In the Beginning

I’m not really sure where I should start. It seems like such a long time ago, but in reality it isn’t.
Maybe I’ll start by saying this...the church that I was abused at was a Word of Faith church. I’m not saying all Word of Faith churches are abusive, but out my circle of friends every Word of Faith church that I’ve attended or they have attended has been abusive in some way. Out of eight Word of Faith churches that I or my friends have personal experience with only one would be deemed healthy and that church is run by Tim Gilligan in Ocala. Even Tim Gilligan has distanced his church from the Word of Faith because of the stigma of abuse that seems to run rampant in Word of Faith churches.
That being said…This is my story.
I started attending this particular Word of Faith church in July of 2004. I was a broken woman when I started going there. I felt led to go there that particular Sunday because where I had been going prior just felt like it held nothing for me and I just could not face the looks of pity when I walked into my old church and told the ladies there that my husband had asked me for a divorce.
When I walked into this new church, it seemed really put together. They sang great contemporary songs that I knew and I could feel the presence of God during the music. I don’t particularly remember much about the preaching, but during those early days there was a recurring theme of praying the Word of God which was exactly what I needed at that time and God knew it.
The church was only about 15 months old when I started attending and in the beginning things did not seem too bad. It was a great church until you got under surface…