Tonight is the night!

Join me tonight, Sunday, August 30 at 8pm ET / 7pm CT for a time of community, creativity, and connection.

If you weren’t able to make it to our last gathering, here’s what you can expect:

Our time together will be casual and last about an hour. We’ll spend a some time journaling together, followed by an opportunity for conversation and connection. Join with your video on or off (although I’d love to see your faces!) and come meet some new friends!

Here’s the link:

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I wonder who I’m trying to save by staying silent. Certainly not myself, although perhaps my reputation. Perhaps anyone else from forced action or burdensome thought.

They — an elusive, faceless “they” — tell us to write from what has been healed, what has been made perfect and complete, rendered down to a distilled narrative with a clear, ideally redemptive, story arc. If the bleeding never stops, though, then what? Are we to stay quiet until the last breath leaves our lungs? Can our words carry truth if whispered in desperation?

I would rather hear the truth of one still blood-soaked and shell-shocked than one shiny and clean, free from any evidence of having lived through a war.

I’m sure that’s not true of everyone — some find truth learned only in The After more palatable. I can’t blame them. Stories from the brink of death can become little more than warning or dark entertainment if you haven’t also stared into death’s empty eyes.

But for those who know — the ones who have played cat and mouse with a darkness whose origin they can’t fully explain — those truths, the ones we’ve collectively agreed we’re not supposed to utter but dare to share anyway, are lanterns scattered along the path reminding us that none of us are out here alone.

So write from your wounds, paint from your pain, sing the song that catches on the tears in your throat. If creating out of the crushing weight of this world reminds you of the beauty of your own beating heart, create.

I don’t know how to write from The After; it’s a place that seems to remain at the horizon line no matter how many steps I take toward it. I don’t know what lesson I’ll eventually pull from what hurts today, or if I’ll ever be able to trace a clean line from here to there and tell you exactly what it all meant.

I can only tell you what’s true from the ground I stand on today: There is still darkness. There are still lanterns along the path. And, underneath the weight of everything I cannot yet explain, my heart is still beating.

So I am writing from here.

Mark Your Calendar

Our next virtual gathering will be Sunday, August 30 at 7 PM CST!

Our time together will be casual and last about an hour. We’ll spend a some time journaling together, followed by an opportunity for conversation and connection. Join with your video on or off (although I’d love to see your faces!) and come meet some new friends!

I’d love to see you there!

In this with you,

Brittany

As I walked into the small classroom attached to the gym where our high school youth group met, I was shaking. It was the only outward clue that I was absolutely petrified of what revealing my deepest secret would mean for me.

When I took my seat in one of the cushioned chairs pulled into a circle, the young twenty-something youth volunteer I’d told a few weeks earlier scooted her chair closer to mine and rested her hand on my knee. Although I’m not one for much physical contact, it was exactly what I needed in that moment. To this day, the feeling of her hand on my knee is the most lasting and visceral memory I have from the interaction that unfolded. It was a silent show of support and withness that I didn’t expect and wasn’t sure I deserved — a physical reminder that I wasn’t alone.

All of these years later, it’s strange to me how little I remember of what anyone in that room actually said. While I can pull up bits and pieces of that conversation, mostly I remember how it felt to be sitting there. I remember being terrified that I had crossed an invisible line by telling the truth, and that whatever came next would be fully out of my control. I remember taking quick glances at the faces of the adults in the room — scanning for judgement and condemnation — when I dared to raise my eyes from the worn carpet. And I remember the weight of her hand.

Self-injury was something I had done entirely alone and kept carefully hidden, concealed under long sleeves, conveniently placed hair ties on my wrist, and whatever version of myself I thought was most pleasing and acceptable to the people around me. To share the truth, to invite others into that part of my life, was to risk everything.

In that moment, instead of being left alone to flounder, someone moved closer.

It didn’t strike me then as some grand gesture or profound lesson; I was fifteen and trying to survive what then felt like one of the worst moments of my life. I don’t know that it was even a conscious decision on her part. Either way, though, when she could have retreated in the face of my pain and poor decisions, she met me exactly where I was.

She didn’t offer easy answers or trite consolations. She didn’t try to save the day. She didn’t tell me that she couldn’t believe I had found myself in such a situation. She didn’t tell me that I’d ruined everything or that she saw me through a new lens. She was simply a steady, unwavering presence in a terrifying moment.

The older I have gotten, the more convinced I have become that that steady withness is representative of God’s presence more than anything else.

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I’d spent most of the day wondering the same thing out loud to my closest friends: What if this is all a setup? What if this is an elaborate plan to kick me out of a church I call my own? What if the parts of my story I’ve been invited to share are actually unwelcome in the place that asked me to share them? What if this is too much? What if I am?

While those fears and insecurities disappear every time I step on a stage, immediately replaced with a sense of deep purpose and a conviction that my only job is to get out of the way enough for God to move, they’re often waiting for me as soon as I step off. I don’t think they come from a place of self-doubt as much as they do from a gnawing fear that I’ve shown too much of my hand, and that once all the cards are on the table people will see me the way I’ve always feared they would: too far gone for grace. Despite praying for the courage to be honest, I almost always wonder afterward if honesty was a mistake.

More often than not, those fears have been baseless. In my adulthood, my honesty has consistently been met with compassion rather than condemnation, curiosity rather than judgment. Even so, those fears insist on making their case every time.

As I slowly made my way through the back of the still-darkened sanctuary, though, worship music enveloping me, those fears didn’t surface. Instead, I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude for a church that knows my story and still trusted me with its people, and for a God who, for some unknown reason, continues to use the part of my life I’ve begged Him to erase for more than I could have imagined.

The fear that instructs me to become an expert in myself was quieted by worship, which redirected my attention to Someone far more worthy of it. Instead of replaying every word I said, I joined the hundreds of voices praising God for being who He has always been.

Fear, for all the noise it creates in my head, has never propelled me toward God. Worship has always done the opposite, gently turning my attention back toward the One who has been faithful all along.

A Few Things I’m Still Thinking About:

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Over the past few days, Braver on Paper was named on Substack’s list of Rising Faith & Spirituality publications. I’m still just as surprised by that as I was when I received the notification, but mostly I’m grateful because it means many of you are here for the very first time.

My name is Brittany, and I’m a writer and the author of Stories Our Scars Tell. Mostly, I write about faith and mental health—particularly through the lens of my own struggle with self-injury—not because I have all the answers, but because I’m fascinated by the way our stories shape what we believe about ourselves, God, and each other.

On the first and third Sunday of each month, I send out a free letter filled with reflections and hopeful honesty. If you’d like to hear from me more frequently, you can upgrade to a paid subscription. In addition to receiving your usual emails, benefits of being a paid subscriber include exclusive emails on the second and fourth Sunday of each month and an invitation to virtual meet-ups via Zoom in months with a fifth Sunday.

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As always, if you’d like to be part of the paid community but can’t swing it right now, send me a message and I’ll grant you access, no questions asked.

I’m so glad you’re here.

For the last week, I have been preparing to speak at a large upcoming event at my church. While I’m looking forward to the event itself, sharing pieces of my story at my own church has always been a bit difficult for me.

There is a part of me that still expects my faith community to hear my unfiltered truth and cast me out — a lingering fear based on what happened to me when I was fifteen. However unlikely, a few days out from the event, those “what-if” nerves have fully kicked in.

In an effort to remind myself why this work, and this particular yes, matters so much to me, I reread an essay I wrote a couple of years ago about mental health and the church. Because I think it's just as relevant today as it was when I first wrote it, I'd like to share it with you again.

Originally published on November 24, 2024

As I dug through my nightstand, my eyes landed on it: the tattered Bible I used during my high school years. I read it religiously (pun definitely intended), and its purple cover — peeling, cracked, and torn — was a testament to the time I’d spent immersed in its text. A quick flip through its thin pages revealed exactly what I remembered: heavily marked passages on almost every page and margins peppered with quick notes jotted during sermons, personal prayers, and nudges from the Holy Spirit.

It had been over a decade since I’d last opened that purple Bible, retired for a new copy when I went to college. Still, several loose-papers-turned-bookmarks remained tucked neatly inside. Curious to discover what high school me had deemed so worth noting that a bookmark was required, I turned to the marked pages. A hot pink index card inscribed by a friend with “Sup thug?” and covered in doodled stars marked Isaiah 59, most of which was underlined in blue pen. A fluorescent orange sticky note marked a page in James so covered in my notes that the margins had disappeared. A bulletin for summer events being held by my youth group marked 1 Kings 18.

For those of you not up on your obscure Old Testament stories, 1 Kings 18 tells of Elijah’s encounter with the prophets of Baal. Elijah contends Baal is a false god, and sets out to prove it through a divine showdown of sorts. Elijah and the prophets of Baal agree they’ll each set up altars to their respective gods, call upon their god to send fire to burn the sacrifice left on the altar, and recognize whichever god responds as the one true god.

The prophets of Baal call upon their god, but Baal doesn’t answer. Desperate, they dance around and cut themselves in a bid for Baal’s attention, but their efforts go unnoticed. When it’s Elijah’s turn, he drenches his altar in water before calling upon God, who sends a fire that not only consumes the sacrifice, but also the altar itself.

On the page I’d bookmarked, only two verses were underlined:

“[28] So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. [29] And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.”

At the top of the page, I’d written one lonely note:

“Cutting shows a lack of trust in God.”

The actual context of the verses didn’t matter; they were handed to me as a teenager by pastors who cherry-picked them out of the text to equate the self-injury I’d revealed with a lack of faith. Although their assessment felt like an unfair judgment, I accepted their opinions and interpretation without question — I had no reason not to trust them.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think those pastors intended to cause harm. They were dealing with a mental health struggle they weren’t adequately prepared to handle, and were doing the best they could with what they knew at the time. But good intentions don’t erase actual impact, and the actual impact of their words and actions was severe.

Looking back now, my heart hurts for my fifteen year old self, for the girl who, in an effort to know God more deeply, read her Bible so often that it was literally falling apart, yet was told her faith wasn’t real or right. My heart hurts for that girl who did exactly what she’d been taught to do — share her struggles with her faith community — only to have that honesty used against her and her community ripped away.

For years, that note — “Cutting shows a lack of trust in God.” — acted as an accusatory voice in my head, a reminder of what I was supposedly doing wrong. It fed the shame that already felt insurmountable, convincing me that if I just prayed harder, read my Bible more, or believed more completely, I would somehow be made “better.”

I didn’t get better, a fact that has remained complicated for me, but I got healthier. It took, and continues to take, a combination of therapy, community, self-awareness, and, yes, faith — not the kind that demands perfection, but the kind that gently reminds me of God’s grace. The God I’ve come to know isn’t the harsh judge I imagined as a teenager, waiting in the wings to tally my shortcomings. Instead, I know a God who meets me in my brokenness, who isn’t threatened by my questions or my pain. A God who walks with me through the valleys, not because I’ve earned His company but because of who He is.

In many ways, I was lucky. When my mental health and spirituality were weaponized, my faith withstood the attack. I found other pastors who reacted more appropriately to my struggle, who spoke life over me and affirmed God’s presence in my life. Not everyone is as fortunate.

The Church has a sacred responsibility when someone admits they are struggling. Such an admition isn’t an open invitation for condemnation or shallow platitudes about trusting God more. It is an opportunity to extend grace, to listen without judgement, and to be the hands and feet of Christ to someone in pain. Too often, though, the Church has chosen to spiritualize what is profoundly human, treating mental health struggles as moral failings rather than complex realities.

Those pastors, who called me in alone for a meeting, looked me in the eye, and told me I wasn’t welcome, weren’t prepared to deal with mental health struggles because the Church, as a whole, hasn’t prepared itself. Instead, it has chosen the path of least resistance, defaulting to the idea that depression, anxiety, personality disorders, self-injury, and the like are spiritual deficiencies rather than legitimate issues requiring professional care. That response isn’t just misguided; it’s dangerous.

That response keeps people from seeking the care they need. It isolates people in their darkest moments.

How many have turned away from God, not because they doubted His love but because the Church failed to embody it? How many have remained silent in their struggles because they feared being met with shame instead of support?

If we are to truly be the Church — a reflection of Christ in the world — then we have to do better. We have to create spaces where people feel safe to admit they aren’t okay, knowing they won’t be met with judgement or spiritual bypassing1 but with compassion offered by a community willing to walk alongside them. This means partnering with mental health professionals, educating pastors and others in positions of power, and admitting that prayer, while powerful, is not a substitute for proper care.

It is through our actions — our willingness to respond to pain with love and support — that we reveal the heart of God to those hurting in our midst.

The church has a choice. We can continue to ostracize and silence those who are struggling, or we can listen to them. We can dismiss their pain, or we can validate it. We can perpetuate stigmas, or we can be part of breaking them. But we cannot do nothing.

No one should ever leave the church feeling like their struggles are too big for God to handle. And no one should ever be told what I was: that pain is proof of a lack of faith.

If we truly believe in a God who draws near to the brokenhearted, then we have to do the same.

In this with you,

Brittany

On the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month, I send a post to paid subscribers. The paywall isn’t meant to be exclusionary, but allows me to write more vulnerably to people who are invested in being here rather than to the internet at large, which isn’t always a friendly or receptive place.

If you would like to be part of the paid community but don’t have the budget to allow that, simply reply to this email and I’ll gift you a complimentary subscription, no questions asked. (I have gifted many, many subscriptions and have never turned anyone down, so please don’t feel weird about asking. If you are a founding member, you help make these gifted subscriptions financially possible. Thank you!)

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At the beginning of the month, yellow peaches arrived on our grocery store shelves. In my humble opinion, yellow peaches are the best nature has to offer. And a cold yellow peach sliced thin on a hot summer day? There’s nothing better.

My girls and I wait all year for them to be in season and eat them by the dozen until the summer is over. I’m not too proud to tell you that I have eaten a peach as a bedtime snack more days than not over the last month. They’re just that good

In my book, there’s a quick anecdote about buying fresh flowers. I wrote:

The smell of fresh flowers wafted through the air the second I stepped into the grocery store. Just past the bakery, where shelves were laden with fresh-baked croissants and unicorn-themed birthday cakes, sat rows upon rows of flowers. Some were already gathered into bouquets, while others were separated by type ready to be made into personalized arrangements. Every week, I caught myself looking longingly at the flowers, and every week I found a reason not to buy any.

I didn’t need any fresh flowers. My kids, then toddlers, would be tempted to pull the petals off as soon as I set them out. Flowers that once stood at attention would hunch their shoulders and wilt within just a few days. The cat would knock the bulbs off the stems like she did any time a bouquet made its way into our house. The list went on and on, all valid reasons, and all excuses.

That particular morning, I let myself wander through the flowers. I admired yellow daffodils and inspected a clump of daisies. I lifted a group of roses for my girls to smell, and they buried their noses in the pink petals. I turned my cart to leave the area, but stopped as I reached the main aisle. Turning back around, I picked up a cluster of hydrangeas, their bulbous heads knocking into one another like bumper cars, and added it to my basket.

As I did the rest of my shopping, they poked out from amid the grapes and strawberries and juice boxes. Every time my eyes landed on them, a wave of guilt crashed over me. Should I really be buying the flowers?

I almost abandoned them in the checkout lane, but instead added them to the conveyor belt. “Pretty flowers,” the woman working the checkout noted as she scanned them. I nodded in reply.

When I got home, I clipped the stems and arranged the flowers in a glass vase I pulled out from under the sink. Placing them in the middle of the dining room table, I stepped back to admire the flowers. Their bright blooms demanded attention against the table’s dark wood. As my mouth curled into a smile, I realized with a start that they made me happy.

To be happy, to experience goodness I brought on myself, felt self-indulgent. It felt like something I didn’t deserve.

I am happy to report that not only have I continued buying flowers for myself, but I have signed up for a flower subscription through The Bouqs Co. At the beginning of each month, a surprise bouquet shows up on my doorstep, and it has been the most fun. The flowers are beautiful (and last a really long time!), and every time I see them on my kitchen table I’m reminded that I get to do things just because they make me happy.

My kids went to pottery camp for a couple of hours in the afternoon two weeks in a row. While they were there, I had uninterrupted writing time in the cutest coffee shop nearby. I have been (slowly) working on a new writing project, and the guaranteed time and space to settle into it was good for my creative heart. As an added bonus, a few local writing friends were able to join me here and there.

Speaking of local writing friends, my friend released her book Start Your Comeback in May. In the middle of June, I got to go to her first book signing at my favorite local bookstore. Toni and I have known each other for years now after initially meeting in an online community of writers. In that time, I’ve watched this dream of hers unfold, and to get to celebrate with her in this this way was the best cherry on top!

I have never seen a single episode of Doctor Who, but this clip appeared in my feed a few weeks ago. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

What good things are on your June list? Share with us in the comments!

In this with you,

Brittany

P.S. Mark you calendar! Our next virtual gathering will be Sunday, August 30 at 7 pm CST! I’d love to see you there!

I never wanted to be a pastor.

When I was a high school senior visiting what would become my future college, I happened to sit in on an ancient Hebrew class. As a lover of languages, I was intrigued by the idea of studying the Bible in its original forms, and by the end of that class period I had decided to switch my intended major from philosophy to biblical languages. A few years and several languages later, I graduated with a degree in biblical languages, rite with honors, from that small liberal arts Christian college covered by the umbrella of the SBC.

Most of my undergraduate days were spent around conference tables with ten to fifteen other students in Greek and Hebrew classes. We translated passages from the Septuagint, worked through complicated syntax, debated the significance of verb tenses, and spent hours discussing details that most people never notice when reading their English Bibles. To this day, I have an entire shelf dedicated to the Greek and Hebrew resources I spent hours memorizing, and can chant verb endings in my sleep.

Within my degree program, there were three other female students: two a year ahead of me, and one a year behind me. In my graduating class, I was the only one.

Despite the distinct lack of female presence in those classes, I never felt out of place with or excluded by my male counterparts. I was distinctly aware, though, that I was the odd man out — a fact that was impossible to forget or ignore. I felt fortunate to be in the room, and the idea that I had somehow managed to infiltrate a space not open to many was invigorating. I’ve always loved a challenge.

During those years, I was studying something I loved with professors I respected and classmates who took me seriously. Had it crossed my mind, the idea that I should feel constrained by the limitations placed on women within the SBC would have seemed strange to me because I didn’t experience those limitations as personal.

Occasionally, someone would ask what I planned to do with a biblical languages degree. The question came from a place of curiosity, not hostility. Most of the male students sitting around those conference tables could draw a relatively straight line from Greek and Hebrew classes to vocational ministry. Their futures seemed obvious in a way mine did not. “Maybe I’ll work for a Bible translation company,” I often replied, even though I wasn’t entirely sure where I’d find myself. The one thing I did know was that I wasn’t trying to become a pastor, which seemed to satisfy everyone.

Because I wasn’t clamoring to stand behind a pulpit, I assumed that meant conversations about women in ministry had very little to do with me. I wasn’t banging on a locked door begging someone to let me in. I wasn’t arguing for ordination. I wasn’t trying to challenge denominational doctrine. As far as I could tell, I had no personal stake in the debate about a woman’s place in the SBC. The story I told myself was simple: Since I didn’t want the thing that was being withheld, the boundary itself had very little effect on my life.

Growing up in SBC churches across the country, I had spent my life up to that point agreeing with the system that birthed me. I knew the arguments and party lines inside and out. Men and women were equal but had different roles. Different did not mean lesser. The pastorate was reserved for men, but women were valued, needed, and essential to the life of the church.

If someone had asked me back then whether Southern Baptists valued women, my answer would have been an unequivocal yes. My own faith had been shaped by women, none of whom I would have described as having been pushed to the margins. They were Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders, missionaries and mentors. They opened their homes during the week and showed up early on Sunday mornings. They were women whose wisdom I trusted and whose faith I admired. They seemed happy.

The churches I grew up in were filled with women doing meaningful and important work, and they were not invisible to me. Because of that, I never spent much time questioning the boundaries that might have existed for them, hundreds of thousands of other women, or the ways that those same boundaries would eventually impact my own life.

Upon graduating from college, I accepted a job in children’s ministry at a large church. Suddenly, I found myself in professional ministry settings and leadership conversations where the gender roles I’d been handed and readily — gratefully, even — accepted started to matter.

Up to that point, the conversation about women in ministry had remained mostly theoretical for me. I knew the denomination’s positions, and what women could and could not do. It wasn’t until I was sitting at staff meetings and participating in the daily work of ministry that I noticed the day-to-day impact of those regulations.

In many cases, I was more theologically educated than the men around me. (That isn’t a statement about my abilities or spiritual acumen so much as it is a reflection of my education after spending years studying Greek and Hebrew, taking theology classes, and learning how to interpret Scripture.) Still, I was expected to defer, play second fiddle, and offer support and suggestions but ultimately submit to the men in the room.

It’s a complicated dynamic to name because most of it was not done maliciously. No one in those rooms would have described themselves as dismissive of women, and I wouldn’t have made that accusation. No one told me my contributions were unwelcome. No one suggested I lacked knowledge. In many cases, I was even complimented.

During my first year on church staff, after praying for the group at an all-staff meeting (an unusual occurrence in and of itself given the room full of able-voiced men who could have prayed), a well-meaning, much older man approached me. Very sincerely and sweetly, he told me he didn’t know that a young woman could pray the way I had and encouraged me to continue doing so. The comment was intended as encouragement, and I accepted it as such.

His comment never left me, though, because it was the first time I clearly heard what it left unspoken: Most young women can’t pray. Most young women wouldn’t pray in that setting. Most young women would let someone else take the lead.

As I left that meeting, it occurred to me I had never heard anyone express similar astonishment when a young man prayed thoughtfully. Nobody seemed surprised by any man’s spiritual depth, but it was noteworthy coming from a young woman. Spiritual competence seemed expected from one group and remarkable in another.

I haven’t been on a church staff in over a decade, but the dynamic continues to be pervasive in SBC affiliated and influenced circles.

Women who have the ability to contribute more than pies to a potluck defer to men whose confidence exceeds their knowledge. Personally, I have noticed myself soften my own opinions — or remain completely silent — in conversations about subjects I spent years studying because that is often easier than trying to earn the right to be heard. When theological disagreements arise, male voices carry assumed authority, while female voices are accused of heresy.

According to the SBC, qualification does not outweigh gender.

The SBC currently lists forty-four colleges and universities with which it maintains a cooperative relationship.1 It supports six theological seminaries.2 In almost every single one of those colleges and universities, and in all six of those seminaries, women are teaching religion, ministry, theology, missions, counseling, biblical studies, and spiritual formation.

Why does a denomination that trusts women enough train future ministers, teach future missionaries, and shape the theological education of future pastors continue to insist that women cannot and should not occupy the same roles as the men they have formed?

I am not as interested in abstract arguments as I am the practical realities they create.

As it turns out, the fact I never wanted to be a pastor is irrelevant because the conversation started by the SBC was never only about the pastorate. It was also about authority, expertise, calling, and who we believe God is permitted to use. Those by-laws turned beliefs dramatically shift the culture of churches and determine who can lead, who can make decisions, who is qualified to teach Bible studies and Sunday school classes, who is able to pray over a mixed gender group, and whose mere presence grants them authority over another.

All I’ve ever wanted to do is be faithful to the call God has placed on my life, and some of the people who invested most deeply in my spiritual formation were Southern Baptists. Today, I find myself wrestling with the complicated knowledge that people can love you deeply, invest in you generously, and still tell you your genitalia matters more than any calling.

I have known too many gifted women, too many faithful women, and too many extraordinarily qualified women to believe that God’s calling is constrained by the categories the SBC has constructed. If God calls a woman to teach, she should teach. If God calls a woman to lead, she should lead. If God calls a woman to preach, she should preach. The Church is strongest when people are free to use the gifts they have been given.

The question that matters most to me now is not whether a woman’s calling fits comfortably within a denominational framework, but whether we are willing to recognize God’s work — and God at work — when we see it.

In this with you,

Brittany

In this with you,

Brittany

I examine my scars most closely in the shower. There, under the steady stream of hot water, I give myself permission to gently trace them one by one. I’ve done it so many times I can follow their paths with my eyes closed — a test I give myself on occasion to make sure my brain remembers the truth my body has lived.

I don’t know what I’m looking for exactly, but I notice the changes that are taking place. Marks, once angry and raised, flatten and dull. Their colors shift, from deep reds to dull purples and, sometimes, to white. I flex the muscles, testing the way some lines pull against my skin while others seem to melt into it, and I wonder if I should have taken better care of them when it would have made a difference.

When I look at the scars on this thirty-something body, I can’t help but think of myself at fifteen, standing in a different shower staring at the same skin. That girl believed she was the only one with scars that scared her more than she cared to admit. While she couldn’t have known what was to come, I wish I could go back and tell her then, right at the beginning of it all, that her body was one worth living in.

I thought removing myself from my body as much as humanly possible was the antidote to the shame I carried. My friends called me a robot, a title I wore with satisfaction because it meant I was untouchable. I prided myself on my ability to remain numb and cut off from my physical body in the face of almost anything. Instead I’ve learned — am learning — that embodiment guides us toward self-compassion. Perhaps that’s what I’m doing when I trace the scars in the shower: reintegrating the private evidence of the story I’ve lived with the public persona I’ve presented to the world. In those moments, cushioned by the rising steam, my body is sacred, and I am seen and safe.

It’s tempting to conflate embodiment — experiencing our bodies as ourselves — with body positivity. The notion that loving your body is a prerequisite to living well in it is pervasive. While it would be nice for all of us to love every inch of our bodies exactly as they are, I don’t know that it should be the end goal. In order to love my body, I still remain separate from it. It remains an object, somehow estranged from my being, that I assess for value and worth.

I often catch myself measuring my body through the lens of morality, labeling parts of it better than others, whatever that means. I look at my unblemished right arm and deem it more acceptable than my scarred left. I feel the lingering ache in my right knee, an old injury from years of volleyball, and think it less valuable than its twin, which bends without complaint. Categorizing my body into good and bad, lovable and unlovable components is to move out of my body and into my brain, where I try to create order out of something I view as needing work. To piecemeal my body is to objectify it.

I’m not interested in trying to mold my body into something it isn’t. I don’t want to spend my time trying to disguise my body, hiding the pieces I’ve deemed as less than. I have no desire to make my body more palatable, for myself or others. My body is not something to accept or reject, to love or to hate. Maybe it’s greedy and, like most things, it’s easier to say than it is to come by, but I want more than that. No, I don’t want to settle for simply loving my body. I want to be my body.

I want the rest of my experience on this earth, whatever time I have left, to be one in which there’s no separation between any part of me, no part placed on a pedestal above any other part. In order to become one with myself and settle into the unity of mind, body, and spirit, I have to be willing to listen to what my body is saying. I’ll never hear her voice if I’m busy abandoning her.

My body is something I have to actively practice inhabiting. Old habits die hard, but on the days when I’m attuned to the physical and am living an embodied life, my mind and spirit are able to rest, no longer forced to do more than their fair share of the work of living. When I listen to the wisdom of my body, to its cues and to its promptings, my perspective shifts. My body isn’t something I’ve ruined or something I’m required to fix. It isn’t a project I’m going to be graded on at the end of all this. When I’m able to live in an embodied way, I recognize my body, in all its forms and with all its strengths and shortcomings, as an image bearer of the divine. The indwelling of God in me beckons me home to myself.

There are still days when it all feels like too much, when I’m self-conscious and hyper-aware of the story my body tells. In those moments, rather than betraying my body by telling her she doesn’t matter, I honor my body by giving her what she needs.

On the days when I don’t care about the scars, I allow myself to forget they exist. On the days when I find my gaze drawn to them, I give myself permission to acknowledge their presence. On the days when I wish they weren’t there, I grant myself enough compassion to spend an extra few minutes hiding them. When I catch myself with my hand pulled into my sleeve like a turtle in its shell, I offer only gentleness to someone healing by living in her body and recognizing that, with all its scars and imperfections, it has always been beloved.

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If you’d like to read more, you can find Stories Our Scars Tell everywhere books are sold, or listen to the audio version on your favorite audiobook platform!

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Then, about halfway through the notebook, I came across this prayer:

Dated one month into my sophomore year, the words my nineteen year old self wrote were desperate and genuine. I’d been told by people I trusted that my self-injury was a form of idolatry. That such a serious struggle was evidence that I didn’t trust God. That it was sin, through and through.

There was a part of me that believed them. Their explanations offered me certainty I wasn’t able to come by on my own.

I couldn’t explain why my brain conflated harm with healing. If the connection between the two was caused by something I was doing — something I was actively choosing — then it was something I could control. Wearing that guilt as a weighted vest gave me something to fix.

It seemed clear to the people in my circles: This was a voluntary spiritual failing. No one ever suggested there might be something else going on. No one ever told me the darkness I was fighting might be something outside of my control.

Twenty years later, I’ve not only learned that my struggle isn’t inherently spiritual in the ways they not-so-subtly implied, but also that I can’t outwork my brain. No matter how hard I try, how many coping skills I use, or therapy appointments I show up for, I can’t change the wiring or the natural chemicals that cause me to drift toward self-destruction.

The question then becomes not “How can I fix this?” but “How can I best support myself given the way I am naturally wired?” For someone who likes clear solutions and permanent fixes, it’s a difficult shift. In spite of the difficulty, there is mercy in being able to set down the exhausting and impossible work of trying to repent my way out of something that was never rebellion.

I considered ripping that prayer out, tossing it into the trash along with the bad theology I’d been handed. It’s hard for me to look at that younger version of myself, so hungry for answers that overwhelming guilt felt like a fair trade. I want to protect her from the harm that had already happened, from the harm I now know was yet to come. But destroying evidence has never changed what occurred.

Instead, I left the prayer where it was, tucked among pages filled with the other hopes, fears, and questions I was holding as I tried to find my way in the world — a reminder of what I once believed and how badly I wanted to be free. I know more now than I did then. I wish she had, too.

In this with you,

Brittany

Instead of my usual letter, I thought I’d share with you some things I’ve been enjoying during this busy season. I’d love for you to share in the comments something that you’ve enjoyed recently, too!

Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farm Hand by Jeff Chu - Although Good Soil came out over a year ago and has been in my TBR pile for several months, it just made its way to the top of my stack. In his memoir, Chu details his time as a farmhand at Princeton Seminary and explores the connection between the land, food, heritage, identity, theology, and belonging. I enjoyed it so much that within seconds of finishing it a few night ago, I texted a friend and told her she needs to read it.

My dear friend is a romcom writer whose imagination and stories I envy. I always tell her I have no idea how she creates entire towns full of interesting people out of her head because it is so beyond any skill I have! She has been working on the second book in her most recent series for the last year or so, and just shared a first chapter teaser with the Substack community. When I tell you I clicked the link so fast… In true Emily fashion, it is delightful. But don’t take my word for it — you can read it for yourself here!

And, if you’d like a romcom you can read in its entirety right now, check out her four other books!

“What Do We Owe Our Children?” - This Substack post from Shannan Martin landed in my inbox while I was working on this letter to you, and I immediately stopped what I was doing to read it. Shannan is a beautiful writer who doesn’t shy away from hard questions, which is one of my favorite things about her work. If you’re wrestling with how to be a better neighbor in our world today, this post will leave you with something to think about.

Shannan’s newest book, Counterweights, came out in March, and it’s another one you won’t want to miss.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Noah Kahan’s new album, The Great Divide. Based on my social media feeds, I can only assume most of America has the album on repeat right now. I’m a sucker for good lyrics, so Noah’s music is right up my alley. A friend asked me on Friday if she’d like his music. “Yes,” I told her, “if you want to be sad.” I think I should rephrase that, though, and say, “You’ll like his music if you want to feel seen in your sadness.” He has the unique gift of putting words to the sadness many of us carry, which is what makes his music so poignant.

My favorite song on the album is “Willing and Able” followed closely by “Haircut” and “American Cars.”

A few months ago on our neighboring town’s square, I saw this painting in the window of an artist’s gallery. I thought about it for weeks. Then, in April at that same town’s spring art festival, I had the chance to meet the artist and see the piece up close. I’ve thought about it almost daily since then.

You can follow the artist on IG at @susanwhigam_art.

That’s my current list! Be sure to tell me what’s on yours!

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In this with you,

Brittany

P.S. In case you missed the news, my book Stories Our Scars Tell is now available as an audiobook (that I got to narrate)! If you prefer a physical copy, you can find it everywhere books are sold. Already read it? I’d love for you to leave it a review, which helps tell the algorithms it’s a book other people might like, too! Thank you!

The top of the net framed a section of sky, dark and clear by Dallas standards. Still, light pollution obscured most of the stars, and I could only just make out the Big Dipper overhead. I had wandered outside in an attempt to escape myself; I wanted to feel small under an expansive sky whose darkness could contain my own.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time running from myself, trying to avoid the darkness in me that can become overpowering. It’s a tricky needle to thread: acknowledge the darkness too much and it might suck you in; don’t acknowledge it enough and it will sneak up on you when you least expect it. I’m both scared of its strength — What if it kills me? — and scared to really fight it — What if I try my hardest and it isn’t enough?

Put more plainly, the question becomes: Am I more afraid of death, or dashed hope and failure?

What I can’t always see when I’m staring at the stars holding the weight of that question is that the question itself is part of the trap. It names two fears as the only paths forward, and asks me to pick which is the lesser of the two evils.

Maybe the goal shouldn’t be to pick between the options fear names — it’s an unreliable narrator anyway — but instead to name the question for what it is: a desperate attempt to exist outside of pain.

Maybe healing doesn’t come from existing outside of pain, but from learning to tend to the pain gently until it dissipates, whatever that takes.

In this with you,

Brittany

A few days before that, I’d been scrolling Instagram when a suggested video put out by a church I’d never heard of filled my screen. Prominently featured in it was the pastor who’d touched me inappropriately nearly twenty years earlier. I was fifteen, he was my thirty-something pastor, and we were on an out-of-state mission trip. I didn’t tell anyone; he didn’t tell anyone.

Then, a year later, as I was saying goodbye to him before my family’s cross-country move, a veiled acknowledgement:

“I feel bad I never apologized to your dad.” We both knew what he was talking about.

“Well, I didn’t tell my parents so it would have been really awkward if you had.”

“I’m so glad I never said anything.”

That was the end of it.

Through mutual friends I remained vaguely aware of his whereabouts after I moved. I knew he’d remained pastor at my former church before eventually leaving to start his own. I heard he stepped away from ministry for a time. At some point, I lost track of him entirely, neither knowing nor caring where life had taken him. Then, after years of being unaware of where he was or what he was doing, he was there, on my phone screen, twenty years grayer, in a church’s video featured as one of the pastors on staff.

Suddenly, the story of what happened on that mission trip came into focus. No longer was I a fifteen year old trying to fit the square pegs of what had happened into the round holes of a narrative that made sense to me — one in which I was at fault, gut-wrenchingly aware of what someone finding out could mean, and solely responsible for keeping him out of trouble.

For days, I debated what I should do. It had been almost twenty years. The event was singular and brief. I had no real proof beyond a few dated text exchanges with a friend who had also been on that trip. If there had never been another event with anyone else, I didn’t want to destroy someone’s life twenty years after the fact.

Ultimately, I decided I couldn’t stay silent, not once I knew he was a pastor again with access to minors, not once I thought about what the potential damage was to others if I said nothing.

I sent an email to the head pastor of the church on a Friday afternoon asking if we could schedule a phone call to discuss a sensitive matter. Less than 24 hours later, I was on the phone with him detailing, for the first time in twenty years to someone other than my therapist, what happened that day. My voice shook as I told the truth.

The pastor I spoke with was shocked but receptive, kind and compassionate. I could hear him taking notes as I spoke. He asked if I had any specific hopes for what would happen from there (I didn’t, beyond letting someone in leadership know the history) and had a clear plan for moving forward.

There were some follow up questions via text, and then a follow up phone call to make sure he had specific details right before he went to the elder board. It felt like it was being taken seriously and being handled well. There were promises to keep me in the loop.

And then, nothing. Despite sending a handful of emails and texts over the last few months to check in, I’ve heard nothing.

A few days ago, on Good Friday, another video featuring my former pastor appeared in my Instagram feed as part of their church’s marketing material for Easter Sunday. Today, curiosity got the best of me. A few clicks, and I was watching a live stream of his church’s Easter service. I watched just enough to see him on stage praying over his church before I closed the browser.

Maybe there was an internal review that revealed no evidence of any other misconduct. Maybe, when push came to shove, it was more convenient and comfortable to ignore altogether. I’ll probably never know, and I’ve (mostly) made peace with knowing I did what I felt like I needed to do to try to protect others in his path.

A few weeks ago, I stood in front of a room of therapists taking a continuing education course sharing about my personal experience with self-injury and the ways in which it has impacted my life. During a Q & A segment, one of the therapists raised his hand and asked, “How did you keep your faith while being so mistreated by the church?”

I thought back to what I had just shared — that my youth pastor, upon finding out about my self-injury, had told me I wasn’t welcome in our youth group — and what I hadn’t shared — that this same man was the one who, at best, made a horrible one-time mistake and responded in the worst way possible. I thought back to how it felt to sit under his gaze as he preached about purity, painfully aware he was the only man who had ever touched me, and the way I wondered later if my excommunication was strictly about the self-injury, or if it was a way to ensure my silence.

When I answered, I told that therapist what I’ve always known to be true: The people who stand on stages in positions of spiritual authority do not get to dictate my faith. They never have. They never will.

This Easter morning I sat in a church listening to a pastor preach the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. I was struck, the way I always am, by the absolute miracle of it all. The withness of a God who became flesh, who bled and died and rose bearing the scars of His humanity. The compassion of a risen savior who met the women who stayed, and disciples who left and ran back, and doubters who put their hands in his wounds right where they were.

No amount of church hurt or pastoral misconduct or personal shame has ever been stronger than the draw of Jesus.

In this with you,

Brittany

Tonight is the night!

Join me tonight, Sunday, March 29 at 8pm ET / 7pm CST for a time of community, creativity, and connection.

If you weren’t able to make it to our last gathering, here’s what you can expect:

Our time together will be casual and last about an hour. We’ll spend a some time journaling together, followed by an opportunity for conversation and connection. Join with your video on or off (although I’d love to see your faces!) and come meet some new friends!

Here’s the link:

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The audiobook version of Stories Our Scars Tell is out now!

I got to record the book myself earlier this year, which isn’t something all authors are given the opportunity to do. In fact, when I told my publisher I was interested in narrating my own book, they told me I could audition for the part but shouldn’t get my hopes up. I sent in an audition anyway, mostly so I could tell myself I had tried. Instead, my publisher called a few weeks later, smiling so much I could hear it through the phone, to tell me I’d been selected.

I went into the studio acutely aware that even being in that room was a privilege. Over two days in January, plus one more in February to correct mistakes we missed in real time, I spent more than nine hours reading my book out loud.

(If you’ve ever wanted to think about every single noise your body makes, can I suggest recording an audiobook? There’s really nothing quite like having someone in your headphones tell you repeatedly, “We need to read that sentence again; I heard your throat make a weird noise” because their super sensitive microphone picks up every single sound within a 5 mile radius. God bless Aaron, and all the other patient sound engineers in the world!)

I hadn’t read my book in its entirety since well before it was released back in September. I wondered if I’d read it again and come away with a list of things I wish I’d said differently. Instead, the opposite happened.

As I read, I found myself agreeing with what two-years-ago-me wrote. (It’s hard to believe it has been that long already, but I wrote the manuscript over the spring and summer of 2024. It takes a long time for a book to end up in your hands…or ears.) I still firmly believe in the hope I described. I still firmly believe there’s power in naming what we’ve experienced, and in remembering we’re more than our worst, hardest, darkest moments. I still firmly believe that our stories connect us to our humanity, and to each other.

While I read to that cozy-but-empty room, I imagined you sitting across from me. I might never have the chance to meet you in real life or to know the details of your personal story, but I’ll never get over what a gift it is to be able to journey with you, even if only for the length of one book.

get the audiobook

In case you missed it, there’s also a free companion study guide to use alongside the book! It can be used alone or in a group study format.

get the free study guide

And, finally, if you’re local to the DFW area, I’ll be doing a book signing at Neighbor Books in McKinney, Texas on Saturday, March 21 from 1-3pm. Come say hi, browse the cutest bookstore around, and go home with a few new books!

I am continually reminded of how lucky I am to be doing this work. Thank you for being here, for reading what I put out into the world, and for being willing to share your lives with me.

In this with you,

Brittany

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