**Names marked with an asterisk (*) have been changed for the privacy of individuals and their families**
For months, I continued to type posts about what happened with Pastor Andrew Ray and Douglas Stauffer, but I always deleted them for the sake of my marriage. When we finally hit our one year milestone for breastfeeding our third child, however, I finally opened up publicly about the struggles that several church members from the inner circle created in our lives:
Crystal Old’s Facebook Post on October 1, 2018:
“We’ve made it a year again despite the struggles of three young children, lip ties and sickness, and nursing in a time where breastfeeding is still developing as a norm! This is NOT against mothers who use formula (we had to for a while with our first because of ties), but breastfeeding is hard work and I’m thankful that we’ve made it a whole year by God’s grace! Joshua* had a horrible lip tie and tongue tie at the beginning which made for a very exhausting, painful and discouraging first month.
After all of the junk we faced while nursing our second (Annabelle*- that’s a post for another day), I’m thankful that we only had one person actually approach us about nursing this time and it wasn’t until Joshua* was about eight months. The man [NOT my old pastor] said that as kneeling for the anthem is giving America the finger, I’m giving my church the finger every time I nurse. He continued to say that it’s an authority issue in our home, that it will be a hindrance to us being sent out as missionaries, and that my husband needs to “man up” and say “Woman, this is what you are going to do [go down to the mother’s room]. And yes, he knew that I struggled with depression and anxiety that was exacerbated by being secluded/isolated away in the mother’s room.
I’m thankful for my husband being the MAN that he is and standing up for me again as his wife and friend. He truly has been my rock through all of it. I don’t know where I’d be without him, but I don’t think we would have made it a year and still going strong.”
In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: “What Really Happened- Part One” or click on the link below.
For a list of the complete series, click here.
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