Welcome to Becoming Her
Dear Ones,
For many years I have been writing about missions, and avoiding burnout, which is very dear to my heart, as are all the relationships I've built through this missional community. It is your voices, comments, emails, and encouragement that have gotten me through so many difficult times when I wanted to quit. But what I was really writing about was my personal story, my journey--with God in my evolving faith, with trauma and suffering, with learning to receive His love, and learning to heal and love myself so I could better serve the world. What I've learned is there is so much power in authentically sharing our stories to mend our lives and the lives of others. The reality is my story is ever-transforming.
I'm no longer the twenty-four-year-old girl in Uganda who began this blog leaning into finding God's goodness in the face of injustice and suffering. I've gone through the disorientating maze of re-entry, grown, changed, moved continents, battled infertility, and become a mother. For years I've struggled to know how to bring you all alongside me through these transitions. The truth is, I don't want to lose you or this community.
But as my heart and life have changed, so have the lessons I've been learning, and with it, my writing has taken a different shape. For some, it may seem like I've abandoned you, that I've stopped writing about the things you care about that impact your daily lives as you seek to serve your global communities and your families. I'm so sorry if you've felt that way. I'm still here. I still care about you. The reasons for the silence are many--new motherhood was life-altering for me--I needed to give myself the space to focus on my family.
After struggling with birth trauma and postpartum depression/anxiety I needed to invest time in my mental health. I moved several times. I also became an author--I've written two books in the last few years, the first is a memoir, Healing Her, about my life on the mission field, lessons I learned, how we go to save others but God ends up saving us. EXCITING NEWS: I'm working with a hybrid publisher to have this book in your hands soon so keep checking your inboxes for how you can support the book! Your support means everything for authors like me!
The second is personal narrative/Christian living about reclaiming our sacred identities in motherhood and finding our identities again when we've lost them in parenting. The time it has taken to birth these books and try to get them published and into your hands has taken all my energy and left little to create on this platform.
Lastly and most importantly I wanted to create for you, but I needed to listen to the story my life was telling and create authentically for myself. In my forties now, I no longer want to be driven by perfectionism or people pleasing, but by being in integrity with the still small voice inside me.
Why do I say all of this?
I am launching a new substack called Becoming Her -essays and poetry on leaning into our Belovedness, into a God who says we are enough even as we navigate transitions, trauma, and parenting. I'm making this transition because I want to share more vulnerably and build a safe space for a community to be seen and heard. I've also been writing for years as a gift, without receiving any income from my work, and while you don't have to pay to read my substack, becoming a paid subscriber helps me live out my calling and cover overhead costs.
My writing may shift and take on a different shape. But here's what remains true:
The threads of missions and motherhood will always be in my voice and they bear striking similarities: they are both catalysts in our transformation, in our undoing, reshaping, and reforming. They are spiritual practices. They require unconditional love, sacrifice, grappling with faith, and a deeper reflection into our own souls. God uses them to break us open, to unearth the places that need healing, to lead us into the arms of love. They are both harrowing and holy work. They are both a calling, a purpose that adds meaning, exhaustion, and joy into our lives. In them we make messes, and in them we are led into our need for grace. Both can easily lead to burnout and both demand we treat ourselves with care, or risk not becoming the people God created us to be.
They are landscapes we can lose our identities in, they are places we become our truest selves. They are roles that can feel lonely at times, where we long for someone else to say, "me too." So while my subject matter may evolve, as I write what is true for me now, the themes of healing trauma, faith, excavating suffering and grief, self-love, self-care, noticing beauty, and becoming more resilient in our lives, will not. I am so grateful you've found solace in my words through the years and hope and pray you will join this new space where we can feel seen, heal, and grow together. I will still be writing here on this blog, so stay tuned my loves.
If you've found any solace in these words I hope you comment with a note--they always make me feel seen, that you, my tribe, our coming along with me for this beautiful, messy ride. I will still be writing on my blog at saritahartz.com, I’m just loving this space for building an authentic community!