A Reintroduction

It’s been more than three years since I’ve sent out a newsletter. Some of you are receiving this wondering, “Who is Sarah again?”

Who indeed.

The past three years have brought more change than I ever expected. Since then, I have gotten divorced, moved in with my parents (along with my son), became a Swiftie, moved us into an apartment, started a new hobby, lost our dog Luthien to cancer at age four and a half, adopted a kitten, and been diagnosed with religious PTSD.

(More on that last part in a bit.)

My son is in third grade (how?!), currently missing his two front teeth, and obsessed with Minecraft and Geometry Dash and their associated YouTubers. He splits his time between me and his dad, which has worked well, as we live around the corner from each other. We’ve settled into this new life and have made wonderful friends, both in our neighborhood and far away. It’s different, but it’s beautiful.

This newsletter has languished for so long because so many of the Christian themes I used to write about now trigger panic attacks. I can’t listen to much of my old favorite music anymore. I can’t attend church. Even writing about this has brought the beginnings of the fog—the darkening of my vision as if I’m being pulled backwards in a deep railway tunnel, the light at the end shrinking as the black grows bigger and bigger.

Pause. Breathe in, hold it, breathe out. Repeat.

Writing was impossible for the first year or two of immense change. I simply didn’t have the mental capacity. As I adjusted, though, I still couldn’t imagine how to approach it. All my past writing had been through a distinctly Christian lens. Was anything salvageable? Would this beloved practice be lost forever?

All I know is that I still connect to God through the numinous. I always have. Aslan, the embodiment of Numinous in C. S. Lewis’s writing (and if you’ve read my past work, you know that Lewis has impacted me more than any other writer), is still precious to me. I loved Aslan before I loved Jesus, and nothing in Narnia triggers my PTSD. I can still find joy in wonder and beauty and awe.

I think Jesus has patience for this. He knows how my nervous system is wired. He understands that right now, many elements of a church service will bypass my rational mind and immediately set my heart pounding and my vision narrowing as if I was being chased by a tiger. He isn’t angry with me that my brain is doing what it can to keep me safe. He gets that panic attacks can take hours or days to recover from, time I can’t afford to lose when I need to work and take care of my son.

Jesus made me. He also knows that a sunset can communicate his care for me the same way a Bible verse used to, and the sunset isn’t a trigger. He’s pointing me to music and books and nature and people that enlarge my heart, cultivate my softness, and heal my soul.

An incredible sunset elevates even an empty city lot to glory. Photo taken by me.

These are the things I’ll be sharing here. I want to use this newsletter as a journal, a way to mark the Natural and Numinous things that connect me to God during this time in the wilderness. Maybe some of you are on a similar path. I’d love to hear your stories.

I hope to use the Substack app more to interact with readers. I’m new at this, since lots of features have been added since I was away! But we’ll figure it out.

(One request: please don’t encourage me to go back to church right now. I’ve been in trauma therapy with a licensed therapist for two years, and she has advised me that trying to return to church too soon could be catastrophic for my healing. Trust that she’s a professional and has the expertise to know what my brain and body are ready for, and that I am in tune with my system enough to know what I can and cannot handle.)

It’s good to be writing again. Most of what I send out will be more polished essays, including art and music like I used to, but I wanted to set the scene moving forward and answer some questions before jumping back in.

Thanks for being here, friends.

Walk through life with wonder,

Sarah