Bent but not broken

I had an interesting experience this week, sort of a breakthrough. A friend of mine posted an article about sexual abuse in Independent Fundamental Baptist churches. It was very intense but not surprising. After some of the things I experienced when I was there, there was nothing in the article that was new to me. What really struck a nerve was that I recognized all the names of the pastors and the churches etc. I have either met them in person or heard them preach or at least heard the name because no matter how much they pride themselves on being "independent ", Fundy world is a small world after all . Initially, I wasn't going to comment at all but I did say that I wasn't surprised and I would probably ruffle feathers if I said what I wanted to say so I was going to back out of the conversation. My friend who posted the article, and a friend of hers, both encouraged me to express my opinion. I generally try to avoid Facebook drama like the plague because it never e...

For the most part, aside from a few uncontrollable eye rolling moments when I read some Fundy porn posts on Facebook, I'm doing pretty well leaving that world behind.  Occasionally though, I will see or hear something that takes me back. For example ,just tonight I read a post on a forum for moms from an anonymous woman who is literally trapped in fundamentalism. Her husband is the stereotypical controlling and abusive Fundy husband and has threatened to take her kids away if she leaves. I'm so very thankful that my husband never bought into the whole submissive wife bullshit but at the same time, I can relate on some level to her feelings of being trapped. For a while, we weren't on the same page with regards to the church and I wanted to leave but he didn't. It caused a lot of tension between us. I was absolutely miserable whenever I forced myself to go to church with him and our kids and felt like I was suffocating. I'm grateful every day that we finally got out ...

I read a Facebook post from a young lady we knew from our former church (she and her family left the church before we did) that was extremely disturbing. Long story short, when she was at "Christian " college, she was in an unhealthy relationship with a young man that manipulated her into performing sexual acts.  Because of the extremely conservative environment in which she was raised and the equally conservative environment of the college, she was terrified to speak up. She explained it as having a "Scarlet Letter " attached to you whenever you messed up, with regards to the judgement and shame. This is a very lovely young lady, beautiful,smart and talented. To say I was shocked when I read that, is an understatement. I think my mouth was hanging open. She finally found the courage to break free of the relationship after a couple of years and is sharing her story with the hope that she can help others in the same situation. While I'm upset about what happened ...

I just read this blog and I don't think I could say it any better than this lady!!   https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2017/05/22/new-blog-series-spiritual-abuse-in-the-church-a-guide-to-recognition-and-recovery-by-pastor-ken-garrett/comment-page-1/#comment-358579