Wingless: A Child Of Sun And Storms

I don’t remember a time when I was non-compliant. Growing up, I remember only one spanking, from my Papa, and I didn’t even know what it was for. All my mom had to do was look at me sternly, and I would send myself to my room, crying. I was a people-pleaser, even as a small child. If they were happy, I was happy.

A child of divorced and remarried parents living in the midwestern United States, I was a typical statistic. Still, I was mostly carefree, if not a bit odd when I was young. I dressed up in “princess dresses” whenever I got the chance. I spun around in the field and acted out my favorite Disney princess scenes alone during school recess. My obsession with storms and tornadoes predated Twister. My grades were always impeccable because, again, people-pleaser. I followed rules. Rules made the world run smoothly, and told me what to expect.

I was carefree until I turned nine, at which time my Nana recalls a remarkable change in my personality. I became withdrawn, spending more and more time in my room, escaping into books and writing. I cried in private and slept a lot. Some days I was sunshine, others I was a monsoon. Still, I clung to those rules. I wanted to make other people happy, even if I wasn’t. Inheriting my parents’ crazy sense of humor, this was how I first learned to mask.

Both of my stepparents were emotionally-abusive at times for different reasons, though I didn’t recognize it as such at the time. My stepdad would fly off the rails at me if I stayed up too late reading, or didn’t do a chore. My stepmother bullied me about my creeping weight gain (it later turned out I had an endocrine disorder). All I knew is that I had to try harder. Watch the clock. Eat less at dinner. They weren’t happy with me, and it scared me, because it meant I was failing.

But even that didn’t account for the change—why I so abruptly transformed. To this day, I still don’t know. But it was a catalyst that opened up wounds that were susceptible to the poison that would later seep in.

I lived in a good, Christian home. We went to church (mostly non-denominational, but at one point, a fundamentalist church very similar to the IFB, which was a nightmare for me. I’ll get into that another time.). But I still had those suns and storms. When unexpected things happened, I was scared. If I upset my stepdad again, I’d cry and shake under the covers. (My older siblings were not people-pleasers like me and eventually went to live with our father. I was too attached to my mom to leave her side.) When I felt I’d pleased my parents, I was on top of the world, and all was right. Things were safe and secure.

As I got older, my mental state only got worse, but it also sparked creativity. I had a small, but encouraging group of friends who would read my stories and listen to my “concerts”. I had good things going for me as well, not just the bad. At one point, I was in The Saint Louis Children’s Choir. In spite of my problems, the future was anything but bleak.

But then mom’s depression got really bad, especially after giving birth to my younger brother, followed closely by my two younger sisters. We stopped going to church, which at the height of the Left Behind/rapture/satanic-panic craze, scared the tar out of me. “Growing cold” in your faith meant hellfire and demonic attacks. As far as I was concerned, my foundation was shaken. I was home-schooled from eighth grade on, so no church also meant I was more socially isolated, which worsened my own depression and anxiety.

It was a nightmare scenario for a young, mentally-ill (and, at the time, undiagnosed autistic) girl.

One of my neighborhood friends had recently joined a strange church up the road and had started wearing skirts, stopped wearing makeup, jewelry, and didn’t cut her hair anymore. She invited me to church, but I blew her off at first because it was too odd, even for me.

One weekend in October of 2000, when I was only 14, however, my world fell apart. I was at my dad’s house (like I was every other weekend). It was my dad and stepmom’s anniversary and they got into an awful screaming match. My dad left the house. My stepmom cried. She never cried. Despite our problems, it tore me up to see her sitting on the floor, sobbing. So, I stepped out of my compliant shell for the first time and left a scathing voicemail on my dad’s phone, scolding him for his behavior. My stepmom drove me home because I was too scared to stay after I realized what I’d done. I refused to talk to my dad for days, and that was the last time I regularly went to his house.

I had a new void that I desperately needed to have filled. So I called up my friend and begged her to take me to church with her. Little did I realize how vulnerable I really was. How easy it would be for a hunger to be filled with ash and years of decay that would slowly eat away at every bit of light I had left. Often, I wish I had a time machine. But only hindsight is 20/20, so thus my story brings me to a fateful door.

The door of a cult.

Informational post on speaking in tongues #12: Stammering Lips

This is just a little ‘did you know’ informational post on the subject of speaking in tongues, shared as some food for thought. Often when we were in our former unhealthy churches, we did not stop and see if things we saw, experienced and were taught were found in the Bible. For Pentecostals, this is one of those teachings/experiences.

We saw people with quivering lips during a church service and were taught that this is the ‘stammering lips‘ spoken of in Isaiah. Many of us experienced this ourselves. People who had not yet spoken in tongues would be told the Holy Spirit was all over them if their lips started trembling. They were seen as just not letting God’s Spirit inside, through lack of faith, pride or perhaps sin. This is seen as a sign in Pentecostalism.

Yet here is where we didn’t realize that there wasn’t anywhere in the entire New Testament that spoke of or showed that the lips of a believer were trembling. There is no teaching in any of the epistles that would lead us to believe that this is a sign that the Holy Spirit is all around someone and wants the person to speak in tongues (another language for those not acquainted with Pentecostalism). There are no examples of Peter grabbing anyone’s chin and shaking it upon seeing their lips tremble, saying something like, “It’s right here! He’s all over you! Let your tongue go!” There is no mention of Jesus ever sharing that a sign to look for is when the lips of a person tremble. In none of the three places in Acts where we see it mentioned that people spoke in tongues, do we read that their lips were quivering. And yet, in spite of all this, many accepted, perpetuated and practiced a teaching that is non-existent in our Bibles.

In the KJV, ‘stammering‘ is seen only twice and it is in the Old Testament: Isaiah 28:11, which says stammering lips, and Isaiah 33:19, which speaks of a stammering tongue. Each comes from a different Hebrew word. (There is also Isaiah 32:4 : “The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.” Stammerers in this instance, illeg, only occurs one time and the word means speaking inarticulately and to stutter.)

Isaiah 28:11-12 states, “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.” You may not realize this, but Paul references this passage in 1 Corinthians 14 when he shares in verse 21, “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.” Do you see the difference in the wording and that Paul never mentions stammering lips?

The verse is translated various ways in different versions of the Bible. The NIV records it as “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord” and the NLT states “So now God will have to speak to his people through foreign oppressors who speak a strange language!” The ESV translates it as “For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people,” while the ISV writes “Very well, then, through the mouths of foreigners and foreign languages the LORD will speak to this people.” None of these translations show anything even remotely resembling a teaching about quivering lips.

So how did this one mention of ‘stammering lips‘ in Isaiah (KJV) come to mean what is taught and seen in many Pentecostal type churches today? If we go to the original word meaning, it doesn’t come from there, either. It means mocking. The word has nothing to do with quivering or trembling lips. Spend some time in Strong’s, various lexicons and Bible commentaries and see the actual meaning and don’t accept the distorted meaning that some groups and churches use today.


When Extreme Churches Collide

Many of the blogs shared cover some deep, even painful topics. This one will attempt to share a lighter aspect of the abusive church environment – what happens when two such churches compete on the same turf for new converts.

The church I attended (a UPCI breakaway church) had its main headquarters in Waukegan, Illinois. This was a short drive from the Navy base at Great Lakes, and we even had a serviceman’s center on the North Chicago strip outside one of the main gates. This made it very easy for us to travel to the base and attempt to proselytize the sailors; I was stationed at Great Lakes on several occasions and was very active in the base ministry.

We weren’t the only church competing for members on the base. An IFB megachurch (Independent Fundamental Baptist) from Hammond, Indiana sent men from their Bible college to the base every weekend. Their sales pitch included inviting the sailors for a game of football or basketball depending on the season. Most of the students from the IFB church weren’t in the military, but back then it was fairly easy for civilians to access the base as it was before 9/11.

The fun started whenever we met the IFB guys and typically they would try to invite us to the sporting events. From there, the conversation quickly escalated to a debate over doctrine and whether or not any of us were going to heaven. Sometimes the debate got heated when the subject arose about which one of us was “the true church” and which one was a cult. On some occasions it nearly became a shouting match. This wasn’t really a surprise as the pastors of our respective churches were known to bash one another from the pulpit.

What did I learn from the experiences? Both churches drilled Scriptural knowledge deep in our heads, and admonished us to defend our beliefs no matter what. Both churches also encouraged us to be quick to call out who we thought were false teachers. We were also quick to call someone who disagreed with us a cult. The most significant thing I learned was that despite our doctrinal differences, the manner of indoctrination, abuse, and control was practically identical. Our tactics in outreach were basically the same, only my former church was much closer to the base. Our respective leaders were also steeped in controversy; the IFB pastor at that time had numerous allegations of abuse and control, and our general pastor did as well including prison time.

This is why survivor groups like this are important. Our stories cross denominational and doctrinal lines, and we are often more alike than we wish to think.


When the church betrays us, pt 5

After being expelled, I spent several weeks in a daze. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I visited or called several churches, and found each troubling. Several refused to have me when I told them I was looking for a church after my pastor asked me not to return. Another said I could come, that they had a visiting minister who would lay hands on me and ‘feel my spirit’ to see if my former pastor had been correct or if I had been wounded. Depending on what he felt, I could stay or not. I declined the offer; I believed that if my pastor said things about me and what I’d thought or had in my heart, he must be right, and I didn’t really want another person “feeling my spirit” when my spirit was raw with grief. I felt very vulnerable.

In the end, I began driving to a town 50 miles away for church. They already knew me and would not turn me away. The pastor and his wife were kind, but the people wanted to know why I was there, what had happened, and so forth. The gossip was outrageously direct and rampant. The pastor told me not to talk about it. People guessed enough. Another couple in town were attempting to start their own church and they also tried to get me to talk about my former church, as well as trying to get me to join them in starting a new church. The men in the church tried to lay hands on me, touching my shoulders and back. I panicked, not wanting to be touched since I’d been accused of what I was.

Then the pastor’s wife was badly injured. They encouraged people to come see her at home, where she was bedridden. They asked me to come alone. I would have had to go, be let in by the pastor, and be led through their large house (which I’d never been in) alone by the pastor. They knew I’d been accused of lusting after my former pastor, but they still insisted. I refused… and I started looking for a different church.

I found it in another state.

When the church betrays us, pt 7
When the church betrays us, pt 6
When the church betrays us, pt 5
When the church betrays us, pt 4
When the church betrays us, pt 3
When the church betrays us, pt 2
When the church betrays us, pt 1

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When the church betrays us, pt 3

I spent seven years in the first Pentecostal church I was in. The first was great. And then I went home for the summer. I didn’t like the Pentecostal churches in my parents’ area, but they were better than my parents’ church. Besides, I was committed and they believed closer to what I did, which was exactly the reason my Mom gave for us staying in a church I disliked and was alone at growing up. She didn’t argue, though she and Dad did argue about plenty.

After 18 years of church that taught nothing but the basic stories, my parents joined wholeheartedly in arguments about why I shouldn’t attend a Pentecostal church. They tried to force me to wear pants or shorts, which were against the rules for women at my new church. I had dreams that Mom would sneak in and cut my hair or insist that it be cut. She’d done that when I was younger. Their pressure made me more determined to stay Pentecostal. It gave me not one reason to leave.

I went to camp that summer excited that I would be seeing everyone from my church again, and found them totally disinterested in me. They were there to relax, shop, play, and to see their friends from other churches. And so for the first time since beginning to attend, I felt once more left out. I doubt I would have thought quite so much of it except that the pastor spent a lot of time with one young woman who was a newlywed. It was her first week apart from him, and he was very concerned about her well-being, having been separated from her new husband for a few days. I stood there watching, wondering “seriously? I’m away from my new church family for two months and no one cares, but she’s away from her husband for three days and you’re very concerned?” It was the first indication that something wasn’t right. It wouldn’t be the last.

I went back to college that fall and back to church. The first service I realized just how much had happened since I left. I felt like I was starting all over again. I wasn’t a part of them, and I wasn’t a new convert either. So this time no one cared. I looked forward to the day I’d graduate and be in one place. Three years later when I did, I moved to an apartment in town. And realized nothing had changed. I was still considered a youth. I wasn’t included in the women’s outings because I was younger than them and unmarried, but I didn’t relate to the high school youth group. After three more years of that and of struggling to make ends meet on a low paying job, I finally left, moving to a larger city, a different (hopefully better) job, and a church the pastor repeatedly invited me to join.

Things changed, but they didn’t.

When the church betrays us, pt 7
When the church betrays us, pt 6
When the church betrays us, pt 5
When the church betrays us, pt 4
When the church betrays us, pt 3
When the church betrays us, pt 2
When the church betrays us, pt 1

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