A Better Story

By Jonathan Pitts

I’ll never forget Wynter, my late wife, telling me, “I think I’m supposed to write a book.” 

“Write a book about what?” I said somewhat dismissively.  We were 21 years old and dating and I had a bit of a self-righteous chip on my shoulder. 

“I don’t know,” she said with her head tilted away from me in somewhat of a dreamy state. Truth be told, she didn’t care because she knew she would know when she knew. Ten years later with a 7-year-old girl, a 5-year-old girl and twin 3-year-old girls, she would finally come to understand what her book was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be a story that told our girls who God is to them and who they can be in Him. It was a story she desperately wished was told to her in a compelling way as a little girl herself. She wanted to present a better story in the gospel, and it turns out she had a knack for storytelling in a voice that made each and every one of the girls she’d reach feel special. It was as if she were speaking just to them. Her secret was that she was speaking to the little girl in herself. God would give her voice projection, and she’d end up reaching thousands and thousands more girls in her life and many more now in her death. 

The book would start as a magazine and she would begin telling that same story through a lot of different ideas and themes. She wanted girls to see themselves in the girls that her magazine portrayed. She wanted regular little girls to know that they could do big things for God, just like the girls they were seeing.

That magazine would lend itself to a book and then another book and then several more, both fictional and non-fictional. Though Wynter passed away unexpectedly and suddenly at the age of 38, thousands of girls know who they are in Christ because of her commitment to bravely listen to and follow God’s prompting. And more will continue to find out because of her commitment to reaching them with a voice that they can relate to with a better story than the one girls often are told. But most importantly, her four daughters know and will continue to remember who God is through their mother’s voice and her urgency to reach them. She worked as if she knew her time to present them with truth and grace was limited. That should be the posture of all of us. 

I am excited to announce our newest resource, God’s Brave Girl, to help you reach the girls in your world with this better story. This six session study will introduce your girls to Christian values in a way that they are able to palate and digest, so they can walk passionately and boldly in who God has created them to be. The world is telling our girls a sad story. We have a better one. Let’s continue to share it with relevancy, excellence, and beauty. It’s worthy of all of those qualities and more. And so are our girls.

View a sample or pre-order God’s Brave Girl here.

Jonathan Pitts is an author, speaker, and executive pastor at Church of the City in Franklin, Tennessee, where he lives with his four daughters. Prior to pastoring, Jonathan was executive director at The Urban Alternative, the national ministry of Dr. Tony Evans in Dallas, Texas.