036. "Unleash God's Healing: My battle with cancer" with Ginny Brant

After turning to faith in Jesus Christ at age 16 through Young Life in Washington, D.C., I eventually left my modeling career to study the Bible and fulfill God’s purpose in my life. Risking the approval of my beloved father, I set out on a journey in obedience to God’s call. I attend the Christian college that my father forbade and marry the spiritually-minded man my father reluctantly allowed. Even when we were at odds, we remained respectful and devoted to each other.

My testimony is the true story of my passionate prayer for my father to find Christ so he would one day spend eternity with me. My father, Harry S. Dent, Sr., was a powerful, political strategist, who worked for President Nixon and narrowly escaped Watergate. He entered politics to save the world and protect the freedoms of his country. He served a Senator and three Presidents and helped to build the Republican Party in the South. In the early years, he attempted to manipulate me into his success syndrome.

Deep inside my father feared his princess would one day become a missionary. In the end God used it all for His glory. He not only answered my simple prayer of salvation and God’s purpose for my dad’s life, but went far beyond what my mind could ever imagine. Through God’s grace, we team up in ministry together and my dad becomes what he so desperately feared: a missionary.

His full time ministry takes him to Romania where he assists the underground churches and a country emerge to new found freedom following 40 years of communism. My path would take me to the darkest corners of the Middle East where there was no freedom.

The poetic justice in my story proves God’s faithfulness and His marvelous sense of humor. My testimony will motivate anyone who has a loved one they want to see in heaven to pray without ceasing and realize they may be the only Jesus their loved one sees.

Throughout our lives and times, my dad and I experienced different kinds of freedom. Ultimately, we find true freedom together-the freedom that lasts forever.

Ginny Dent Brant graduated with a B.A. from Columbia International University, and holds two Masters Degrees from the University of South Carolina in Elementary Education and Elementary Counseling. With 28 years of experience in public education as a teacher, counselor, and adjunct professor, she currently serves as a counselor at Orchard Park Elementary School.

Ginny served as a trustee of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and has held leadership roles in many Baptist churches. Ginny has done mission work in Gaza, Yemen, the Czech Republic, Romania, and China. She is a soloist, Bible teacher and Christian speaker. She is the President of Laity Alive and Serving which her father, Harry S. Dent, started in 1985.

Her husband, Dr. Alton Brant, is an associate professor of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies at Clemson University. The Brants have one married son, Joshua (and wife Sydney) and twin sons, Jonathan and Harrison. She is the daughter of Harry and Betty Dent.

Ginny was a contributing author for The Chosen Path: 365 Inspirational Messages, Love is a Flame, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Shaping the New You, and online with Christian Devotions. She also contributes articles to The Baptist Courier in South Carolina.