angela Thomas) and it goes through the various struggles of a woman. This week was the study on being worn out. I didn't think it had anything to do with me. I sleep in until 8 every morning, I have barely started my job and I don't really have a whole lot going on. I have lots of down time...I'm not worn out and I'm not weary. Well, think again. It's coming. Beginning August 1, I will be working at MBTS 30 hours a week, plus Olive Garden at least 3 nights a week/end. Luke will start his job at LifeWay in the next week or so, bringing with it 20 hours of him being away from home. Our schedules will conflict, I'm sure! School is going to start shortly after that. Luke will be taking 3 cl

Well, here are a few pictures to give everyone some updates. First off, my second recipe in my baking challenge was a coffee cake. It was very unhealthy...which equals delicious! I am looking into taking some cake decorating classes soon! Also in Henry News, we dressed up as cows on Friday. It was Cow Appreciation Day at Chik-Fil-A. Anyone dressed like a cow got a free meal. Free food? Heck yes! It was a little awkward leaving the house with spots taped to you and giant ears sticking off a headband, but once we got there, we felt right at home. There was everything from entire costumes to just one little spot on people throughout the restaurant. And we all got free food. That's what I'm talking about! Luke dressed up too, he just wasn't there for pictures! The front of the "costume" The back Jesse and I with our noses on! In other, more serious, news...I have a job! Well,  I actually have two jobs! A couple weeks ago I met with the Vice President of

Have you ever seen the movie "Julie and Julia?" I didn't think it was the best movie I had ever seen but I enjoyed the cooking portion of it. And now that I call myself a blogger - I was struck with a similar idea today. I enjoy baking...A LOT. Not healthy for the waistline, but fun nonetheless. I'm not very creative, nor do I have the patience to decorate my creations very well. But, maybe through baking I will learn the virtue of patience and tap into my creative genes. Luke bought me a cookbook for Christmas this past year. It's called the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. The bakery is in London and they specialize in cupcakes, pies, cakes, muffins...you name it. I have decided to do a little "Julie & Julia" project of my own using this cookbook. I won't have nearly the rules that the movie did. I just want to bake everything in that cookbook. I won't blog each and every time I bake something, because you will probably get bored. But, if you

I have a few things to share tonight. First off, today Luke and I got our Missouri driver's licenses and plates on our vehicles. It took nearly 5 hours to complete this process, we began at 12:30pm. If you have a few moments, I'll share our journey through that process with you! We first went to the DMV (it's not called a DMV here, but it's the same thing essentially!)...the lady told us what we needed so we set to work on that. We first had to go to the county court annex to get a personal property tax waiver. Instead of licensing fees, you pay personal property tax on your vehicles. Since we haven't lived here long, our fees were waived. We then travelled to Midas to get our safety inspections. However, you don't have to get a safety inspection unless your car is a 2005 or older. But, we still had to get paperwork completed in order to tell them we were exempt from the inspections (sheesh!). The Midas man told us it would be 1.5 hours to get to our cars. Seri