You liked me as a quiet, meek, first-to-clear-the-table, last-to-speak-up girl. You liked me voiceless.
You wanted me submissive, obedient—powerless—and happy about it.
You told me to just keep submitting because it would all turn out okay. You said God would work everything out for good, but then you went home and minded your own business because you aren’t God…
Read MoreFor most of my life, my story was dictated to me. God had already planned my days, and if I wanted to honor him, I was supposed to follow my father’s interpretation of the Bible in order to fulfill God’s plan.
I was always a secondary character in this story. One could say the protagonist was God, the controller of the universe, but since he’s invisible, his stand-in was my father, eventually to be replaced by my future husband.
I remember once as a twenty-four-year-old, when I was trying to assert myself, I was told, “You can think whatever you want, but you can’t act on it.” That statement encapsulated the essence of the spiritual abuse I was experiencing…
Read MoreWhen I was asked as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say, “I’m going to be a stay-at-home wife and mother.” This wasn’t what I really wanted to be, but I believed that it was my destiny and that I had no other option.
As I got older, I was trained for this future, and I was told that after I graduated high school, I would stay in my parents’ home as a stay-at-home daughter until I got married. All my friends from church were given the same expectations. This was the norm in the Christian patriarchy movement.
Daughters were treated differently from sons because we were helpers in training. We were supposed to be dependent on men, protected by men. Any independence of thought or action was shut down . . .
Read MoreEight years ago, I left my life as a stay-at-home daughter in the Christian Patriarchy movement.
I was struggling with depression, anxiety, and terrifying fear. My voice was silenced, and I had no agency over my life. I was not allowed to get a job outside the house, not allowed to go to college, not allowed to date. I had few friends and was mostly cut off from extended family.
The conservative Christian church I was a part of as a teenager was deeply invested in teaching strict gender roles, homeschooling as the only way to raise children, courtship instead of dating, and father-controlled families. Hate speech toward women and the LGBTQ+ community was preached from the pulpit. In this church, I learned to fear everything and to hate myself . . .
Read MoreLay down the wounds like canyons, like caverns in your ocean heart. Cuts in the deep where the water runs coldest. Let the currents of salt fill every crack. Let go of the empty.
You are a world formed in rock and volcano and hurricane. You are the undersea mountains, hidden in the dark. You are the valleys in the hills at the bottom of the earth. . . .
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