Brie Gowen

Savor the Essence of Life

Are White People Bad?

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Today I decided to take my children to a local Civil War Museum. We live in Mississippi, and although the museum is just down the street from my house I had never been. I grew up taking frequent trips to Shiloh Battlefied so I suppose I figured I had seen all the historical facts there were to see, but it occurred to me today that my children had not. They’re still young. I figured the almost two and almost five year old might have trouble understanding it all, but my bright, seven year old would gain some great pearls of history from the excursion. So we went. 

My seven year old knew about the Civil War from previous lessons, but I reiterated key points as we did our tour. In all honesty it probably wasn’t the best educational experience with the younger two running around, but I still tried to make sure she understood the seriousness of this particular piece of our history. As she sat on a bench next to a statue of an African American girl I asked her if she had any questions. I assumed she would, but I really didn’t expect what she said next. 


She asked hesitantly, “are we bad people, Momma? Are we bad cause we kept them as slaves?”

I was caught off guard by her question and also saddened that it was something that even needed to be pondered, but I was also proud of her empathy, conviction, and introspection at such a young age. I answered the best I could. 

In a way yes, and in a way, no. As humans ruled by sin we can do despicable things. Our ancestors did a very bad thing by treating people like property rather than living beings with a soul. We can be sad by what they did, we can learn from their mistakes, we can understand that black people today still hurt a whole bunch because of what happened, but we cannot change what happened. We can’t undo the bad things, but we can move forward in good.

We can make a point to live today and each day being kind, treating people equally and with love, and showing them the good in us. God in us. That’s the most important thing to know. We did bad, but we can still do good. We’re not bad, because of Jesus, and we’re only good by His grace. 

When I finished I looked at her solemnly and asked, “do you understand?”

“Yes, Momma.” She smiled. “I love you.”

Then I thought, I love you too, baby. I wish I could take all the bad away so it never touched you, but then I also know that there’s many bad things, such as this, that you absolutely must see so that you’ll be better able to understand God’s goodness at work in our lives, how much we absolutely need Him, and how you can be His hands and feet in a bad world. 

Are white people bad? We’re all bad; white, black, brown, yellow, and green. God is the only thing good in any of us. 

Something for the Bad Girls Who Don’t Deserve God’s Grace

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This is for all the people out there who don’t feel deserving of God’s saving grace. Or feel guilt. Or just feel less. 

I look back on my past with disdain and regret. You’ll hear a million people tell you that God can use your mistakes, and I know that’s true. But it doesn’t change the fact that sometimes when I think of the things I have done I want to cry. I want to weep because He saved me anyway, but also because I now love Jesus so much that I am ashamed for the things I did once upon a time. They say God forgives and forgets. I wish it were always that easy for me. 

If one incident of my past stuck out from the rest I think it would be a fall evening in the library at my local community college. The memory of this event is certainly not the worst thing I ever did. Far from it! I have stories that would make a sailor blush. Heck, I was the sailor. But no, I think this story sticks with me because it began my downward spiral. It sufficiently showcases my particular battle to make myself feel worthy and special. This was a Brie before Jesus. And it causes me to hold my head low at the thought of it. 

In junior college I had a great roommate. We had chosen to room together, and more than a roommate she was my best friend at the time. She always let me borrow her clothes. So even though I wore them to clubs and brought them back reeking of cigarettes, something that didn’t bode well with her asthma, she never complained. She had more economic resources than I did (aka, her parents had more money), and she was quick to buy my toiletries or pay for my meals. I didn’t have to ask, she just did it. She was a good friend. 

One evening she wasn’t feeling well and stayed back in our room with the lights dimmed, so I headed to the library to get a paper finished. While there I ran into her boyfriend. They were originally supposed to study together, but she had canceled because of her migraine. As we stood talking in the aisle I caught the whiff of cigarettes and alcohol on his breath, something my roommate abstained from, but a smell I knew rather well. I’m not sure what came over me at that moment, but realizing he was under the influence I made my move. 

I slid closer to him, and I began to flirt seductively. I made some sexually suggestive remarks, and with my body language nailed home the offer. 

My roommate was beautiful. She had an ample bosom where mine was flat, a gorgeous face where I felt mine was plain, and long, luxuourous hair where mine was short. An epic 90210 style gone wrong. What she had not done was sleep with him yet, and that’s where I knew I had the upper hand. I could be better at something than her. I could feel pretty. I could feel wanted. Even if just for the night. I think at the time I tried to tell myself I was doing it for her, to see if he would cheat. But I think deep down it was also to see if I could tempt him. 

College days


He ended up denying my advances. Ouch. I don’t know if he ever told her, but I left the dorms shortly after and we drifted our separate ways. The next decade of my life would follow a self-destructive pattern of me trying to be the better girl, but always falling short. It would be an empty decade filled with one mistake made after the other, and a ton of awful decisions not even worth mentioning. None of the things I chose to do ever made me feel better about myself, but they did leave me with a deep hole in my life that I felt unable to climb out of on my own. I got to a place of rock bottom, and that’s where Jesus found me. 

He showed me I was worth more than what mere man thought of me. I was worth more than all the rejection life had heaped upon me, much of it of my own making. He pulled me out of my pit of despair, and then He began showing me that none of the life I lived before reaching out for His hand mattered. None of it. 

I would say that I was the girl who tried to sleep with her roommate’s boyfriend. 

Jesus would say, you’re forgiven. 

I would say that I was the woman who treated relationships like a revolving door. 

Jesus would say, you are precious in my sight. 

I would say that I was the lady who drowned herself daily in too much booze. 

Jesus would say, you are now clean as snow. 

I would say that I was the person who lied, cheated, and stole. 

Jesus would say, none of that matters now. I took your sin on myself, and I paid the price to erase it from your life. You’re free of sin, you’re valuable to my kingdom, and you’re worthy of my sacrifice. If I had to die on the cross for you again, I would do it in a heartbeat. 

Redemption isn’t a thing that’s given and then taken away. Forgiveness is a gift, and once we ask we only have to receive it. Then it is ours, no matter what we did. His death paid the cost, and even though He knew I would do the horrible things I did, He died for me anyway. I had to realize that once I accepted His gift of forgiveness I was no longer bound by the chains of my sin, I was only bound by my inability to fully accept His redemptive power. 

So do I ever still look back on my past with regret? Honestly? Yes. But I don’t stay there. I know that I’m not stuck there. I know that my past is not who I am. I have been made new. I am a new creation. And that is all that matters. 

*If by chance my old roomie sees this, I’m sorry, my friend. I was trying to fill a void, and it happened to hurt more people than just myself. Please forgive me. 

I Should Have Been Cut Down…

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Do you ever look back on the life you’ve led and wonder how you’re still here? Do you think of mercy and grace, and want to absolutely crumple under the weight of your own regretful tears? I was reading in Luke this morning when I came across this. 

Luke 13:6-9New International Version (NIV)

6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

Immediately my mind flashed back in time, many years ago. The funny thing about time is how something can seem a lifetime away, but simultaneously the memory of it can be so fresh it’s as if it were yesterday. I can still easily recall the way my hands uselessly gripped the steering wheel as it ripped around and out of my grasp. My head slung backwards as I realized I was in a multitude of revolutions. Darkness was all around, and torrents of heavy rain pelted the windows of my tiny car. Even in my deep state of alcohol-induced inebriation I understood one thing very clearly. I had hydroplaned, lost control of my vehicle, and there was no way of gaining it back. Within city limits, with houses and buildings all around, yet surprisingly not another car, I caught flashes of street lamps muted by windows of blurred water while my car spun violent three-sixties off the road. I tried in vain to hold the runaway steering wheel, and my drunken, yet frightened mind wondered in slow motion if I was supposed to turn against the wet skid like you would if you hit ice. I didn’t know, but I knew this. 

I’m going to die. 

That was the main theme that ran below the steady current of adrenaline and drunken fear. My time had come, and surprisingly I felt calm as I careened to my imminent death. I believe it was the acceptance that I was getting what I rightfully deserved. I knew better than to drive drunk, and despite what I told myself when I grabbed the keys (you’re fine, silly), I knew at that moment, as my life flashed before my eyes, that I deserved to die by my own hand for my stupid actions. I even had the thought to whisper a thank you that no other innocent driver was in my path of destruction. 

I knew God. I even knew His love for me. He had planted His Holy Spirit in my heart, yet I had turned my back on Him. I had allowed the disappointments I faced in this world to hamper my relationship with Him. I had sought fulfillment and healing beyond His hand, and even though each day ended with me empty, and each new morning began with my conviction and regret, I still couldn’t believe I was good enough to return to His side. Heck, I think honestly the sinful part of my nature didn’t want to. 

I was producing zero fruit, and my King had every right to cut me down. I knew His glory, but I disregarded His will. I knew His sacrifice, but I walked in opposition of His gifts for my life. I had been saved by grace, yet I took it for granted. I deserved to be cut down. I should have been cut down! But He decided to give me another year. 

Spinning, spinning, spinning. The tiny car just kept spinning, but then suddenly it was not. 

Am I dead? I had wondered for a moment. 

I inhaled deeply, and then I exhaled just as much. I was alive. I got out of my vehicle, and the rain poured like evidence from Heaven that I could still feel the world around me. I don’t think I had truly felt it for some time. My car sat stationary in someone’s yard, between a large oak and a towering power pole. No ding or scratch was on my vehicle, and the only evidence anything was amiss was a sprig of pulled grass stuck in my hubcap. My body was whole, but my soul was shaken. I had deserved to be taken away in a body bag, but I stood in the pouring rain miraculously alive. 


A year later I was producing fruit. It might have been slim pickings, but it was something. I had turned an about face from the life of self-destruction that surrounded me the night I lost control of my car. It wasn’t just the vehicle’s trajectory that was outside of my power. Some would have labeled me a lost cause, but not my God. He saw the potential in me. He knew my heart. He called me back into His arms. I look back on my past life and I want to cry with shame. It’s not condemnation I feel. It’s simply sorrow over so much wasted time that I could have been living for Jesus, producing fruit. Although I do weep at times over the mistakes I made, I would say that mostly my tears are those of gladness and gratitude that the Lord never gave up on me. He should have, but He didn’t. It’s true that nothing in this world can take us from Him. It may blind us to His goodness, it may distance us from His glory, but it can never take us from His grasp. 

Romans 8:38

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow–not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.

How I Feel About the Dreaded 4-0!

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As I sat last night on my couch on the eve of my fortieth birthday I realized I was in anticipation for the day. An age that twenty years ago I thought I might dread, I now find exhilarating. Every day, for the last seven or so years, has gotten better than the one before it. So it’s no wonder that when my baby brother tried to tease me about it at church on Sunday I answered like I did. 

“No problem, man,” I said smoothly. “Forty is the new thirty. Or maybe even the new twenty.”

I guess you could say I’m a late bloomer in life. It took me a little longer than some to figure out what was important. But then again, I may have figured it out sooner than others. I guess what’s abundantly important is that it’s never too late to discover what you want out of life, what matters the most, and to not let the burdens of this world keep you from them. 


I’ve learned this. 

Your past doesn’t define you. You define you. 

It doesn’t matter if you come from a long line of alcoholism. 

You can be sober. 

It doesn’t matter if you existed for too many years in an abusive, unhealthy relationship.

You can find happiness with someone who treats you with respect and dignity. 

It doesn’t matter if you were a Mary Magdeline (like, before Jesus came along) or the Samaritan woman at the well. 

Jesus makes all things new. 

You’re not your family history. You’re not your past mistakes. You’re not even your past reputation. Chains can be broken, the past can be forgotten and forgiven, and you can move forward. I, for one, am grateful of that. 

It’s easy in this life to make excuses. You can say, “I’ve always had the worst of luck,” or you can feel like your disappointing situation is simply your lot in life. You can say you’re the way you are because of how you were raised, what happened to you growing up, the people who hurt you, or even because of the people you have hurt. And though those circumstances do shape you into the person you have become, they do not define who you have to be. Believe me; been there, done that. 

The vibrant, joyful woman who turns 40 today is in stark contrast to the hopeless, frail woman who turned 30 a short decade ago. That woman was a broken vessel. Thankfully, we all can use some mending. 

The wonderful news is it’s never too late to start living life to its fullest potential. It’s never too late to change. It’s never too late to overcome addictions, remove obstacles that impede us, and cut out those things or people from our life that hamper us. It’s never too late to believe that it’s never too late. 

For me, I feel like my twenties were a blur, like I wasn’t even really living life at all. I was barely existing. So though my body turns forty today, my spirit feels young and new. I enter my forties with exuberant expectation for what this decade holds. 

Let each day be that. Let it be one where you wake up eager to see what’s in store, eager to move forward (not backwards), and eager to be the person you were designed to be. 

I Almost Died, but Instead I Was Reborn

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Perhaps I’m feeling sentimental today. After all, it’s my thirty-eighth birthday, but I realized it was more than a simple concern over fleeting time or growing wrinkles that caused the tears to collect in my eyes. No, I was grateful, and as I thought back on the past eight years I realized today represented more than the day I was born from my mother’s womb. It also represented the day I was given a second chance at life. The beginning of my rebirth. 

I found myself on my thirtieth year a thin, shell of a woman. Bags under my eyes, a weary body and mind, and a fake smile plastered on my face to hide the pain I felt inside. I wore a princess crown on my head, a birthday token from my mom, but I felt like anything but royalty. 

  
I was back home, which should have been a comforting thought, but instead I was shrouded by misery. Newly divorced, jobless, homeless, and relying on liquid courage to give me a second wind. I had spent the past decade running wild, living outside of my true character, and trying to be anyone but who I really was. I was searching, I suppose, but all I found was more baggage. And at the age of thirty I found myself back at square one feeling quite rejected and like very much of a failure at the life I tried so hard to control. 

Today I woke up earlier than I had to by a small voice saying, “Mom, I think I peed on myself a little,” and sure enough at the awakening I could both smell and feel urine. After cleaning her up and laying us both back down she quickly fell back asleep, but I could not. I lay in the silent room looking at the ceiling and thinking about my life. 

The growing baby in my womb twisted back and forth in her own happy birthday dance, and the barely audible breathing of my spouse accompanied her movement. Together the symphony comforted me, and I realized that a lot had changed in the past eight years. 

Eight years ago I had felt like I was dead, or dying at the very least. Like a wayward child I had run rebelliously beyond the confines of my Father’s yard. I had jumped the fence, and only briefly looked back. I had run haphazardly, and I had fallen hard. Yet when I came limping back sheepishly, licking my wounds, He had said, “Welcome home, my child.”

I was lost. But then I was found. I was blind. But then He opened my eyes so I could see. I was dead in sin. But then He gave me new life. I was shackled in chains of my own making. But He set me free. 

I almost died, but instead I was reborn. 

I think back to my thirtieth birthday, a time when I felt the worst, the lowest I ever have in my life, and I rejoice at that time. It was then, at my absolute emptiest, that God was able to fill me. He was able to renew me, and He was able to give me new life. It didn’t happen that day. The girl with the plastic crown still cried, but it was a start. 

It was the beginning of God calling me back into His arms. 

I woke this morning covered in pee. I got up, sore and tired, and I made breakfast for other people. I washed dishes, folded laundry, and put together curriculum for my daughter’s upcoming school year. There wasn’t a party, and I didn’t even get a crown. But I smiled all over. My body smiled from the inside out. 

He had freed me from the past, but also from my past regret. He had fashioned a new crown for me to wear. And the grandest birthday gift of all was the realization that He is jealous for me. He loves me. 

I spent my thirty-eighth birthday surrounded by love, not only from my family, but from the Holy Spirit in my life. I am happy, healthy, and whole. I’m back home, back in God’s will, and I’m alive. I wear an invisible crown now, and not just on my birthday. It rests there every day, like the peace that lives in my heart as I serve the Lord. It took me a while, but I finally found my way back into His arms.  

Happy 38th Birthday to me, and more importantly, Happy 8th Birthday, the day I returned back home.