Religious Groups

Fighting for Hope: Elliott Grace Harvey’s Story – Conclusion

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Conclusion

*****

Mars Hill Church – 3 years
Mars Hill Church, though a cult, was my gateway drug to separating myself from IBLP and OPC. The act of attending a church with different beliefs was radical in and of itself.
Though not openly stated in so many words, the foundation of Mark Driscoll’s leadership in MHC was based on misogyny, over-emphasized masculinity, and a severe need for control. Because of the size of the church, there was some buffer between Driscoll and his church members in the form of hundreds of pastors, elders, deacons, small group leaders, and volunteers.
The following is a direct quote from Driscoll, part of his rant that set off a cascade of criticism that was the ultimate demise of MHC.

“Scrap all you want. Hurl insults. Throw your petty theological darts. Have a good cry. Whatever. But do not lose sight of the issue. At some point you will all learn that I don’t give a crap about how you “feel.” Why, because I am not talking about your right to your feelings. That is the result of feminism, psychology, and atheism which says we are all good and need to have freedom to express our goodness and receive goodness in kind. If you are a man I want to teach you a new word. Duty….My feelings and rights turn me into an idol of self-worship that mitigates against Him. I am screaming at you to do likewise. And yes I am screaming, why, because listen to all the noise we’ve got to cut through. Even from “Christian” men who are basically practical queers that freak out when a man shows up because it becomes obvious that they are completely pussified.” – Mark Driscoll, on men

During the time I was involved, I was fairly unscathed by the church, in contrast to the experiences of thousands of other MHC members. I joined a study group led by an elder that worked with Driscoll from the church’s infancy, and openly disagreed with some of his teaching. This study group had the most genuine and loving people I had encountered up to this point, many of whom I’m still in touch with. I embarked on another stage of my healing, simply by learning that there were good souls in the world.

The last two weeks I’ve mostly been very emotional, crying through a lot of stuff. But the moment I arrived and the service started, I relaxed and it all faded away. As much of a hassle it is to get to church I’m always glad I came. – Journal entry

While a member at MHC, I became deeply involved in their individual and group counseling. It was helpful to a point, learning to speak honestly about myself, especially since I couldn’t afford the financial and emotional toll of seeing a professional counselor.

Everything just hurts. I feel like I’m lying to everyone when I talk about dad being abusive. It’s such a heavy word. Was he really? What about all the good things? Does it matter how often one of us got hurt? I hate remembering everything. I hate rewriting my perspective constantly. – Journal entry

Unfortunately, I found myself entrenched in a bad relationship with my counselor.

There was a good deal of control that, thankfully, I was eventually able to identify and cut myself off from.

My small group leader was, and still is, supportive of me and my decision to leave the church.

After moving out of my parent’s house, I intentionally kept contact on good terms with my family for the sake of my siblings. I feared if I told anyone about what went on in that house, things could go horribly wrong. So I waited, careful not to talk to mandatory reporters, and made sure my siblings could contact me if there was an emergency.

Several years passed, and I ran across an article about a homeschooling fundamentalist leader being involved in a sex scandal. From this story I found and connected with Homeschoolers Anonymous, Recovering Grace, Mars Hill Refuge, and other groups. Even at the time I knew this would be a turning point in my life.

One month before finding this community, I penned the following:

I say my past doesn’t matter that much, that I love my family and that’s all that matters. I want it to be true, but it has directed my whole life. I never want to feel like that again. I suppose that leaves me here, believing that no one on this earth will love me more than my daddy does. Desperately holding onto it. And so so lost in the reality of the life that we had.
But. As long as nothing else is better. As long every other relationship I have is worse, as long as no one measures up, I can keep believing it. I don’t have to let go. I don’t have to acknowledge, truly to myself, that it’s not all in my head. That I’m not just misinformed, that it’s not my skewed perspective. This is where the lines become so clouded that I have no idea what’s even close to true. One is so ingrained that I think (I know) I’m lying to myself to say anything else.

On the Homeschoolers Anonymous website, I poured over dozens of stories from other homeschooled kids that were carbon copies of my family, I could have written them myself. Recovering Grace detailed the dangers of IBLP, and shared stories from others that were involved in the cult. I consumed everything I could find.

“I’m not the only one. I’m not crazy.”

Over and over those words played in my mind. I started realizing the truth of what my family and these groups were, and calling it for what it was.

“When you detached yourself from all the negativity in your life that’s when your spirit started to shine. You were more comfortable in your own skin; it was a beautiful transformation and I’m glad I got to be a witness to it.” – B

I was at a new job by this time, and my colleagues were my family. Every day I came to work with a new story, a new scandal that broke, something I had remembered. They walked me through the process of coming to terms with my history one day at a time.

This is from one of my coworkers at the time, remembering:

“When I met Grace, she wasn’t the Grace people know today. She was quiet, insecure, awkward, and uncertain. I have watched her transition from meek and scared to strong, independent, and free thinking. It seems surreal to see a transformation like this, the environment she was raised in suppressed her into being kind of a wounded animal. I personally watched her heal those wounds through knowledge of what was out there, that there was more out there. Once she was strong enough to leave she did, it wasn’t without pain or abandonment but now meeting her, you can see the strength and confidence; two words I would have never used to describe her a few years ago. Those wounds have since scarred over like armor, leaving her guarded and a little cold, but strong, stronger than I ever would have thought she could be.” – S

I called CPS and reported abuse of minors. I pled with my parents’ church for help. I talked to a lawyer. I made every effort to establish a point for my siblings to look back on. A time when I said that my parent’s behavior and ideology was wrong, and when I did everything I could help.

My father threatened to sue me if I talked to anyone.

My brother was scared for me, asked that I please not say anything. It was too late for me to shut up, and I certainly wasn’t about to.

I confronted my mother about what she could be doing now to get help, and to help us. To stop taking money and fighting to keep us out of school. She openly blamed us for the way they were sabotaging our lives. I cut off contact with my parents. Changed my name, job, moved away. I had taken a risk speaking up and wasn’t going to wait around to see how my father would react.

Ultimately everything I did hasn’t yet made any visible difference that I know of, beyond my own peace of mind. Life for me after getting out of it all is still hard in many ways, but it’s happy. I still deal with people I knew saying things like this:

“I want to tell you that I hope you will be happy, but I really don’t. …If you ever want to talk more about returning to the faith, please don’t hesitate to call or come over. Our home is open. May the Holy Spirit draw you to himself my dear. We love you.” – C

But I have dear friends that encourage me to fight for myself, and for kids that need someone to believe for them it’s possible to get out. To heal. To live free:

“You didn’t let your upbringing define you, or let it hold you back. You broke free, and are more yourself than 99% of the people in this world. You’re continuing to grow, and evolve and change. You’re still finding yourself, but the you that we all get to see is amazing. I wouldn’t change one thing about you. …You’re proving that you are who YOU decide to be. Not who your parents raised you to be. Spread your story girl. Hopefully some other repressed and sheltered girl (or boy) will somehow see it and get inspired to finally break out and live their life for themselves.” – J

Today I’m living more transparently, continuing to heal. Happily settled down with my partner, making good friends, writing, growing my career, involved in my community. Life is better than I could have hoped for.
_ _ _

Combing through years of my history to tell this story has been exhausting, but well worth it.
Throughout the process I felt a surreal sense of my past, the pain of my former self was so real and intense and hopeless – but I had forgotten. Life as I know it now is so far removed from that world.

“Even though my memory is messed up, the image of those big green eyes, so haunted, so sad; blossoming into a shining hope of, ‘really?’ That will never leave me.
Her name is Grace.
She is very much loved.” – A

It gets better. It gets so so much better.

Fight for it, reach for it, claw your way out to a new and better hope.

There was one phrase I repeated to myself over and over through the years of anguish, and it’s as true today as it was then:

– It can’t get better tomorrow, if you’re not here for it. –

Fighting for Hope: Elliott Grace Harvey’s Story – Part Two

HA Editorial Team5 Comments

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Conclusion

*****

Orthodox Presbyterian Church – 18 years
However imposing, formal, and elitist you might imagine “Orthodox Presbyterian” to be, it’s all of that and then some. At first impression however, your experience with church members will likely be warm and welcoming, though distant and non-committal.

I want friends so desperately and I’m not going to have any if I don’t do anything. I think that’s a big part of my problem, I’m very lonely. I’ve been at my church 16 years. No one calls me when a group of kids are getting together. No one picks me to kills time with. No one wants me. I just want want friends, people to love with, laugh with, live with, grow with. – Journal entry

The following is a direct quote taken from The Book of Church Order of the OPC. It contains in alarming detail the measure of control they expect to exact over their members:

“All governing assemblies have the same kinds of rights and powers. These are to be used to maintain truth and righteousness and to oppose erroneous opinions and sinful practices that threaten the purity, peace, or progress of the church. All assemblies have the right to resolve questions of doctrine and discipline reasonably proposed and the power to obtain evidence and inflict censures. …They are to watch diligently over the people committed to their charge to prevent corruption of doctrine or morals. Evils which they cannot correct by private admonition they should bring to the notice of the session.” – The Book of Church Order

My own OPC leadership regularly sent out letters to all parishioners if there was a “sin issue” involving a church member. These so-called sins included eating disorders, mental illness, unmarried pregnancy, marital struggles, and so forth.

This shaming effectively silenced the victims of the sexual, physical, and psychological abusers being harbored in the church.

I’m confused. Completely and utterly. People are so hard to figure out. I want to be real. But who people really are and what they tell you is so different. How do you know who to trust? – Journal entry

My mother asked for help from the leadership regarding her abusive husband. Little was done, arguably nothing legitimately helpful, and she was discouraged from seeking outside help.

The last month has been hard. Finding out that your church family isn’t what it seems is difficult. Lying, secretive, untrustworthy, unchanged. – Journal entry

When I was kicked out by my father, I was expressly instructed by a pastor not to tell anyone.

I was told they would help me find housing, and this kept me from going anywhere else for assistance, waiting for help that never materialized.

What I’m feeling: Scared. Alone. Scared of what I might do. Scared of messing up. Scared of Sundays. Scared of falling apart. Scared of admitting it, admitting anything. Scared of loving and not being loved back. Scared of disappointing people. Feeling trapped by my own walls. Afraid of the solution. Tired. – Journal entry

Much later after leaving the church, I detailed for all the church leadership my parent’s history of abuse, and abuse being currently committed against minors in their home. My appeal was based upon their current membership in good standing with the church, but after formal meetings and pleading for help nothing was done.

After roughly a year at the fabric store, I came home from work to a letter from my father giving me a few weeks to get out:

“The time has come young lady for you to leave our home, and move out on your own. Though I had hoped for better circumstances under which this transition could occur, it can not be helped or avoided at this point. As you will remember, this was my position a year ago. But after talking with several of our elders, I decided to exercise deference towards their counsel and allow you to remain in the home. I have in all sincerity young lady endeavored repeatedly to express my love for you, to show you grace and forgiveness in spite of your repeated rank disrespect, animosity, and bitterness towards me. I have appealed to you for forgiveness for my known past sins against you, but you have refused to forgive me, and have chosen rather to harbor this hatred against me, as well as any effort I have made to repair and restore our relationship, and now as you can see, it is affecting your other relationships, including the ones in this home. Hatred is toxic, and it will destroy your other relationships with sound Christians. I have told you that hating me is not worth this, but you have rejected my counsel in this. I have tolerated this toxic influence in this home long enough, and in light of your continued obstinance in this regard, it’s time for you to move out.
Now if you behave yourself during this transition, you will have till the end of August to be moved out. But if you continue this same nasty pattern, and continue to neglect the few duties you have in this home (it’s your week for dishes, make sure they get done each day), you will be out much sooner. Please do not test me on this, my mind is made up, I will not be moved.
If you have a change of heart and truly desire to seek to repair and restore our relationship that would be great, and I would be up for moving forward under the proper avenues of restoration with competent counsel and mediation. But your residence here is not required for that to happen. In fact, I believe it would be detrimental to the process.
Please don’t blow this off or procrastinate with this move, please seek all available avenues in the church for help in finding a new permanent residence, if you choose not to I will help you in this regard.
I am truly sorry that it has come to this young lady, but this is a choice that you have made repeatedly and finally over the past several years. As I told you before, I am not worth hating. You will and are ruining your life over these unresolved issues. Whether you believe me or not, I do love you, and it grieves me deeply to see you to make the choices you’re making. Now I have to make some choices, please act wisely and accordingly. Sincerely, Dad.”

I had nothing I could do, nowhere to go. My mom asked if I wanted her to say anything, I told her not to, I didn’t want her fighting with dad about it and making things harder for them.
A series of excerpts from my journal at the time:

– I’m so tired. Confused. Lonely. Lost. Down. I feel like the truth I’m looking for is somewhere staring me in the nose and I just can’t see it. I wish… I even just knew what I was looking for.
– So supposedly dad is bringing a complaint against me to the church. This is going to be a big ugly mess.
– I’ve never felt like I really could be myself or belonged anywhere but my family. Now I don’t even have that.
– I didn’t know I wanted someone who would stick with me even if I wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t perfect. Maybe there’s a person out there who could love me for me, but why not a christian? Is there such a person? Someone I could trust that much? I’m just so tired. Tired of this place.

Nearing my deadline to move out, I still had nowhere to go, and I had been abandoned by the people I thought would help.

In a moment of hopelessness was honest with my coworker when she asked me what was wrong. She shares about that conversation:

“Grace started to withdraw a bit which was concerning. …One day I came in to work and found her cross legged on her car hood eating lunch. She looked upset, so I stopped and chatted her up a bit.
She confessed the most heartbreaking situation- her dad was kicking her out. Her? WTF? Hard working, sweet, talented, that made no sense.
I never hesitated. You can move in with me.
Her big green eyes widened, and a single tear rolled down her cheek.
‘Really?’
Well, I have cats and a stressful job, but a spare bedroom and you are welcome to it.” – A

I accepted her offer, and moved in within a week. I was running on adrenaline, doing everything I could to keep it together and just survive. I was starting to deal with the impact of my childhood:

“We settled in, her coming and going when ever she wanted… When I had a minute, I cleaned out the kitchen so she could be comfortable this was *her* house. I came into the living room after work that day to find the girl curled up in a fetal position on the corner of the couch. Apparently, cleaning the kitchen set off ptsd. Her father ‘cleaned’ when mad, and the whole family pussycat stepped around when that was happening. We had a long talk after that admittance about how she lived with me now, she was her own person and could grow and set her own rules. She seemed to relax after that, and settled into her new life.” – A

I spent two wonderful years living with her. She was my angel in disguise, giving me a place to start to heal and move on. My parents were critical, but at this point I couldn’t afford to care.

Fighting for Hope: Elliott Grace Harvey’s Story – Part One

HA Editorial Team6 Comments

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Conclusion

*****

One household. Three cults. Twenty two years.
Twenty two years more than I would wish on anyone.

“I’m angry because I’m alive, because life hurts so much and I can’t hear the good things. Because my purpose is merely to glorify god and I can do that perfectly in heaven. It’s sick, but it’s true, and I have to deal with it. But I don’t want to. I just want it to all go away. Do I want to die? Not really, I’m not ready to, I just want to be with jesus. I’m tired of the tears.” – Journal entry

Leaving it all behind took a total of four years.

Cultishness

Cult is a strong word to use, and it’s especially difficult to assign to a group you’ve been subject to.

Something I find amusing about the three groups I was in is each of them had their own, “Here’s why we’re not a cult” speech.

Reminds me of a proverb in the christian bible, “The wicked flee when none pursue.”

Here are a few of the signs of a cult shared among all three groups:
● The leaders are always right; hierarchical and authoritarian power structure.
● Use of guilt, shame, and excommunication to manipulate and silence group members.
● Suppression of dissent, you must change your beliefs to conform to the group’s beliefs.
● Newcomers need fixing, the leaders believe they are entitled to know everything about you personally.
● Black and white thinking, contradictory messages, group specific language.
● Insistence that this group holds the source of truth; unquestionable dogma.
● Elitist and isolationist; denigrating other religious groups, and personal attacks on critics.

I don’t know how to live, how to feel. I want to be real, not put-on. It’s just about impossible. I’m so good at being fake, playing the game. Being good enough. I don’t want to be just good enough. – Journal entry

Institute in Basic Life Principles – 12 years

IBLP is a seminar and publication based cult, through which parents and/or churches absorb teaching. Bill Gothard was the long-standing leader of this cult. He stepped down after it came to light that he had been taking advantage of young girls for decades.

Of all the destructive ideologies my parents picked up from Bill Gothard, one in particular regarding bitterness was used to justify any and all abuse toward their children. Interestingly, if I take a direct quote from Gothard, it isn’t quite the reasoning my parents used, rather the root they manipulated:

“When offenses are left unaddressed, bitterness often destroys relationships. Favoritism, disappointments, and misunderstandings are frequently causes of bitterness. …By your example, lead your children to maintain both a clear conscience and loving interaction in the family.” – Bill Gothard, The Rebuilder’s Guide

In practice, this principle translated to a cycle of abuse: Abuse would occur, parent confesses, and the child must respond with express trust and affection.

If the child becomes withdrawn, or exhibits any sadness or fear, this is shown as evidence of bitterness. This accused bitterness is in turn deserving of punishment and abuse, and the cycle continues.

It seems like dad doesn’t want us as friends, we don’t behave good enough, but I know from experience perfect never happens. It’s never enough for him, so why bother? He doesn’t want me anyway, I’m not good enough, and I never will be.
…I know somebody is asking why I don’t say something. Tried that. It doesn’t make a difference. He know’s what he’s doing, and it’s just my fault. You give up hope after a while. It says you can’t be loved until you’re perfect, and you can never do that anyway. – Journal entry

I applied for my first real job at the local fabric store after my father more seriously threatened to kick me out, though not the first time he’d made this threat. I had no social skills, no diploma, and no driver’s license. Amazingly, they hired me. I was ecstatic. I had an incredible learning curve ahead of me; learning to talk to people, pluralism, how answer a phone, so many things.

“I don’t remember when exactly the shy little girl slipped into my life, but I remember where. She was quiet, reserved, and dressed for the wrong century with long flowing hair and dresses. She was quirky when you got to know her, quick with a side snark, and sharp as a pin intelligent. We at the store became used to her quickly (homemade fudge had a little to do with that) and thought of her as a little sister. Her family came in a few times, mom, dad, brothers, but no one was quite like her. Something seemed off about the family. A stillness, a caution. Something hid behind the big green eyes of the girl, but I couldn’t figure out what. As a manager, I was pressed against the wall of deadlines and corporate, so wasn’t able to get a moment to think as it was. She kept on working and blowing everyone’s socks off with her brilliance. And silence…” – A

I continued living with my parents, I couldn’t afford to move out. Life at home got worse, and I didn’t have the ability to cope with it.

There’s so many things I know that are inside of me and I don’t know how to get it out. And more than anything I need a reason to live. Some days are worse than others and I need something for those bad days. When the feeling of adrenaline is so bad I can hardly concentrate at work. – Journal entry

My job became my safe place, where I got away from everything at home and did something I had become good at. I made friends with people that weren’t religious, something criticized in my world.

“I remember when you first started working there, you were so quiet and shy. It seemed like you had no idea what the outside world even looked like, let alone how to live in it. You had your long hair and very sensible long skirts, no piercings or anything. After a few months, you really started to come into your own. You were talking more, and it turns out you were super friendly! No one knew because you never really talked much. That’s when I started learning who you really were. Sweet, kindhearted, and funky as hell, haha. I remember when you got your ears pierced, and it was such a huge deal for you.” – J

In a moment of reflection, I wrote the following:

So what have I learned? …Life is not worth living. Maybe I ought to do it anyway. That tears heal, but it’s not always easy to cry. That saying what I think and feel does not cause the world to implode. That me is a hard thing to find sometimes. That real friends are found in strange places. That any relationship void of honesty suffers. A life with secrets wanting to be told becomes unbearable. A life without hope isn’t. – Journal entry

Homeschool Organization Refuses to Accommodate Deaf Parents

HA Editorial Team9 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Burt Heymans.

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

What should have been one of the happiest moments of their lives turned into a nightmare for a young homeschooled girl and her Deaf parents.

The girl, a homeschooled student from New Jersey, was graduating in a ceremony held on June 6 at Fellowship Bible Church in the city of Sewell. The ceremony was organized by Gloucester County Christian Home Schoolers Association (GCCHSA), a non-profit Christian home school support group serving families in Southern New Jersey.

According to the girl’s mother, Melissa Morgan, the Morgan family arranged for an interpreter to be at the ceremony so that Melissa and her husband Robert, who are both Deaf, could enjoy their daughter’s big day. The Morgan family was willing to make all the arrangements. They found an interpreter and had the interpreter meet with Andy Moore, the person in charge of the graduation planning. Andy referred them to his wife, Liz, and she and everyone else involved figured out where Melissa and Robert could sit for best visibility and where the interpreter should stand. The plan was for the interpreter to stand next to the presenter so that the interpreter would be visible to all who needed to see. According to the Morgan family, Liz agreed with and accepted these plans.

Later, according to Melissa, one parent from GCCHSA complained that it would be “distracting for an interpreter to stand next to the speaker and asked if an interpreter can sit on the floor away from the stage and at the bottom of the steps.” Melissa says that she “explained to her that I wouldn’t be able to see my daughter, the speaker, and the entire stage,” and adds that, “She doesn’t really understand my Deafness well.” Melissa states that the complaining parent kept interrupting her attempts to work things out with Andy Moore, the GCCHSA chair Ardra Jarvis, and the interpreter.

Eventually, Melissa and Robert were allegedly forced into a compromise: the interpreter would have to sit, not stand, on the stage, and would have to sit behind the speaker. In an email to Melissa from Andy Moore (obtained by Homeschoolers Anonymous), Moore tells her that, “It will be fine for your interpreter to sit in a chair at floor level in front of you for the remainder of the program.” Without any other options, Robert and Melissa had to accept. However, as Melissa pointed out to me, she would “not be able to view the speaker’s body language, tone, etc. And after we hand out the diplomas to the 8th graders, an interpreter will move her chair off the stage to the end of the steps on the floor in front of me and my family for the rest of the ceremony.” This meant that Robert and Melissa were unable to view the entire stage because they had to be “focused on the interpreter alone sitting on a chair on the floor for most of the time.” This meant they missed “most of the celebration.”

The day prior to the graduation, Melissa issued a public plea on her husband’s Facebook page for friends and family to petition GCCHSA to change their minds. “The more people sent [sic] to that email address and hopefully these people will open their minds and heart,” Melissa wrote. “I’m hoping that God will shed HIS light on those people to change their mind and hearts and be open.” Melissa and Robert were ultimately unsuccessful in these attempts. They were also unable to file a claim for disability discrimination under the American Disabilities Act because GCCHSA is a religious non-profit organization in New Jersey and thus exempt. Furthermore, while the graduation planner Andy Moore sent an email apology to the Morgans’ daughter for the stress the organization caused her, neither the daughter nor Robert nor Melissa received any apology from Ardra Jarvis, the chair of GCCHSA who bore ultimate responsibility. And as Melissa points out, even “after their apologizes, they didn’t change anything… It was 100% unacceptable, but we all stayed for the entire ceremony for the sake of our daughter.”

Even though what should have been a stress-free, wonderful graduation ceremony for her daughter ended up being a nightmare, Melissa is renewed in her eagerness to prevent this from happening to someone else’s child in the future. “I believe that all non-profit organizations should follow the ADA laws,” Melissa states. “What about people with disabilities, such as a person in a wheelchair who don’t have any accessibility?”

“I want to prevent this happening to anyone in the future.”

The Story of an Ex-Good Girl: Part Seventeen

HA Editorial Team3 Comments

Barn

HA Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Exgoodgirl’s blog The Travels and Travails of an Ex-Good Girl. It was originally published on March 27, 2015 and has been slightly modified for HA.

<Part Sixteen

Part Seventeen: A Different God

Though I had experienced my first real encounter with God, my life didn’t just suddenly get better. But it was the first step of a long journey back to God. I had to realize that a relationship with God was something that slowly grew, not something you could bring to instant fulfillment by following the “Rules to Godliness”.

I had to get to know God as a person, not a formula to follow.

But these are really my thoughts in hindsight. In the moment, all I knew was that I had been given enough gas in the tank to keep going a little longer.

The next step on my journey was my discovery of G. K. Chesterton.  I first read his Father Brown mysteries and loved his funny little priest. Then I read some of his other fiction, and then…Orthodoxy. I was simultaneously attracted and perplexed by jolly Mr. Chesterton. Everything he said was simple and straightforward and a genuine expression of his joy in his God.

But how could he find such joy and beauty where I only felt dread?

I decided he must know something I didn’t, and I delved into his books with the hunger of a starving man.

I found a different God there than the one I grew up with. This God was affectionate, happy, ridiculously pleased with the small antics of His earthly children. This God was a laughing God. Even in His solemnity, He still had a secret twinkle in His eye, like someone pretending to be stern but secretly holding a treat behind his back. I LIKED this God! I could conceive of not being afraid of Him. Chesterton taught about the Romance of Christendom, and I drank it in, because in his joyful God, I found just what I needed to combat the poison of my childhood. I found the same joy running through all of his books and his poems, which I fell in love in. This “joy without a cause”, as he once described it, fascinated and pulled me despite my misgivings. I desperately wanted to believe in this God who prompted such a joy.

In reading Chesterton, I found permission to start to enjoy the little things in life again. To experience the pleasure of a good book, a bowl of dessert, a solitary walk under the stars, without feeling God’s disapproval.

Each moment of enjoyment was still couched in the context of my parents’ displeasure.

But somehow, despite their rejection of everything I found joy in, despite their calling it “foolishness” and labeling me “irresponsible and immature” for pursuing such things, I continued to allow myself small pleasures. And in a way, they gave me back both my hope, and God.

Outwardly, over the next year or so, there were also some changes. I was happier. I made a few friends, including a best friend whose friendship I enjoyed for the next 5 years or so. I started college at a state university. I probably argued and debated with my parents even more than before. I no longer accepted their worldview, and the inevitable clash was often intense. I would have 6-hour arguments with my dad till the small hours of the morning, only ending when we were both so tired that our sleep-addled brains could no longer form meaningful sentences.

Inwardly, I came to a new crossroads. I was forced to the conclusion that there was one major thing holding me back from a relationship with God: I didn’t trust Him. At some point I heard or read somewhere a simple explanation of what Trust was. It was compared to a chair. You can SAY you trust a chair to hold your weight…you can look at it, and make all sorts of calculations to decide its load-bearing capacity…but ultimately none of it counts until you sit down in that chair. If you trust the chair, you’ll sit down in it. If you don’t trust the chair, you’ll stay standing.

I was definitely standing. All of my combined life experiences fought with desperate strength against even the idea of sitting down.

I had more than enough proof that it wasn’t safe to trust anyone, especially not God.

Not only had all the authority figures in my life either failed to protect me, or taken part in my abuse — but they told me they did so at the bidding of God. Even the thought of trusting God enough to let any control slip from my fingers was enough to produce gut-wrenching, nausea-inducing panic.

My mind rebelled and fought against it on one side, and God gently pulled me from the other.

It took me weeks of wrestling with myself. But I did it. I took a mental catalogue of my fears – of everything God might ask me to do, or take away from me, and I went down the list, fear after fear, and chose to accept the possibility of every one. That was really the scariest thing. Once I won the battle in my mind, the rest was just a formality. I sat down in that figurative chair.

And for the first time in my life, I chose to trust God.

Joel Dinda via photopin cc

The Story of an Ex-Good Girl: Part Sixteen

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Barn

HA Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Exgoodgirl’s blog The Travels and Travails of an Ex-Good Girl. It was originally published on January 11, 2015 and has been slightly modified for HA.

<Part Fifteen

Part Sixteen: Gray

I can look back at pictures of those years, and somehow, I look happy in some of them.  I know that somewhere in that time I took a trip to Germany with my grandparents.  It was one of the few happy times I can remember.  In contrast, the rest of those two years, from 15 to 17, were very dark days for me.  Our home life was not happy.

Besides my dad being depressed, which lasted at least a couple of years if not longer, the discipline that my brother B received continued, and in some respects, got worse.

Once Joe LaQuiere was not there to cow B into fearful submission, my dad had a tougher time getting him to toe the line.  A now-teenage B became disrespectful, angry, arguing and talking-back to my dad.  He cared less and less that he would be punished for it.  My dad gave up using a wooden paddle on my brother.  He moved on to more creative tools, searching for one that would put the fear of God into his wayward son.  Sometimes it was a belt.  Sometimes it was a thin rod like that used for caning.  Then, he found himself the winner.  I don’t know what it was made out of, but it was a length of doubled-up, flexible, white line of some kind or other, about 1/8″ in diameter, and he used it like a whip, hitting indiscriminately whatever was in reach.  This whipping hurt far more than a wooden paddle ever could, and it left no permanent marks, which all the corporal-punishment manuals, like the Pearl’s book, To Train Up a Child, which was a staple in my parents’ bookshelf, all were quick to warn against.

If it doesn’t leave a permanent mark, the books said, it was fine.

I would be on constant alert and tense when my dad and B started getting into it – I knew with inevitable dread that it would end in a whipping, and I swear I hated them nearly as much as B did.  My dad would hit his limit, grab B and push him to the basement stairs, and down they’d go.  The next thing I’d hear is my brother crying, then screaming for my dad to stop, while my dad chased him around the basement, whipping him as he went.  It seemed like it would go on forever.  In hindsight, it was probably only 10 or 15 minutes each time.  But it was enough.  It was too much.  With every beating I had to hear, my own heart was getting ripped to shreds, and my fear grew.

My mom would calmly go about her business, ignoring the cries and pleading from below.

More than ever, I tried to use my influence and experience to head off any altercation between my brother and my dad.  I played peacemaker as much as I could, and I begged the children not to do anything that would set my dad off.  We all knew how he got when things made him angry, but somehow I was the only one who tried to do anything about it.  I had always been the one to try to placate my dad and walk the fine line to avoid his wrath, but now it became a desperate need – I HAD to prevent him from getting angry, or my brother would pay the price.

Meanwhile, the whippings had the opposite effect to the one my father intended.  They made B even less tractable than before.  With each beating, he grew harder towards my parents.  He sneered more openly at them.  He grew more rebellious and more angry.  My dad continued these whippings until B was nearly 17.  Then, one day, B stopped taking it.  I remember it so clearly.  That day, when my dad tried to shove him up against the wall, B pushed back.  That was all.  That was enough.  He had grown bigger than my dad, and now, in that instant, he realized he was stronger.  It took my dad just a split second to realize what had happened.  He could no longer physically control his son by violence.

He took his hands off my brother, and said B was so far gone in his rebellion that normal discipline had no effect on him anymore…since physical buffeting was useless, he was spiritually turning B over “to be buffeted for the sake of his soul”, as it says somewhere in the bible.

I knew better, and so did B.  My dad was simply afraid of what would happen.  He never whipped my brother again.

It was some relief to know that I wouldn’t have to hear my brother’s screams from the basement anymore.  But it didn’t change anything else.  Life was something to be endured, long and weary, with no end in sight.  I became obsessed with the color gray.  I thought about it, wrote about it, all the time.  My life was gray.  Everything was gray; meaningless and gray.  I felt like I was slowly being smothered by a gray pall, and I no longer had the will to resist it.

Then, finally, came the day when I couldn’t bear it any longer.  I remember we were going somewhere in our big van, with the younger kids, and my mom driving.  I remember the seat I was sitting in.  It’s a crystal clear memory in my head.  I sat there, with daily life going on around me, while a storm of pain and desperation raged in my heart, and I knew I couldn’t take even one more second of living my hated life; and in my despair I cried out in my heart, “God, I don’t even know if You’re there anymore – I know You don’t love me, and never have – but I don’t have anything left to turn to anymore!  You’ve taken everything away, and I have nothing left – if You even can, just HELP me, please!  Do SOMEthing!”

And in that moment, for the first time in my entire 17 years of life, I felt God’s LOVE.

It was warm, and it engulfed me, wrapped me up in something indescribable.  In that blinding second, I KNEW, for the first time, that God loved me.  I FELT it.  I had never felt anything like it before, and I never have since.  It was an inescapable certainty.  I had cried to God, and He had answered me.

Part Seventeen>

Joel Dinda via photopin cc

The Story of an Ex-Good Girl: Part Fifteen

HA Editorial Team1 Comment

Barn

HA Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Exgoodgirl’s blog The Travels and Travails of an Ex-Good Girl. It was originally published on January 10, 2015 and has been slightly modified for HA.

<Part Fourteen

Part Fifteen: Black Days Ahead

The next few months were kind of a blur.  They were awkward.  We still ran into our friends/acquaintances/ex-cultmates often.  I didn’t know how to think of them or how to act when we saw them.  I’m sure it was equally awkward for them.  Within our family, not much changed.  We followed the same rules, lived the same lives as the people in the cult we had just left.  We just did it separately.

The main difference was my dad sunk into a deep depression.  I couldn’t rely on his sense of humor and warmth to carry me through the dark and confusing time I was now in.  He was now convinced that he was a failure, and nothing could reach him in the dark place he had sunk into.  I wasn’t the little girl that idolized her daddy anymore, but I was a teenager whose life had just been torn apart, and my dad was the one constant I relied on.  No longer.

I really felt like my dependence on my dad was the last feeble crutch I had left to cling to, and Someone had just kicked it out from under me.

Now I was not only confused and scared, I was bitter.  Bitter at a God I didn’t know, who had taken away the last piece of my security.  I decided that God existed, but He didn’t love me, and He never would.

About a year into our exile, my parents started looking for a new church to go to – a mainstream church, no more home-church for us.  We visited church after church after church.  They felt cold and unfriendly.  Even if the people smiled at us, I knew they had no idea what kind of people we were and where we came from.  We were in foreign territory, and no one spoke our language.  We would try one church for a couple weeks, then move on.  Occasionally we attended one for as long as a few months.  We weren’t allowed to do anything youth-related, so we just sat and listened to sermons with my parents.  I didn’t like it.  None of the teaching was challenging.  The preachers weren’t engaging, and no one cared about me, no matter where we went.  I didn’t like church.

I preferred the warm camaraderie of the cult family that we were now irrevocably cut off from.

Eventually, the church we were attending merged with another church, and we stopped going.  Then my parents found a new place – a Plymouth Brethren congregation called Lakeside Bible Chapel.  It was just a tiny bit more comfortable than the rest because they celebrated the Lord’s Supper every week, like we used to do.  Most things were still unfamiliar and uncomfortable.  They had a worship band.  They had a youth group, and the youth group (that we weren’t allowed to go to for a long time) had an actual BAND with DRUMS.  Even when my parents decided to let us go to Sunday school and join in on some youth group activities, we weren’t allowed to attend the youth worship service.  We had to stay in the main auditorium until the worship part of the service was over because my dad didn’t want us corrupted by the worldly music.  The people dressed in sleeveless shirts or even t-shirts sometimes, and wore things to church that my parents would never allow even at home.  But, we stayed.  Eventually, it became our new church home.

If anything, having a church “home” just made things worse for me.  People were always smiling at me in the halls and saying “How are you this morning!” in the friendly, yet impersonal way that left no possibility of a real answer.  I would plaster an empty smile on my face, and nod in return, and they’d walk on.  I hated being there.  At home I didn’t have to pretend things were fine.  At home, I started dressing like a boy.  I went for the baggy carpenter jeans and masculine t-shirts.  I pushed my parents for permission to cut my nearly waist-length hair.  It got shorter each time.  By the time I was 17, it was short enough that I was mistaken for a boy more than once.

It was my silent protest against a world that had betrayed me in every way.

My mom took the change personally.  “You’re doing this because you don’t want to be like me,” she’d insist.  “You’re just trying to be the opposite of me, and that’s very hurtful.”  She was wrong.  I wasn’t changing because I didn’t want to be like her.  I was changing because I hated being me.  I hated the fake smiling mask I had to wear on the outside.  I hated the growing darkness within.  I was empty.

The confusion and despair I felt, the anger that I couldn’t express, all crystallized into an intense self-loathing that grew strong roots deep into the soil of my self-image, fertilized by the years of repressive and damaging training that had taught me that I was only worth something as long as I could measure up to perfection.

I hated to be around people, and I hated to be around myself.  I hated everyone and everything, and most of all, I hated myself.  I took a look into my own heart and saw all the ugliness crawling inside, and I finally understood, with the finality of despair, why God hated me.

I used to lock the bathroom door, and look at the big bottles of pills in the medicine cabinet, and fantasize about swallowing handfuls of them.  Sometimes I’d pour them into my cupped hand and look at them for a while.  But I never took them.  My fear of standing in judgement before a God that despised me was too great.  I wasn’t ready to be sent on to more eternal torment.  So, I would put the pills back, and live through another black day.

When I was younger, I liked to draw.  I hoped to be as good as my uncle someday, who was an artist and drew amazing portraits of his children and wife, pictures that hung in the place of honor in my grandparents’ living room.  I hoped I could become good enough someday that my dad would be proud of me.  But those days were long gone.  Now I drew without creativity or inspiration, without purpose.  The last thing I drew was a bleeding heart that was ripped in two, sewn jaggedly back together with black, ugly stitches.  I finished this self-portrait, and then put away my pencils for a long time.

I’m not sure how the rest of my family was handling the move.  I feel that of all of us, my sister R was the least affected.  She started going to College and Career at our new church and made some friends.  My brother B took some time, but eventually even he made a good friend at church; heart-breakingly, it was probably the first time since he was a little kid that he found someone who actually liked him instead of treating him with contempt and abuse.  This friend was his lifeline, and without him, I’m not sure what B would have become.

My parents made friends quickly, and they were well-liked and respected in their new church.

People admired how well-behaved and clean-cut we children were, and people would commend my parents for turning out such great children. 

It was rather ironic.  My little siblings even started going to Sunday school, and to all appearances, we all settled into our new “normal” life.

I was the only one who couldn’t find a place to fit in.  I tried to sit in youth group and listen to yet another watered-down talk on bible passages I had heard a thousand times.  The shallow theology bothered me.  The lack of depth and interest in spiritual things bothered me.  The people…well, the youth leader overlooked me entirely.  It was a definite failure on his part not to recognize the quiet desperation that sat before him Sunday after Sunday…I’m not sure why he didn’t attempt to reach out to me, especially as he usually did with any other new teens that came along, but suffice it to say, he never did.  It was a familiar sensation.  I had always been the one that nobody noticed.  Unsurprisingly, the other teens in the youth group mostly ignored me.  A few were actually friendly, and I was very grateful, though I didn’t know how to respond or relate to them.  We were like two different species.  They talked about boyfriends, Superbowl Sunday parties, going to prom, and school cliques.  These were also the topics addressed by the youth group leaders.  These things were as foreign to me as they would have been to a pygmy.

No one had anything to say about what to do when your world’s been torn apart, or you hate yourself, or how to escape God’s wrath and disapproval.

I got no answers from church, and the friendliness of the other teens dissipated by the time we had been there 2 months.  I was left alone, and I didn’t even care.  I didn’t care about anything.

Part Sixteen>

Joel Dinda via photopin cc

The Story of an Ex-Good Girl: Part Fourteen

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Barn

HA Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Exgoodgirl’s blog The Travels and Travails of an Ex-Good Girl. It was originally published on October 7, 2014 and has been slightly modified for HA.

<Part Thirteen

Part Fourteen: Leaving the Fold

During the last couple years we were in Joe LaQuiere’s cult, doubts were slowly crystallizing in my dad’s mind, no doubt increased by Joe’s inability to accept any criticism or challenge to his opinions.  I remember my dad being one of the only people willing to disagree with Joe on anything.  The other person who had no problem voicing open doubt was my uncle H, father of the S family.  In fact, a very heated argument between Joe and my Uncle H was the precursor to both their family and our family leaving for good.  I believe it was regarding his oldest son, my cousin J, who was around 16 at the time.

My Uncle H decided it would be a good experience for J to take a job with a landscaping company, mowing lawns.  Joe LaQuiere was vehemently against children being employed in the outside world, away from the direct supervision of their parents.

He was also very angry that my Uncle H would make this decision without consulting him first and getting his permission.

My Uncle H got very upset in return, saying that it was HIS child, and he had the right to make what he considered the best decision for J, regardless of what anyone else thought.  This argument went on long into the night, and involved many raised voices, and the other families ranged themselves in support of Joe…I don’t remember if my dad even supported my Uncle H in this.  The end result was the S family left the group.

It was very sobering to all of us who were left, and Joe LaQuiere made it clear to his followers that the S’s desertion was their first step on the road to inevitable spiritual disaster.  He would tell us horror stories of other families who had been obstinate and left the group, spurning his advice and counsel.  All of them came to horrible ends.

He told us that these families self-destructed, ending with the older children rebelling against God and parents, reporting their parents to CPS for child abuse, who took the other children away and ripped the family apart.

This was what we had to look forward to if we left the fold.  His phrase for this was “crash and burn”.  That is what happened to everyone who left: they all “crashed and burned”, and he gave the most dire warnings to us so that we wouldn’t suffer the same fate.

Then, about 3 weeks after the S family left, my dad called a family meeting and informed us that we were not going back.  We were leaving.  This was met with tearful protests and disbelief by most of us.  I initially agreed with my dad on principle because I idolized him and therefore took his side on everything, but eventually I caved and wrote him a letter saying that I agreed with my mom and sister R and wanted to stay.  The only person who was happy about leaving was my brother B.  He was so happy it was heart-breaking.

He told me later that he was afraid to believe it was true and lived for weeks in constant fear that it would turn out to be a mistake, leaving him trapped again in his personal hell.

At first it was unclear to us as children whether this was permanent or temporary.  Joe LaQuiere came by that first week looking stern and dropped off a yellow manila envelope at our front door.  He refused to come in.  He treated the visit rather like the proverbial “shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them”.  He apparently didn’t want to be polluted by the act of crossing our threshold.  The manila envelope contained a letter that we were never allowed to read.  I caught a glimpse of it once, and sure enough, it contained the dreaded words “crash and burn”.  When my parents read it, my mom cried.  My dad looked very grim.  I was told later that the letter contained warnings and dark predictions for the spiritual future of our family.  Joe made it clear over and over again throughout the letter that my dad was a failure.  A failure as a spiritual leader, a failure as a father, a failure as a husband…a failure as a man.  In Joe’s mind, we had sealed our fate when we chose to leave.

We were on the path to destruction, and no one could help us.

This began one of the darkest periods of my entire life.

As difficult as it had often been to live as a part of “the group”, leaving felt a thousand times worse.

Joel Dinda via photopin cc

The Story of an Ex-Good Girl: Part Thirteen

HA Editorial Team5 Comments

BarnHA Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Exgoodgirl’s blog The Travels and Travails of an Ex-Good Girl. It was originally published on September 21, 2014 and has been slightly modified for HA.

<Part Twelve

Part Thirteen: The Squeaky Wheel and the Persistent Widow

There’s an old saying, “It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.”  It basically means that he who complains loudest gets attended to first.  Joe LaQuiere used to like this saying very much.  He used it, funnily enough, to instill competition for his attention among his followers.  If one family wanted help and asked him for it, that was fine.  But if another family asked him for help and was waiting on his doorstep early in the morning, well….they were placed first priority.  They received the coveted attention, and the first family would just have to wait for another day.

Any time you could show your zeal and fierce determination to shove anything and anyone aside to get to Joe first, he would honor it by giving you first priority and kicking others further down the line who didn’t show your passion for his help.

Families that wanted his time and attention would show their determination to be close to him by tagging along with him all day while he ran errands.  Nothing was allowed to get in the way – not even meals.  I remember endless hours following Joe around Home Depot with my little brothers and sisters in tow, our legs tired from walking, stomachs empty and pinching, because we hadn’t been given anything to eat since breakfast, and it was 4 in the afternoon.  In the adult-centric world in which Joe lived, children ate…or didn’t eat…according to his schedule, not theirs.  Only nursing babies were lucky enough to have meals provided during these outings.  Our parents quickly stamped out any complaining, making it clear that our empty stomachs were a small price to pay for the chance to be with Joe all day.

Today I look back on Joe’s behavior and see him as a bit of an egomaniac.  The more your world revolved around him, the happier he was.  The more you idolized him and gave up things to prove your devotion to him, the better he was pleased.

He wanted a fan club, ready to fawn on his every word.

I’m sure he felt he deserved that, because he was doing everything right in his own estimation.  He got it right, God approved of him, and this was his reward: his own groupies who would push and jostle to be closest to him.

Some members used to make jokes about the story in Mark where two of the disciples tried to claim the places to the right and the left of Jesus and would substitute Joe’s name for Jesus’s.

We weren’t concerned about getting to sit next to Jesus – we wanted to be next to Joe!

Joe LaQuiere encouraged this currying for his favor, even though it caused divisiveness in the ranks.  He would dismiss any hurt feelings by saying “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”, and then he’d shrug and walk away, and the triumphant family who had shouldered their way into first place would turn and follow him.

Another story Joe liked to use to demonstrate how we should be was the Parable of the Unjust Judge.  A poor widow goes before an unjust judge and pleads for him to hear her case and give her “justice against her opponent”.  He refuses to listen to her and sends her away.  But she is persistent and stubborn and keeps coming back day after day, after day, after day.  Finally the unjust judge, who doesn’t care about justice, gives in and settles her case, because he’s so sick and tired of seeing her in his courtroom.  Persistence wins the day!

These were our role models to follow: the squeaky wheel and the persistent widow.

In practice, it worked something like this: Let’s say my family wanted to go see Joe LaQuiere to get his help with some more child-training.  We would get up in the morning, get ready to go, and drive over there after breakfast, say 10 AM.  Ordinarily this would be enough to be first in line and get Joe’s attention all day.  But let’s say another family heard us say the night before that we were going to come over at 10.  So they got up, rushed out the door, and got there at 9 AM.  Joe would let them in, and when our family arrived, we were sh*t outta luck.  He wouldn’t see us that day, or at the most, he’d say we could wait until the other family was finished, but he had no idea how long that would take.  He might or might not get around to seeing us.  So we’d either wait around half the day, or pack it back into our 8-passenger van and go home to try again another day.

It quickly became clear which families were willing to go the furthest to guarantee Joe’s time and attention.  One family was willing to go further than anyone else.  Not only did this family take every opportunity to arrive earlier and stay later, but they were willing to do whatever it took to beat out the competition and get one-on-one time with Joe.  Then they took it to the next level: they bought a house on his street.  Joe was tickled and flattered at this show of zeal for his time and attention: and he gave it to them, generously.  They became his new favorites.  It became very rare to find them at home – they were always at Joe’s house, every day, every weekend, day-in-and-day-out.  They started going there after breakfast and would stay all day.  Then they started coming before breakfast and eating with the LaQuiere family.  It became next to impossible to talk to Joe without this family standing right there, “holding their place in line”.  The rest of us chafed a little at the special treatment they were getting.  It was nearly impossible to beat them for first place in line anymore.  They lived practically next door – I remember once or twice that we managed to get to Joe’s house early enough that they weren’t there yet, and boy, were we smug!  It was a pretty good feeling that this time we got to be around Joe all day, and they had to wait!

I can’t believe Joe actually encouraged this pettiness, but clearly he was more focused on getting his ego stroked than on preventing jealousy and petty competition between his followers.

One time my parents found a temporary solution to holding on to first place in line for a few days: we just got Joe’s permission to stay at his house.  It was like a sleepover that lasted for a week, except of course, it wasn’t about having fun, it was about being next to Joe all the time, to hear his life wisdom on each daily situation as it came up.  At the time, I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever!  We ate all our meals with the LaQuieres, we did chores with Mrs. LaQuiere, or got to tag along on errands with the older kids.  We slept on sofa beds or in sleeping bags every night.  Best of all, we knew we were finally the Number One family, at least temporarily.  We got Joe’s undivided attention for nearly an entire week. We felt like we were on the inside, and everyone else was stuck on the outside.

For that one week, we were special.

As you can imagine, this didn’t sit well with the family I mentioned earlier.  They were determined to regain their first place in line.  So the next thing we knew, they had moved into Joe’s house…for good.  It was the ultimate line-jump.  They now had access to him 24/7 and had permanently cemented their status as first-in-line-to-Joe.  Never again did any of the rest of us come close, not even when three of the families also bought houses on the same street, one of them actually directly across the street from Joe’s house!

It didn’t matter: he had accepted the first family as adopted family members, and Joe considered that they had earned their spot in the sun, no matter how much anyone complained. 

From that day on, their family has lived in Joe’s house, a permanent part of his household.  They still live there today: I don’t think they’ll ever leave.  For legal purposes, they “live” in their house down the street.  That’s where their mail goes, because they aren’t legally allowed to reside in the same house as the LaQuiere family….zoning regulations or something, I don’t know.  But they do anyway.  Within five years of them moving in, the LaQuiere family built a huge addition on their house.  It was poorly designed, and an eyesore that the whole neighborhood winced at, but it made sure there was plenty of room for the LaQuieres and their new “adopted” family.

Even this wasn’t close enough of a connection for the mom of this family: she used to laughingly claim Joe’s youngest son as the future husband of her oldest daughter.  At the time, her daughter was 8, and his son was about 16.

True to her word, about 12 years later she witnessed her daughter marry this same son, making at least part of her family “real LaQuieres” at last.

photo credit: Joel Dinda via photopin cc

The Story of an Ex-Good Girl: Part Twelve

HA Editorial Team5 Comments

Barn

HA Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Exgoodgirl’s blog The Travels and Travails of an Ex-Good Girl. It was originally published on September 20, 2014 and has been slightly modified for HA.

<Part Eleven

Trigger Warning: Depictions of extreme medical abuse

Part Twelve: Exorcising Demons

Spiritual warfare is quite an interesting subject, all the more so because we don’t have much information on it, though what little we can infer from the Bible is quite fascinating.  Inferences to divine armies battling in the heavens, the devil being cast out of heaven, references to the “giant dragon” trying to devour the infant Jesus…what do we make of all that?  We know that in some hazy way these events are related directly to us, and that our actions affect the other-worldly battle going on in unseen realms.  But how exactly they’re related and clear specifics?  I have none of those, and I suspect you’re in the same boat.

I’m not sure where exactly Joe LaQuiere got his own beliefs on demons.  For Joe, spiritual warfare was simple.

Any bad attitude could be evidence of an indwelling “evil spirit”. 

Just like the devil went around “like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”, we were taught that evil spirits were lurking everywhere, just waiting for the chance to settle in our hearts and souls.  If we gave them an opening through having a bad attitude, they’d jump on it and invite themselves right in.  So our parents spent time “rebuking” the evil spirits in us every time we were grumpy.  As you can imagine, this did not endear them to me.  In fact, hearing my parents order evil spirits to leave me, in the name of Jesus, just made me even more grumpy!  It felt very stupid and silly, because I knew I was just in a bad mood, not possessed by a demon.  But our parents took these things very seriously, praying over us and ordering the demons to leave.  If our bad attitude didn’t immediately vanish, that was further evidence in their minds that it was spiritual warfare they were dealing with.

This was the environment that existed in our group when my little cousin H started having seizures.  The first time it happened, they called an ambulance and rushed her to the hospital.  She was prescribed anti-seizure medication, and I believe they even gave it to her, at first.  We heard about it the next morning, and even as children, were properly scared and worried for her.  I think she was about 6, but I could be off on the age…it was a long time ago.  We all hoped it was a one-time occurrence, and that little H with her blonde hair and sweet smile, would be fine from then on.  Then she had another seizure.  And another.  At this point Joe LaQuiere sat her parents down for some very serious discussions.

He was almost completely sure that these seizures weren’t medical – they were spiritual.

He thought they were being caused by demon possession, and he had a way to prove it one way or the other.  When she started having a seizure, or right afterwards, they needed to order her to say “Jesus is Lord”, because demons couldn’t say those words.  So if she said the words, then it wasn’t demon-possession, and presumably was just a medical condition that they could continue to treat with anti-seizure meds.  If, on the other hand, she refused to say “Jesus is Lord”, then they had a very very serious problem, and it was going to require a lot of prayer and work to drive the demon out.

With this fool-proof bit of theological wisdom in hand, they and Joe set to work on little H.  The next seizure came and went, and they tried to get her to say “Jesus is Lord”.  She wouldn’t say it.  There was the proof: their little girl was possessed by a demon.  This was further confirmed to them by odd things she would say…sometimes she would say there was a “black man” in the room, and she would want him to go away.  Even the little bit of reading that I’ve done on the subject has come up with information on visual and auditory hallucinations as a common and expected side-effect of epileptic seizures.  But apparently this research was outweighed by the expertise of Joe LaQuiere, who told them this was further evidence of demon possession: she was able to see other demons that were invisible to the rest of us.  The “black man” was clearly a demon, and little H needed to be delivered from her demon possession as quickly as possible.

So they stopped the seizure medication, and instead spent hours with her, Joe LaQuiere assisting, every time she had a seizure, ordering her over and over to say “Jesus is Lord”.

Often she would resist and fight them and cry, or say some variant of the magic words “Jesus is Lord”, but not the exact phrase.  I was told that many times they would be up with her all night, fighting and trying to hold her down to control the demon inside her.  This was a serious spiritual battle, and they were determined to win.  Joe LaQuiere told them they could, and they believed him.  Sometimes little H would say “Jesus is Lord”, and they would relax for a bit, believing the demon was gone.  Then it would start all over again with another seizure.  At one point I think she was having upwards of 12 to 15 seizures a day.  I’m not sure what else they tried in their quest to exorcise the demon from H besides prayer, and ordering her to say “Jesus is Lord”.  I was told of one time at least that Joe had them forcibly hold her in a shower as part of the process.  I’m not sure what affect that was supposed to have, but the seizures continued.  Little H started to look like she was in a constant daze all the time.  She didn’t act normally any more.  She didn’t talk much.

I don’t know how long this went on…I know that eventually the seizures lessened…for all I know, they put her back on seizure meds eventually.  I was never told.  The one thing we do know for certain: the effects.

H experienced permanent brain damage as a result of the untreated seizures.

Today she is in her 20s, but she’s never progressed mentally from the small child she used to be.  She is still sweet, but with the sweetness of a young child.  Her brain has been permanently scarred by the ordeal she went through, and her life will never be the same.  I grieve for her and her stolen potential.  What will happen to her now?  Will she ever be married?  Have her own family?  Have the emotional capacity to realize the spiritually abusive environment she is in, and the ability to leave?  I don’t know.

But I do know who is responsible: Joe LaQuiere.

Part Thirteen>

photo credit: Joel Dinda via photopin cc