The Bravery of Being Known

especially when you've been hurt.

Picture credit: Tim Barlin via Unsplash

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I’ve been really needy lately, texting friends for prayer and feeling weak at heart. I imagine them thinking, Here’s Brittany again. What does she need now. With my neediness has come this nagging fear of abandonment—that in allowing others to see me with all my fears, struggles, and sins, they’ll cast me out. Or worse, judge me as faithless. After all, hasn’t this happened before? Haven’t my tears been used as ammo flung in my direction? Didn’t I sit in a church pew hearing calls for vulnerability after being crushed for being vulnerable?

I’ve seen glimpses of the girl I was then, how I advocated for transparency among Christians and took up my torch, marching toward honesty. It was ingrained in my very being to let others in to see the mess. If someone asked me how I was, I would tell them. “I really miss my babies,” I’d say. “I’m struggling with panic attacks,” I’d explain. But my torch of transparency lit me aflame and burned away parts of me I’ll never get back.

That girl is not me anymore. In many ways it’s good. Sanctification is a gift. But in some ways I still grieve those parts of me that were lost. The openness that had once come so natural to me now feels like a threat. Was I simply naive? Had I not yet discovered the way the world works? I looked to my Bible and saw no merit in or call to pretending. I only found the opposite.

I understand now that we can’t trust everyone with our pain. Not everyone deserves to know our story. A mentor told me this once. I can still hear the girl of my past crying out, “But that’s not how it should be!” I quiet the voice with, “yes, but you’ve learned that it is.”

So now I live with this temptation to keep everything close to my heart and never let anyone in. As long as I look strong to everyone around me, I won’t get hurt. If I can just pretend that I never struggle with anger toward my children or fear of the night or weariness in chronic pain, I’ll continue to be invited in. People won’t think I’m weak.

But what if bravery is pressing in and being known instead? What if it takes true strength to let others see behind the curtain, especially when last time you did, you were shattered? What if honesty is worth the cost?

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ICYMI
Recent Essays, Articles, and Poems:
July Recs | vacation envy + a poem on suffering on Substack
That Time I Hid in a Beer Cave on Substack
Is Sex Actually Important in a Christian Marriage? on Core Christianity
The Gospel Frees You From the Shame of Sexual Sin on Core Christianity
Steadfast Devotional through Well-Watered Women