BRIDGING THERAPY & FAITH

A Passion for Helping Others

Therapy is important to Heidi because she believe it works. She has seen radical transformation in her office and in others’. She knows that the most important factor to successful therapy is the relationship between the client and therapist. If the therapist is not genuine, therapy does not serve much of a purpose. 

Heidi has a Marriage and Family Therapy license through the state of Minnesota. She obtained her Certificate in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota and her Master’s in Counseling Psychology from Bethel University. She is trained in an effective trauma technique called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and she is a certified Daring Way™ Facilitator. Heidi’s bachelor’s degree is in Entrepreneurship—she believes her background in business has allowed her to bring a different perspective to the counseling field.

Heidi has attended 2 years at Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry (BSSM) and is ordained through Patricia King’s Women in Ministry Network (WIMN). She has also completed Love Says Go Academy (LSGA), where she learned how to pray for the sick, hear the voice of God, and be Jesus outside the church. 

Becoming a Child of God

Heidi grew up in a Lutheran home and was taught traditional Christian values as a child. She wasn’t officially “saved” until her best friend Danielle invited her to an Assemblies of God church when she was 16. She remembers when they did an alter call and she ran crying to the front of the church, giving her life to Christ. She didn’t truly understand what had taken place until years later as an adult.  

In 2016, Heidi came to know Jesus intimately. Of this experience she says, “I needed Jesus. I didn’t know how to need Him before this time, and the struggles got me on my knees re-submitting my life to Him. Since then, my life has been a whirlwind of discovery about the Kingdom of God, His Word, and intimacy with the Holy Spirit. 

Now the Bible is alive to me because I have experienced the person of Jesus with dreams, visions, and encounters that have forever changed me. I had no idea these things were real and that Jesus has more for us! My journey today is to follow the true callings God has had for me, wanting to obey Him instead of my own flesh. It’s an exciting and encouraging journey and I am ALL IN.”

Finding True Purpose

There is a lot of pain in this world but it’s not useful to us. Pain is okay for a period of time, but we don’t need to set up camp in hurt and pain. Instead, we need to process, move forward, and be transformed by it. Encouragement plays a big role in accomplishing this. Having others point out the obvious doesn’t help us. But hearing someone say “I know you are struggling right now and I believe in you. You are stronger than you think. I love you!” is empowering. 

Heidi wrote the book The Brave Encourager because she has seen how much her encouragement of others has shifted their moods, days, and lives. She didn’t realize at first that she was encouraging others until she received feedback from them about how much it impacted them. She was just being herself.

When Heidi later went through a season lacking in encouragement of herself, she truly came to understand the significance of encouragement. A word of encouragement can literally save a life. If someone is depressed or suicidal, it can bring them out of that hole of despair. It can bring someone with dreams to action and make those dreams a reality. 

The Wright Brothers dreamed of and pioneered the world’s first motor-operated airplane. They could have given up hundreds of times with each failure, but they had a golden dream inside. Most importantly, they had each other to encourage and offer encouragement to the other. Throughout their repetitive process of dreaming, inventing, building, and failing, encouragement kept them going.

A few years ago, Heidi saw an image of books in her dreams. She started to believe she could write a book. When she sat down to write, an outline of The Brave Encourager quickly came out on the computer. So during the middle of winter 2020, with the help of an amazing coach, Marcie, she began turning her learnings and discoveries in the chapters of her first book. 

“Anyone who knows who God made them to be will never try to be someone else.”

– Bill Johnson