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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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A New Kind of Question & Answer

Dec 14 7 Comments

On Good Friday of this year, I mustered up every bit of gumption I had, called my friend Randi, and quietly spoke these words: “I think I’m reconstructing my faith.” I lay there on my bed, lights off and fan whirring, hoping to drown out the sound of the words I had been too afraid to say. I’m not sure who exactly I was trying to hide those words from. My husband? No—I definitely wanted to tell him. God? No—he already knew.

As my words settled into the darkness, reaching through sound waves from my bedroom in Chicago to Randi’s car moving along a Los Angeles freeway, a thousand questions began to tumble from my lips. Questions that had been itching under my skin for more than a decade, dancing on the tip of my tongue, buzzing in my brain like flies trapped in a window pane. Choose your uncomfortable metaphor; I was feeling it.

I’d been afraid to ask these questions for a laundry list of reasons: I’m not supposed to doubt, question, or wrestle with my faith. I’ll open up a million rabbit trails. Maybe I won’t like the answers. Maybe I’ll never find the answers. Maybe there are no answers. Maybe I’ll end up alone and with nothing.

But at some point, the levee breaks and you have to deal with the aftermath.

It turns out, I was right: this process of figuring out who God really is and what my faith is all about did open up endless rabbit trails. I’ve ordered close to a dozen books from Amazon and added countless more titles to my GoodReads list. I’ve spent hundreds of hours listening to podcasts about the person of Jesus, the Bible, church history, and ancient Judaism. I’ve lost track of the time I’ve spent devouring blogs and articles, always thinking “just one more.”

But it turns out, I was also wrong: I am, in fact, supposed to wrestle with my faith. The Bible is filled with stories of people trying and struggling and failing and trying again to make sense of God. Throughout church history, Christians have revised and reformed and reworked ideas and institutions that were broken. My own life is marked by people who have been trying day by day to figure out what God wants them to do, and who have since scrapped that question in favor of asking who God is.

Part of me was afraid to admit my questions out loud and usher in this long process of reconstructing my faith, because I was afraid I’d be all alone in it. Will anyone else understand? Will I be shunned by my church? Will my family think I’ve gone crazy? But what I’ve found instead is a community of people who were already on the journey and who were eager to welcome me into their fold. More than information in the podcasts and books and blogs I’ve been consuming, I have found a community of people who are asking the very same questions, doubting the very same approaches, and wrestling with what it means to be someone who loves Jesus right here, right now. People who are doing their best to learn God and love people with what they’ve been given.

As I approach Advent this year, mere months since my Good Friday admission, I do so with a deeper sense of wonder than I can remember from years past. I had initially feared that pulling even one thread would cause the whole tapestry of my faith to unravel, leaving me with empty hands. But perhaps that was the problem all along: thinking that God could fit into my hands, could be manipulated by my hands in the first place. I suppose it wasn’t me who was weaving the tapestry all this time; it’s God who has been grafting me into the story of his people.

So I keep walking into the unknown, believing I will find a loving God there, far away from the baggage I’ve left behind. And as I take each shaky step, I reach out for the hands of people who are here with me, imagining new questions now that we aren’t bound by the old answers.

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Filed Under: Faith Tagged With: advent, church, faith, God, Jesus, wonder

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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
The last day of school hit different this year. 💔 My tears at kindergarten graduation were not about how my first baby is growing up too fast. They were tears of gratitude that she’s growing up at all—something that should not feel spectacular, but does.

Swipe for some first day/last day comparisons and an outtake that I adore. 💜
There was a huge, complete rainbow outside Eamon’s bedroom window after his birthday party, and I can’t think of a better celestial celebration for our rainbow baby/big boy. 🌈
Our little Eamon baby is 3! 🎉 Though he will be Our little Eamon baby is 3! 🎉 Though he will be the first to tell you that he is not a baby—he is Eamon Boy, and he is a big kid.

Eamon is sweet and wild and silly and will do anything for a laugh, instantly charming everyone he meets. He is just as likely to tackle you as he is to request a hug and a kiss.

Eamon talks all the time and stretches out the last word of every sentence like it’s a question, but he also loves to communicate with roars and growls. No surface or object is safe around him, as he climbs and jumps off everything and will declare anything from a pillow to a plate his “rock” and throw it like he’s an Earth Giant in Frozen (we’re working on it).

He is obsessed with Dan, smitten with Selah, and thinks I’m just okay, at best—but he is my best buddy if the other two are unavailable.

This past year, Eamon went to Six Flags, Lake Geneva, and Disney World, and he has mastered his balance bike. Basically, he always wants to go fast and/or get as close to flying as possible.

Eamon, you are pure joy and delight, the brightest ray of sunshine, and the dreamiest rainbow baby. Happy birthday, my sweet boy! ☀️🌈💜
Or, “What does it say about me that the first po Or, “What does it say about me that the first poem I’ve written in a year is a list of things that make up my personal hell and I actually had to cut this down because I had so many/too many thoughts on the topic?” It’s fine, everything is fine.
This year was absolutely brutal. It also facilitat This year was absolutely brutal. It also facilitated some of the best decisions of my life, many born out of deep pain. Starting a new job, because the old one no longer fit. Getting vaccinated, to protect myself and others as we muddle through another pandemic year. All but quitting writing and social media, because I simply didn’t want to do it anymore. Most importantly, starting on Zoloft, because I needed it desperately. Those tiny blue pills quite literally saved my life.

The first half of 2021 was one of my darkest seasons, and the second half—thanks to modern medicine and my own intuition and the possibility of remote work, thanks to Selah starting kindergarten and me taking care of myself and being able to look at my kids and truly delight in them for the first time in a long time—was one of my happiest ever.

Holding both halves tenderly as we cross this next threshold. 💜
Selah Marie is 6! She started kindergarten this ye Selah Marie is 6! She started kindergarten this year and firmly entered world of big kids. Her confidence in every area has skyrocketed, from climbing her new playground to sounding out words to talking to new friends. She blows us away every day with her kind heart, generous spirit, and innate sense of empathy. She is tenderhearted, curious, affectionate, and hard to impress, and we adore her more every day. Happy birthday, Selah! 🧁 🎉 💜
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