I am new to this whole writing thing here on Substack but I am gonna give it the good old college try. :)
Why did I choose now to start writing? I could easily say it’s a “calling” or maybe it’s something to pass the time while I watch my life go up in flames, lol. It really has to do with the fact I have another blog site and have always enjoyed writing but I am a single mom and this is my passion; to write and to educate. I was told to create this amazing desire to want people to come read what you have to share; but let’s be honest here I have ADHD and a whole lot of information concerning faith, love, deconstruction, hope, faith, grief, and many other things. My resumes for traditional jobs suck! And I don’t even know how to make people in my own life listen to me so here I am writing to pour my heart out for anyone who wants to hear, learn, and listen. I care about you, the reader!
What is my “Newsletter” going to consist of….?!? Ummm, mainly my love for people like me who have always been fascinated by faith, Christianity, love, deconstruction, dreams, and the unending questions of “why didn’t that prophecy come to pass?”, and so much more. You see my grandma, Shirley, left me one of the most amazing gifts in the world and that was her (and now my) faith in Jesus and Papa God as good. Now if you knew our stories you would know that we wandered and roamed through western Christianity like vagabonds. Trying to find answers to how do “I earn god’s love?” For me, it was hard, because it was in my formative years while enduring great abuse at home and bullying at school. But I could never shake that there was something deeper but also maybe not so complicated. Maybe there was a love that was real and tangible?
My grandmother didn’t have much for an education, maybe up to the second grade. She didn’t have great money management skills and she didn't drive because it scared her but that woman was fearless and fierce when talking about “her Jesus”. Her relationship was always personal no matter what church we wandered into over the years. And she knew down to her core and bones that Jesus loved her, she just never understood why God didn’t “heal her”. That partially is because somewhere along the way in the 1980s Christian crusades of Ammeragdeon fear hella fire and brimstone god and everything else the name it and claim crowd destroyed many souls, homes, and communities. I should know, I used to be one (that better sound like Mrs. Doubtfire in your head lol).
As a millennial mom, it took a long time to work through my bias, bigotry, racism, hate, and self-loathing that fueled all those things. Religion in terms of references for a collective whole of thoughts, ideologies, and theologies is not a bad term; religion as a soul-crushing system that feeds the other systems of society… not so much. A lot of what I will be sharing here is my struggles, my life, my secrets, my darkness, my faith, my overcoming, my hope, and my kids’ life, and the LOVE of an amazing father. I think I finally figured out we’re not alone and maybe my voice matters. So I want to create a place for people like me who have questions about dreams, prophecy, theology, politics, and whatever else that you can’t ask on Sunday morning in a traditional church. I am not a savior and I am most definitely not a theologian, just a nerd who read a lot to escape abuse and almost 35 years of life experience for those who need a hand to help them pass from what was to what is. That’s all I got and that is me and my story alone.
I hope you join me and I hope you are patient to watch as this evolves and grows. A field full of planted seeds doens’t grow overnight but it does grow and we can wander and wonder in amazement at his goodness through the harvest of wisdom and knowledge together. It’s gonna take all of us. I love you and am glad you’re here.
Light and Love,
Ms. Brandy Jo