Join us as we explore the transformative power of faith with our special guest, Cynthia Garrett. Chrysandra Brunson uncovers Cynthia’s wholehearted devotion to living out God’s dreams through media and mentorship. From her beginnings in network television to leading a revival on a college campus, Cynthia recounts profound Godly encounters and the profound impact of relying on faith in every area of life. Tune in for an episode filled with wisdom, inspiration, and a firm reminder to trust in God’s calling.
00:00:19 Introduction and Cynthia Garrett Invitation
00:26:32 How to Stay Connected with Cynthia Garrett
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Welcome, everyone, to The Calling’s radio show to all the dreamers. I’m your radio host, Chrysandra Brunson, founder and CEO of The Calling. It is such an honor to be with all of you today. You know, at The Calling, we have realized that so many people are afraid to go after the dreams that God has put inside of each one of our hearts. Because they’re afraid to fail. But that is just plain wrong because God has given each one of us a dream. And if we’re not living it out, we are wasting it. And we don’t want to die with regret. We love inspiring, empowering, and equipping people to go after God’s dreams on their lives, doing that through conferences, businesses, as well as workshops and this radio show to all the dreamers and having incredible guests, world-changing, like the one we have today, Cynthia Garrett. Cynthia, thank you so much for being here.
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
You’re welcome, hon. I would love any opportunity to be with you.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Oh, you’re so sweet. Well, thank you so much for your time. And we just, we’re just so grateful for you and for the world just to get to know you even more. So Cynthia, you are world renowned and there’s so many different titles and roles that you play in humanity right now. Yeah. So we just know that you are just such a spotlight. Can you just share with everybody tuning in what some of those roles look like?
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Well, I mean, you know, I started I’ve always been involved in media. You know, Chris, I started out after I graduated law school at USC, University of Southern California, actually, for all you Trojan fans. But after I graduated law school, I was pretty clear that. I really wanted a career on camera and producing and making media. I was very impacted at a young age by the actual power that media has to be able to impact and change lives, you know, because that’s how, that’s how certain films or certain things that, you know, I saw growing up impacted me. So yeah, you know, it’s, you know, music and movies shape generations. You know, they’re the soundtrack for generations. And so at a very young age, I was quite, um, impressed with the desire to make media that glorified God, that glorified the talent that he had given me and the dream in my heart. So when I right after I finished law school, I started producing my own, you know, my own shows, really. And that was, you know, a lot of going after it myself, convincing a lot of people to believe in me and being blessed with people who did believe in me and my vision. And I, you know, I got myself on to network television eventually and started a career. And throughout my career in secular television, where I mean, I I’ve worked for every network or at some point or another been under contract, every network. I ended up, which is kind of where, what I wanted when I started out was to have my own late night show on, on NBC. You know, I want it to come on like Jay Leno and Johnny Carson and Letterman. So I ended up with my show later with Cynthia Garrett airing after the Leno and Conan O’Brien for a period of time in the early two thousands, 2000 to like 2001. Well, late 99, actually through 2001. So in any case, and then I just, you know, I did studio shows and, and yeah, you know, hosted every red carpet show from, you know, the Grammys to the Oscars for the different networks. I used to sit in with Regis after Kathie Lee, who’s a longtime now friend of mine, Kathie Lee Gifford, after she left Regis. And so I just, you know, built a big career in television. I started writing my, I guess I sold my first written, scripted shows to ABC, actually, at a certain point. And, you know, my love of writing and creating just kind of grew and grew. But through it, I was really… really missing the ability to do something where I could freely talk about my faith. You know, in secular television, I’m a very bold person and a very vocal person about my faith. So there was always a bit of a struggle. there, you know, at a certain point, because the more that I began lining my life up with the word of God and surrendering to Christ as Lord of my life, the more pushback I would get on the different shows from various producers or studios that I was working for. And eventually I just, you know, I came to this place where I was like, okay, Lord, look, you know, you can take all of this away. I just want to serve you and be your mouthpiece. And so at a certain point, I left secular television to be a full time mom and wife and to pursue my relationship with the Lord. My son, my son at the time was a young teenager. He had just given his life to Christ. And so my husband and I knew that we weren’t that we were we weren’t done. with him because there was a new chapter starting. So when he went to college, we got a home down the street from his college at the University of Kansas and got to be a part of not just his growing faith, but Really and truly, we were led by led the Lord to open up our home to the college kids that he was bringing home. We wanted to ask questions about the Lord. So we ended up being a part of full on revival on campus. So it was a really amazing and incredible five years of revival. thousands of young people in and out of our home. And we very quickly organized into not just a weekly Bible study group, but my son was leading a young, my husband, well, my son was leading a young men’s group. My husband was, was leading and overseeing that. And then I started a young women’s group and had all the college girls kind of coming in through for all kinds of healing, you know, and, and guidance and mentorship. And so out of that, grew the career in which, you know, God opened some doors at TBN internationally and with a number of faith-based media platforms and gave me the ability to start producing shows that have been much more, I call them walk shows. You know, it’s like the world doesn’t need more talk shows, but it needs walk shows, really teaching people how to walk out their lives with faith. So that’s that’s what I spend the bulk of my time doing. And whether it’s my show, The Sessions with Cynthia Garrett, which airs on TV and around the world or Girl Club, which is a new streaming series that I launched, which airs live stream every Monday at nine o’clock in the morning Pacific time, 12 noon Eastern time. 11 a.m. Central Standard Time here in the U.S. And then it broadcasts out live around the world. So we have women all over the globe who tune in. And now young men, actually, who seem to really enjoy listening to women share. Yes. Yeah, because it’s a very, you know, through the years, the Lord highlighted three incredible women of God to me. They are pastors, teachers, singers, songwriters, evangelists. And so and a teen evangelist also. And they’re part of my regular girl club tribe. And we get together and we cry and we laugh and we share and we fellowship and teach the word.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Oh, Cynthia, that is amazing. I love it so much. And so who are those three women? What are their names?
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Nova Page, who is a singer-songwriter, pastor, evangelist, a really talented teacher and a great friend. Her husband, Ricky, is a pastor. They’re formally, actually, they’ve been a long time with The Rock here in San Diego. Wow. Yeah, and Christina Reynolds, who’s an incredible singer-songwriter out of IHOP, but you get to meet her. That’s how I met her. Yeah. And you get to really meet her here as a teacher and she’s an incredible, uh, and transparent teacher, you know, um, and Christina Boudreau, who’s a young evangelist with the whosoever’s movement. And, um, she’s just amazing. And, um, and then we have our sort of young 22 year old teen evangelist. Who’s my niece actually, who’s just an on fire teacher. And, um, really solid in the word of God. And, and, and I give my husband and I a lot of credit for that because she grew, you know, we pretty much raised her. And so she grew up really rooted in the word and just with a love and a calling on her life to share. So girl, girl club is a really different kind of a, it’s, it’s a Bible study, but it’s a fellowship.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Everyone needs to tune in. Yeah, it’s really powerful. Yeah. Well, and Cindy, you just, I mean, Jesus has allowed you to be one of humanity’s top of the top leaders because he has, he knows he can trust you. You have such a golden heart and walk in that obedience and love. whatever he gives you, it can be trusted with him that you hold it sacred and you’re just able to be Jesus to everyone. I, and Cynthia, we met at the Azusa conference, I believe long ago. And that was so special. And I just remember our friend, mutual friend at the time and friend now, William, but he was like, you have to meet Cynthia. She is like the queen of love. She’s like heaven’s queen right now. And just knowing that through your life, Cindy, were you just, so taking us back. So just growing up, so you said that you were around the entertainment realm quite a bit. What did that look like?
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Well, you know, I grew up in Los Angeles and I went to Beverly Hills High School. So, you know, I was inundated early on with exposure to fame and celebrity and excess, you know. a lot of wealth, big dreams, you know, a lot of things, honestly, that in a way were very inspiring and motivating, you know, to a young person. I mean, I think when you expose young people to everything that’s out there for them to achieve, especially the way I was raised. I was raised by parents who always said to me, there are things in life that happen that you’ll get tempted to hang your hat on as far as being a victim. But- You know, don’t ever choose to be a victim because God didn’t make you that way. He made you an overcomer and a victor. And so in some ways, there was all this great stuff. In other ways, you know, I got to see how lost the world really is and how in need of truth and authenticity, identity that the world really is, you know, because I saw and I think was very impacted myself by a real loss of identity, a real identity struggle, you know, because the world teaches you when you’re young to root your identity in things and in achievement and position. Yeah.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Yeah.
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
And so I kind of saw like I feel like I went through my experience of life with my eyes open in a lot of ways because I knew the Lord from the time I was a young girl. And I knew the Lord intimately just because as a as a young girl. I would sit and cry with him and talk with him, you know, and he would sit in my room at night and I never doubted that he was real. I was sexually abused as a little girl. And so he was my outlet. You know, I didn’t, it wasn’t school. It wasn’t parents. It wasn’t, you know, I have this thing that I would take to the Lord. And I knew that he was holding my hand all through my life. You know, I never, I never was confused about him being real. I knew he was real.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Wow. Cindy, that is so powerful. We need to take a quick break, but we will be right back. We thank everybody for tuning into all the dreamers radio show. We have Cynthia Garrett on with us. We’ll be right back. Hi guys, this is Crisandra Brunson, host of To All The Dreamers. I am so happy to introduce personal training, nutritional guidance, and behavioral change coaching. Healthy, happy, and heavenly for your wellness, spirit, soul, and body. Contact Mimi Kroger at healthyhappyandheavenly.com.
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CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
We are back. Thank you for tuning in to all the Dreamers radio show. We have the one and only Cynthia Garrett with us. And Cynthia, thank you so much for being on with us and just sharing your heart and this power of knowing when you were a little girl and having the… Seemingly worse circumstances happen of being abused when you were a child, just knowing that Jesus was still there with you, that you could trust him and that no matter what, he was going to be your rock and your pillar. That’s really profound.
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, when you’re young and there’s no one really putting their DNA on your faith relationship, I think you have the ability to have a very pure relationship with the Lord. And it’s interesting because even when I got saved years later, sort of, I guess, formally saved, I was in the middle of what has become my first book, Prodigal Daughter, A Journey Home to Identity.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
And it’s amazing.
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Thank you.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
We’ll tell everyone how to get it a little bit later. Thank you.
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Thank you. in a foreign country, ran off young and married a really bad guy and found out he was a really bad guy in the middle of a really bad experience, which was supposed to be our honeymoon. And the next thing I know, I am arrested with him from a prison cell in Italy. And I became a star witness in a trial against him for the next two years. And so through that experience, I found my faith and I was saved, you know, and read the Bible for the first time. But because I had this very intimate and personal relationship with Jesus from the time I was a child, when I started reading the Bible, it was just like I was sitting down with my best friend and I was finally getting to know him and give him the time that he needed. and held me when I cried as a little girl. He was the God that had a calling on my life and a purpose for my life who wanted to walk me through journey after journey, including the nightmare that I was living at that moment. But it was because he was saving me for a purpose. And so, you know, then a lot of stuff began to make sense, you know, to me.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Wow. Cynthia, that is so powerful. So how old were you when you got married that first time?
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
I was in my, well, I had graduated law school and it was right after that. I think I was like 26, 27. Yeah. Twenty six, twenty five years old.
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
So I was quite I was I was really young. And, you know, and then within a year and a half, had a radical experience with Jesus in this cell. And I met him. I mean, it was really. I think it, let me say this RT Kendall, who’s an incredible Bible scholar said to me once on one of my shows, Cassandra, he said, you know, the saddest thing about Christians worldwide is that they don’t read the Bible. They read pieces, they read scriptures, they go listen to snippets in church, you know? But I mean, when I was going through that experience, I read the Bible cover to cover twice and, and God spoke to me and met me in every sentence. And it was like literally unplugged. Right. It was like unplugging from the matrix and entering the kingdom of heaven and seeing how alive and real that it is. And so for me in that first encounter with reading the word, it really makes me realize today, you know, that. Part of our problem today in the world is that Christians themselves don’t actually read and know the God that we say that we serve. And it’s like having a best friend and not having had lunch with them in years or not ever going out to dinner with them and just sitting down and talking. And it’s like you and I… need to have a personal catch up because we’re friends, because we had that lunch, we sat down and we connected. And, you know, when you meet God like that and you realize that he’s your friend and he’s always there, it’s a beautiful comfort to go through life knowing, you know, who’s my ride or die, you know, who’s got my back, where can I go and say, hey, I need to do this or I need to promote that or I need you to join with me and lock arms, you know, and do something good. That’s important. You know, it’s important for us to know that. And relationship is everything.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That is just so profound. And that the relationship is what guides us through the ups and downs and ups And that’s why Cynthia, that Jesus is able to give you so much because he knows that you and him are going to walk through it together and that you’re, you’re not going to just try to leave the Lord behind and move forward, but follow him and walk with him throughout it. So that is very, very special. Cynthia, is there a time in your life where you just have known or a couple of situations you just have known that you’re right where you’re supposed to be living out God’s calling on your life and seemingly impossible circumstances?
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes, you know, because look, as many moments, I think that we have in which we know that we know that we know that God is real and we’re right where we’re supposed to be. We also have attacks that are that great. And I think, you know, when we have attacks… it’s usually because there’s something powerful that’s happening with us spiritually that the enemy wants to break or push down or thwart. And so there’s this one time, it’s interesting, there’s this one time after I met my husband and my husband, Roger- He is. He’s an amazing man of God, an incredible father, an incredible husband. And he’s the total restoration in my life from the first train wreck of a marriage when I was young. But I call it a train wreck. But I met Jesus in that train wreck. So I don’t regret a moment of it. But but years later, as a mature believer seeking more of Jesus to meet the man that would become my husband, that I know that God brought to me. And I know that he brought restoration to my home through him. It’s just it’s it’s just it’s amazing. It’s an incredible experience to know that I’m living. But there was a moment in Kansas where the Lord, where Jesus sat down in the room with me It’s interesting. I speak to the Lord a lot in praise and worship music, and he speaks to me a lot through praise and worship music. And I was listening to a song by Sarah Edwards called Dark But Lovely. It’s a simple little song that speaks about how I can’t understand this work of grace that a perfect God would come and take my place. And the lyric kind of goes on, though I’m dark, he sees me as lovely, though we’re sinners, but he sees us as cleansed. And it’s an incredible song. And the song was playing and Jesus sat down in the corner of the room on a sofa and he allowed me to see him. as he morphed into my husband, as he came out from my husband. And it was like this experience of, in which he was showing me that he made himself manifest on earth, but he also makes himself manifest in our union with our spouse. And these godly unions and marriages are so important, you know? And I know that my husband, would die for me and loves me the way that Christ died for me and loves the church. And it’s a, it was just a beautiful thing that God gave me that I’ve never forgotten it because I’ve had, it was yet another moment. You know, I had moments in, in a jail cell, you know, in prison in Italy, you know, those few months where I was reading the Bible for the first time and meeting the Lord in miraculous ways in this cell all by myself. you know, and there were ways in which God showed up and he communicated with me and no one can ever take that, you know, no one can take that. It’s like, I know that God is real, you know, I know it. And when I’m going through trials and challenges, you know, which we always go through trials and challenges in this, in this world, you know, Jesus said in this world, you will have tribute tribulation, but fear not I’ve overcome the world.
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
you know, it’s not perfect, but, but I always, no matter what, I always end up before the Lord. I don’t know where else to go. Yeah. My help to get my peace, to get my joy, you know?
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Yes. Yeah. There’s nowhere else to go. Yes. That is so powerful. And Cynthia, what would you say? Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
No, I was just saying I tried other things in my life before Christ. And I can I honestly can say there’s nowhere else to go that works.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Right. Yeah. Everywhere. You just have. Do you feel like you just have ran into different walls of trying to go that way? And the Lord has just shown that’s not the way to go.
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Cynthia, we are coming up towards the end of our show and we would love to have you back. There’s so much more to pull out of your golden heart and queen heart. We would love to ask you, what is the one piece of wisdom that you would tell somebody that in trying to figure out their calling, walking it out, what would you tell them?
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Hmm. Well, number one, take all your questions to the word of God, because the answers are, are there in the Bible. And a lot of times the answer that you’re seeking is not the answer. God wants to give you first. He wants to give you some other answer first before he answers your question. And, and, and you’ve got to be obedient to that because the journey is bigger than you think it is. That would be a question. critical, you know, important thing. Um, the, the other thing would be to surround yourself with believers because honestly, honestly, the world is full of non-believers. Yeah. Secularism feeds your flesh man and the, and the word of God and believers feed your spirit man in order for your spirit man to have victory in your life. You got to feed him.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Yeah. Yes. Feed your spirit, man. You’re so right though. What we’re going to feed will flourish. I love that. Wow. That is so powerful. And when we have you back on Cynthia, it would be so great to hear just your pulse on humanity and because you are traveling and you have seen so many parts and know so many people so we’ll have to touch on that next time but how can everybody stay in touch with you Cynthia and get a copy of your book as well as watch your weekly and daily shows?
CYNTHIA GARRETT :
Well, everything you need to find out is at Cynthia Garrett, two R’s and two T’s dot org. And you’ll find out everything about how to tune in to Girl Club through the Cynthia Garrett Ministries YouTube channel. And you can pick up one of my or both of my books. I choose victory, which is about moving from victim to victory and prodigal daughter, which is about identity, which I think is the greatest crisis we are experiencing today in ourselves as individuals, in our communities and in our nation.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Yes. So I challenge everybody to get that. I have copies of both. They’ve been life-changing to me. Cynthia, you’ve been life-changing to the Colleen and I. We just love you so much and appreciate you. And we thank everybody for tuning into this episode of To All the Dreamers radio show. We challenge everyone to stay in touch with Cynthia. and our other guests at The Calling’s website, thecallingnonprofit.org. And we challenge everyone to ask themselves what they would do if they knew they could not fail, knowing that God has put the answer to that question in your heart for such a time as this. We love all of you. Till next time, dreamer. Keep dreaming big.
