Becoming Gentle

Brittany and her aunt embrace after Brittany shared her testimony at a recent chapel service.

 After Brittany’s grandfather died, she had a dream in which he spoke two words: “Be gentle.”

Considering everything she’s been through, she knew his words were an invitation to heal her heart. Brittany, a participant in the women’s Life Change Program at the Eugene Mission, says the program is a gift that is allowing her to bring her wounds into the light and accept God’s love into the deepest places of her pain, which began in childhood.

At the age of 14, she went to live with her mother, who struggled with alcoholism, for the first time because her father’s family didn’t want her and her father also suffered from war-related PTSD. She lived with her beloved grandparents for a while, and later lived with her father and her aunt. The animosity that grew among them made her believe a healthy relationship with them would never be possible.

The rejection, abandonment and grief she felt were so overwhelming that she says she tried to shut down her heart and stop feeling, and the effects of her trauma grew into serious mental illness, which she dealt with by using different substances.

After a period of sobriety, she relapsed after her grandmother’s death. She says her relapse became a blessing because it led her to the Life Change Program, where she found hope in Jesus, stability and a new family of sisters.

“I found my faith again,” Brittany said. “Everything began to change when I surrendered to Jesus. I was so resistant, but I have developed a reverence for Jesus and everything just grew from there.”

One area she knew she still needed to work on was her relationship with her family. Her grandmother’s last dying wish was to see the family reunited. Although Brittany and her aunt had apologized to one another, they didn’t have a relationship. That changed several months into Brittany’s stay here, when they had their first visit.

“There’s a lot of love there between us,” Brittany said of their emotional visit. “Neither of us thought that would ever happen, but we’re actually kindred spirits!”

Brittany’s trauma is melting into a new softness, and she said she’s even able to cry now.

Earlier this fall, on her 30th birthday, Brittany was baptized by her pastor in the Willamette River and her aunt attended. As Brittany moves into Phase 4 of the program, or the  “working” phase, she says she knows she’s been given a new life through Jesus and the program.

“I’ve always believed truth, love and forgiveness are what we’re here to practice,” Brittany said. “Now, I have the power to put that into action.”