Some of you have been reading me for years. Others of you are new, and I just wanted to be me for a minute and tell you about my writing, who I am, and what I am doing, and also thank the people who’ve chosen to stick with me for so long.
I have been writing on the internet since 2008. I would tell you that I have always been a writer, but that isn’t true. I haven’t always known myself very well. My body kept me safe for most of my life by being the most sensitive and alert person in the room. This meant I knew everything about everyone else and not as much about me.
For the first half of my life, I excelled in math and science and was more of a left-brained, rational person. I majored in engineering because of my great love of math, although I’m not sure engineering is really what a math lover should do.
During those early years, I was also a reader. I loved reading more than anything else, but I read mainly fluffy things, with some classics from school. I often tried to write and attempted to write books throughout my life from as early as preschool. My writing was only shared at home, and as a perfectionist child, I would only hear the critiques. Typically, I stuck to what I could do well, but a few times, I did submit writing in high school to our high school publication, and my writing was selected for publication. But I didn’t see myself as a writer or creative person.
I started writing in 2008 for two reasons: 1. I needed relationships, and 2. I couldn’t continue to hold everything inside anymore. In college, I’d dropped the perfectionist tendencies, but they were still there, and the weight of all I was expected to hold was heavy. It reminds me of a story Pete Scazzero tells in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. My short version is this:
A man meets another man on a bridge. The man already on the bridge is holding a rope tied around his waist. He tells the new guy to grab the end of the rope and hold onto the rope. The new guy instinctively grabs the rope. The other man jumps off the bridge while the second man is left on the bridge to hold him dangling there. Then, the man dangling keeps telling the guy to keep holding him. The guy holding the rope has to decide what to do. He also has to think about whether the guy dangling will take some responsibility to be saved.
In Pete’s version of this story, the dangling man refuses to participate in his rescue or be responsible for jumping. The man holding the rope finally lets go to continue living. Writing helped me let go of many ropes.
I began writing about motherhood and updating friends and family about my babies. Soon, my writing moved from motherhood to faith. My writing stank in every way, but I still wanted to be “good,” really, “the best,” so I kept learning how to write, primarily by writing and, secondarily, by reading. As an engineer (my first career), I wrote technical reports, so the writing I’m talking about was journaling and more creative.
In those early years of writing, I wrote out of my insecurities and weakness. This is code for “I was a hot mess who wrote things I’m sure I shouldn’t have but who had a heart to save the world and hoped something was worth reading.” I’m not sure I could say I was writing out of a firm knowledge of myself. I wrote to find out who I was and to tell myself what was true, hoping it would help someone who felt like me, but my primary audience was me.
Despite my mess-ups, my writing became a way to meet with God. Also, I looked around and saw everyone playing the social media game, and I wanted to play too. I still thought in some strange way that life was about getting ahead, and in writing, I was always behind. I believe I exploited myself, but it would be a while before I realized it. Somewhere along the way, I began calling myself a writer and would later call myself creative. I don’t know if naming myself a writer helped people also call me a writer, but I stopped being Jamie, the engineer turned mom, and started being Jamie, the writer who is a mom.
In 2017, I started asking God a question. That question led me to Romans 8, and I wrote a study on it. The work God did through Romans 8 changed my life. After I finished writing that study, I had nothing to say. I was completely different inside. I’m sure I carry all of the same weaknesses and insecurities from before, but whether you call it a demon, as some do, or your inner critic, as others do, the loud voice that told me I was “the BIGGEST LOSER ever” was gone.
All of a sudden, I had nothing to say. Who was Jamie without being able to write? I did continue writing things - Sunday school lessons and other things for church. But the words I had to share on a blog mainly were gone, with an occasional post randomly here and there. For four years, I went almost radio silent. It strikes me as funny now that I have a spiritual formation degree, where silence is a discipline that rearranges the soul.
Then came grad school. There, I had to write every week for some classes. In others, I had to write final papers, but in every class, we typically interacted weekly through writing on an online forum. Sometimes, it was only two sentences. My grad school writing started clunky and improved as I relearned and remembered how to write with a thesis in mind. We had one of the most challenging graders ever (Susan), and any little acknowledgment of a job well done from her went a long way.
As I create Substack content for you, I recognize it is not as good as those academic papers. I learned to enjoy writing academically again, but I don’t want this space to be scholarly papers. I do want my writing to be sharp and crisp. Perhaps some of it will be.
I recognize how much I miss Susan’s feedback and crave yours. Every week, after I hit that little publish button or schedule these emails to be sent via a specific time for landing in our inboxes, I realize so many weaknesses and how I wish I had communicated something just a little better. I think that’s human nature.
I also really believe writing is work I’ve been called to do. This work matters to me, and I hope it is work that matters to you. I’ll be honest. Hearing people tell me I should write is both a blessing and a curse. It blesses me because it lets me know that something I’ve written blessed someone. The human part of me sees it as a curse because it sometimes feels like I’ve been told to sit in the back seat, ministry-wise. “Well, if you can’t do x, at least you can write,” is how it sometimes sits in my mind. Not only that, but trying to make a career out of writing seems far-fetched. These things are limiting beliefs.
I am learning resilience by showing up here week after week, even if or when the writing stinks. I don’t have huge chunks of time to give to writing great pieces, but I wish I could. Sometimes, I may take longer to work on an article so that it will be better and not just ho-hum. I work part-time, but I believe my work here is my vocational work. I would be completely fine with my part-time job if I felt like I was fully Jamie in that environment and could offer the gifts Jesus gave me to steward, but I don’t feel like either one is totally true. Eventually, I will add spiritual direction to my vocational toolbelt. But because I have a Master’s degree and a calling to steward, I don’t want to play small. I want to build this writing muscle even if sometimes it does not look as good as I wish it could.
Being called into ministry, I used to think I would be a missionary. Then I thought maybe I would work at a church. I’ve given up on both dreams, although missions will always be a longing in my heart and something I do when possible. If churches had ministers of formation in Birmingham, AL, I would renew the church dream, but I’m unaware of those churches. In other positions, the doors have been closed so often that it’s healthier for the desire to die. I will say that previously, I made myself small because I thought I had to be small, so maybe I will try again if the timing and opportunity are right.
When a person who’s played small decides to walk in her fullness with confidence, people who are not used to it often think she’s screaming obscenities at them. What a travesty not to want people to become the fullness of who God intends them to be!
I know this Substack is devoted to spiritual formation, and spiritual formation will be a focus for the indefinite future. Still, I also feel pulled to talk about women in the church, as well as the health and future of the church. Sometimes, I wonder if my dream of working in a church had to die because I must write about what I see, and if I worked at a church, I would not have the freedom to write what I see.
My friend
(who you should follow and who still writes in that enneagram 4 space of wrestling beauty down in the now moments) wrote in her last Substack these words:I wonder if the future work of the church in America will be a return to the historical work of the Church? Work that involves poets, wounded healers, storytellers, writers, shepherds, and gentle guides who hold space outside the literal church walls in order to provide pastoral care, spiritual direction, and respite for those inside the church walls, with those on the outside forming a new expression of the local church? Loaded, fractured thinking here, friends, but it is one I’m pondering.
Her questions feel just like what I’ve been called to do. Write my way home right where I am until the church is whole and free.
"Sometimes, I wonder if my dream of working in a church had to die because I must write about what I see, and if I worked at a church, I would not have the freedom to write what I see." I have been pondering the exact same thing for myself. I love reading your words. And I sense the freedom you're embracing through them.🫶
I loved getting to see how God has used writing in your spiritual journey! I resonate with so much that you said!