"Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken: Fighting for Faith When You're Falling Apart" by Sydney Bennett

Sydney Bennett graduated with her bachelor's degree from NSA in 2024. She recently published her first book, Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken, which we strongly recommend you read. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions so thoughtfully, Sydney!

1. How did you first come up with the idea to write Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken? 

My hands became paralyzed while driving back from a date night shortly after our honeymoon. Within two weeks, I lost the ability to walk, speak, taste, move independently, and started having seizures, hallucinations, and intense chronic pain. The third time we went to the emergency room, the doctor told me I was probably dying, and he didn't know why. 

It took over a month to receive the diagnosis of Functional Neurological Disorder, which essentially means my brain doesn't communicate correctly with the rest of the body. 

There were a lot of nights I was in too much pain to sleep, so I would go out to the living room, open my laptop, and start writing. It began as a way to process what was happening to me, and to put language to something I didn't yet have words for.

I swore those pages would never be read by anyone else. They were too broken, too vulnerable. They asked and wrestled with questions and doubts I wasn't sure Christians were allowed to think, much less say out loud.

But over time, as I began sharing small pieces of my story, I found that those same questions and struggles I thought I was alone in resonated deeply with others.  I began to see threads of God’s redemption that had been at work from the very beginning. 

Those early writings became the foundation for my senior thesis at NSA, and eventually, for this book.

It recounts some of my own story, but more importantly, it speaks to the fellow believer who is in their own long middle of suffering, whether that be disability, chronic pain, depression, or something else entirely. I want to help give language to the struggles and questions many of us feel alone in, and point to the God who makes things both fearful and wonderful. 

2. How did your time at NSA prepare you for writing and publishing? 

The first thing NSA did to prepare me for writing was—truthfully, kindly, and effectively—humble me. 

I came to NSA in 2019 as a very ambitious and self-confident freshman. I had always excelled in reading and writing, and had high hopes of blowing my professors away with the things that seemed to come so easily. 

My rhetoric professor, Mr. Brian Kohl, was the first to challenge that assumption. I remember getting notes back on my papers: disorganized, poor argument, but most of all—self-indulgent. 

I was shocked. For a while, I tried to convince myself that my professors were missing some deep potential in me, or perhaps failing to appreciate the unique creativity of my individual voice. It took receiving similar comments from multiple professors before I realized: I really had a long way to go. 

Over my time at NSA, I learned to reason carefully, to engage honestly and courageously with opposing ideas, and to communicate with clarity and precision.

All of those things are important in writing, but even more crucially, NSA made me aware of my actual position in the world and in the field of academics. My classmates and friends—all of whom were gifted in their own right—made me see the very large pool in which I swam, challenging my presuppositions and arrogance. My professors truthfully and graciously called me out on aggrandized rhetoric to hide a poor argument, and self-indulgence where I forgot about the reader, and conclusions that were fractured from my base. The content we read opened my eyes to minds much sharper and more expansive than my own, forcing me to grapple with questions and conversations for which I (delightfully) did not feel prepared. 

Two professors in particular had a lasting impact on me. Dr. Schlect was a mainspring of encouragement and wisdom that first year back as a newly married, newly disabled woman living alone while my husband was deployed overseas. He helped me see the beauty of dependence and what it means to carry each other in suffering—literally: It was on his history field trip that he rallied a group of wonderful volunteers to carry me and my wheelchair up a mountain.

Dr. Grieser, my thesis advisor, pushed me to make my sentences clearer, more truthful, and more beautiful. He refused to let me hide behind vague language, lose sight of the reader, or the Lord. 

I will be forever grateful for the impact of NSA on my life and my writing. Without it, I would not be who I am today.

3. Do you have any upcoming projects you want NSA to know about? 

I think there are still lots of spaces we need to fill when it comes to Christian grief and suffering. I’ve grieved a brother. Grieving a sibling is different than grieving a parent or grieving a child. I think we should have language for that. 

Another area that keeps pressing on my heart is children’s literature. 

After having kids myself, I realized how difficult it is to explain disability to a child in a way that is both truthful and dignifying. We live in a culture that struggles to hold tension: we either flatten disability into something inspirational or reduce it to something tragic. But Scripture does neither. It tells the truth: we are broken, and we are deeply valuable at the same time. 

I haven’t found many children’s books that try to grasp both realities. I find myself wondering if I might one day try.

I also would love to write some fiction one day, but fiction is harder than non-fiction: you have to tell the truth in the realest way possible—through story. In non-fiction, the story has already been given to you, you’re just putting it in the truest words you can.

For now, I’m continuing to share my life and faith online (@the.annegirl), and I’m grateful for the community forming there. In all these ideas, whether children’s literature, theology of grief, or fiction, my hope is just to keep telling the truth about suffering and the goodness of God and to trust him with whatever comes from that.

4. What are you currently reading, or what is a book that you recently read and enjoyed?

I am currently reading The Winter of Our Discontent, by John Steinbeck. This will be my seventh Steinbeck novel, and I can confidently say he has become one of my favorite authors. 

Good writers have a way of startling you with recognition. You encounter a sentence or moment and suddenly think: "This is true! I have seen this before!" And suddenly your place in the world feels gloriously smaller, and you rejoice in the whatness of things themselves (quiddity as C.S. Lewis called it). Things in their simple, undeniable reality.

His books are deep, raw, and laced with theological themes, but most gripping to me are his characters. They are so profoundly… human. No matter what darkness Steinbeck’s characters are working through (and believe me, there is plenty), you’ll find yourself in them too. That’s a terrifying and precious gift, if you’re willing to take it.