Thursday, April 28, 2011

The Beginning of the End - Part 3

I got up that Tuesday, July 28th, with a heaviness in my heart that just wouldn’t seem to lift. I rolled over, pulling the covers over my head knowing that I would eventually have to get up and make my way to the church like every other Tuesday before this particularly dismal one. It wasn’t a dismal Tuesday because of the condition of the weather; it was a dismal Tuesday because of the condition of my heart. I knew that today I would have to face people. The people I didn’t want to face were my Pastors, any of them. I hoped as I got up and got ready that I could drag myself through the day with minimal human contact and just make it through. This prayer would go unanswered.
I arrived at the church, expecting to find, like I had on almost every other Tuesday with minimal crew. Instead I was surprised and dejected to see that my Pastors were there waiting for me. I barely had time to unlock my office door before I heard a call from the Pastor’s office bidding me to join them for a meeting. Dread gripped my heart like a vice as I placed my purse within my office and made my way to the “Principal’s office”.
Tears were already running down my cheeks as I entered the office. I knew that they were all there to discuss me. They had only been waiting for me to arrive. My hope was that they were there to be a comfort to me as I desperately needed some comfort. I sat down on the cool, brown leather couch next to the Pastor’s wife and curled into her waiting arms as I openly wept now. I could barely form a reply as the Pastor began by asking, “You knew that we’d have to discuss what happened, didn’t you?” He asked that as if I had somehow done something wrong. I nodded my acknowledgement as my tears continued to soak the Pastor’s wife’s shirt. He then began the meeting.
“In times past the Holy Spirit has taught me to nip things in the bud before they become large issues and the Holy Spirit has directed me to nip this in the bud” (I’m paraphrasing of course. It’s almost impossible to remember word for word of what he said) “The issue that I see before me is that if you choose to become pregnant again that I will have no choice but to look for your replacement.”
As he said that it was like an electric shock jolted through my mind, two words pierced through the fog of my grief; “that’s illegal”. I didn’t speak the shocking words that had just forced their way to the forefront of my mind and I have wished a thousand times that I had. It was like the numbness of my grief had just been magnified 1000 times and I was too numb to comprehend what was going on.
He went on to explain how he just couldn’t see how it would work with me being pregnant and working at the church. As he explained at how impossible it was, he was painting the picture of a barefoot pregnant woman, incapable of leading worship because of the image that she presented to the congregation. He kept speaking of all the hardships of pregnancy, morning sickness, frequent potty breaks and possible complications and how all those would keep me from being dependable and able to perform the duties of my job. He kept explaining how the “barefoot and pregnant” image would just distract the people instead of lead them into worship.
His wife soon chimed in with concerns about how Chris and I would care for a child on only one income. How would we pay for daycare once the baby was born because I wasn’t going to be able to bring that baby to the church like I had with my other two children? (Aliya was 3 and Brendan was 5 when I had started working at the church and had accompanied me every day to work) Reason after reason was placed before my mind as they tried to convince me that to have another child was foolishness.
After all the reasons were so logically placed before me then the attacks began. It started with questions like “I thought you didn’t want to have any more kids?” “Just a few months ago I heard you say that you were done having children and didn’t want to do the baby thing again.” I tried desperately to explain that I had always wanted to have a third child but at the time Chris had been on the fence about it. I tried to tell them that I always thought God meant us to have three children. I felt like it was a promise from God to me. That explanation was followed by a shocking statement from the Pastor’s wife.
“I don’t think that it’s God’s will for you to have another child.”
The Pastor followed that statement with, “It was probably your statements of doubt and unbelief of whether or not you wanted another child, which I’ve heard come from your mouth, which caused this miscarriage in the first place.”
That statement just sent me into another bout of tears. The guilt and condemnation of that statement washed over me as I began to comprehend that maybe my lack of faith, like my Pastor was telling me, had killed my child. My mind was reeling with guilt, but I knew in my heart that statement couldn’t be true. I knew enough of my Heavenly Father’s love to know that my lack of faith was not the cause. My faith, or lack thereof, did not murder my baby. Lies are powerful but the truth is much more.
As my mind was spinning from the comments of condemnation consoling statements started pouring forth from my Pastor. (I want to include that the Associate Pastor sat through this entire meeting saying almost nothing the whole time. He was there as a witness yet never spoke up to defend me.)The Pastor sighed as he began to speak, almost as if to deal with all of my tears was exhausting to him somehow. He began by telling me how valued and talented I was and that “they just couldn’t bear to lose me as a worship leader.” Compliment after compliment was laid at my feet to try and persuade me against having another child. He even told a story about how his sister had been such an intricate part of his business, years past, and how she had managed the office for him and his dad. But then she left for her own selfish reasons (to have her son which was born mentally handicapped) and because of it their business had seriously suffered. His implication was that my selfishness in wanting another child could cause harm to the church (or mentally handicapped, depending on how you took his implicating words). He ended the meeting with this:
With a look of utter exhaustion on his face he said, “Malinda, I’m giving you a choice. You can choose to have another baby and we’ll support you in that decision and we’ll find a replacement for you. We will of course love you no matter what decision you make and if you have a baby we’ll love that baby like our own grandchild. But the moment that I suspect and find out you’re pregnant, I’ll start looking and interviewing your replacement.”
I was astonished that he wouldn’t wait to search for my replacement until I was in my third trimester since I wouldn’t be allowed to work after I had had the baby and I expressed that to him. His response was, “it is unfair of you to hold me and the church hostage, in hopes that your pregnancy is an easy one.”
“Malinda, I’m giving you the choice and I’ll support you in whatever you do.”
I rushed to him at this point, hugging his neck, thanking him for allowing me the choice.
The sick part of it all was I actually felt grateful that he allowed me the right to choose my life for myself. At the time I felt overwhelmed and grateful to be given the opportunity to make a choice for myself when it was already a “right” that I had in my possession, which was the power to choose. I hadn’t realized it at the time but slowly every choice that I had made over the last few years was actually being made for me by my Pastors. Since most of my “rights” to choose had been stripped away, why not the power to choose whether I had another child and continued to work. If they could get away with pregnancy and gender discrimination, take away my choices and keep me in subjugation to them, why not?

The Beginning of the End - Part 2

As that week went on my body began to tell me that something was wrong, yet again, with this pregnancy. I was already over 5 weeks at that point and I had waited till this point to take a test for the very reason I suspected what was going on with my body at that moment. By Friday, at almost 6 weeks, I knew that I would lose this little life too and he or she would join the others in the arms of my Savior before I even got to have the joy of their presence in my arms. When Sunday morning came, my body began the process of shedding the life that I had so desperately hoped for. Six weeks to the day.
I managed to get to the church with minimal tears that Sunday morning and I remember breaking down at the first face I saw. I could no longer hold in my grief. The Youth Pastor and Associate Pastor were there in the sound booth and immediately, as I explained what had happened they began to pray for me. The Youth Pastor prayed first and prayed for my comfort and for the baby that I had lost, but as the Associate Pastor began to pray there was a discernable difference between how the Youth Pastor prayed and how the Associate Pastor prayed. As the Associate Pastor began to pray I got the distinct impression that he didn’t believe that I had been pregnant. His prayer was almost like he was detached from the reality of what was going on. I can’t say that it was devoid of sympathy, but the tone of the prayer was like he was sympathetic to what I “thought” was happening in my life not to the “reality” of what was happening in my life. His view of reality and my reality were two different things. It wasn’t until weeks later that I figured out why there was such a discrepancy.
After this time of prayer, I managed to get through our regular Sunday morning practice with no tears and I made my way to the Pastor’s office for my Sunday morning “hello”. When I reached his office, he already knew of the circumstances because the Associate Pastor had already told him. I was expecting concern when I walked in the door, instead all I received was “I know you’ve had a tough morning, but put on a happy face and go lead the people”. Put on a happy face. Was he kidding? I was too numb from grief to respond. I mumbled something as I ducked out of his office and slunk into my office to hide for the next hour before service and try and keep myself composed. I led the people that morning just like I was told to do. God had my back where my Shepherds had not.
It’s only by the grace of God that I got through the service, or through the day, but I did it without anyone else knowing, outside the leadership and my family, of what had transpired. I thought the worst would be over as I went to sleep that night but I was wrong. I had gone through this before and survived. I would go through the grief again and it would lessen just like it had the four other times before. Little did I know that the pain and agony had just begun and those I thought loved me and supported me would be the inflictors of that pain, twisting my grief and prolonging it, impeding my healing.

July 2009 - The Beginning of the End

I’ve been avoiding doing this all week. It’s hard to write about tragedy. It’s even harder to write about loss. This part of my story is about one of the lowest times in my life. In a short time, I lost a baby, a family and my sense of belonging. It was like someone had suddenly pulled the rug out from underneath my feet and I was falling for what seemed like forever, the ground just an illusion. It seemed like the pain wouldn’t stop and the people inflicting the pain, with twisted faces, enjoyed my torment. Through it all, I was expected to keep a joyful smile on my face and pretend like nothing was wrong. So here it is, finally, my story of the beginning of the end.
July 2009 started out as an exciting month for me. I had just come home from a mission’s trip to Trinidad and Tobago a few weeks before and there was an expectation in the air at our house. Literally. My husband and I had been talking on and off for months about possibly trying to have another baby and we weren’t exactly being careful about preventing a pregnancy since we were discussing the possibility. My only fear about trying for a baby was the possibility of miscarriage. At this point, I’d already had four miscarriages.
It was during the Vacation Bible School that I began to suspect that I was pregnant. It was too early to test at this point but all the early signifying symptoms were beginning to show up. The weirdest symptom was my incredible sense of smell. I could literally smell every man in the room, distinctly. It was like I suddenly had the nose of a blood hound. Every man I came into contact with smelled musty and gross and even my husband’s smell turned my stomach. It didn’t matter if the man was wearing cologne, if he was male, he made my stomach turn sour and I had to control the urge to upchuck my lunch. As soon as this strange symptom presented itself, I started sleeping on the couch and avoiding all men like some kind of stinky plague. I’m sure at the time I offended more than a few men as I wrinkled my nose every time they came near. My husband was not the only offended one, I am sure.
Besides the weird blood hound sense of smell, I had the normal early warning signs of pregnancy and I was optimistically hopeful. Vacation Bible School came and went and I stumbled my way through it, bleary eyed from yet another pregnancy symptom, fatigue. As the end of the month drew closer and I was becoming more certain of my new expecting status, I dropped a slight hint to my Pastor and I was surprised by his reaction.
It was a typical Sunday morning and I had poked my head into my Pastor’s office to say my customary good morning greeting (he got upset with me once and talked to me about how his feeling got hurt when I didn’t say hi to him on Sunday mornings) when my Pastor asked me a strange question. He asked me if there was any news that I had to tell him. I remember trying to conceal my smile as I quickly walked to the door and announced, “Maybe in a week or two. I’m not sure yet”. As I passed through the doorway, I suddenly remembered a question that I needed to ask him so I quickly turned, pivoting on one foot, placed my hands on the door frame and poked my head inside the door. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words dried up instantly in my throat at what I saw.
There sat my Pastor with his head shaking as he placed his head in his hands, an obvious gesture of disappointment. The Associate Pastor sat down as I watched and stretched his hand across the pastor’s desk. My Pastor suddenly looked like he had aged ten years and was fatigued by my announcement that obviously confirmed his suspicions. Neither of them saw me as I slipped as quietly as I could back into my own office. Once there, I pressed my ear up to my wall to try and hear what was being discussed on the other side, but the two Pastors were being purposeful in their conversation so as to not be heard. They had closed the door and I could hear them whispering but could not make out the words of what was being spoken. I speculated that the topic of conversation was me.
I was perplexed and disappointed that my Pastor, the man I thought of as my second father, would be so disappointed that I might be pregnant. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend why. His own daughter-in-law, the children’s Pastor, had been trying to conceive for months. Why wouldn’t my Pastor be happy for me? If I was like a daughter to him, why would she and I be different from one another? Why would it be ok for her and not for me?

Sunday, April 24, 2011

You are Now Entering the Blogging Zone


This morning my pastors blessed me with a gift card as a thank-you for my service towards helping them with their church. They had struggled initially with purchasing the gift card for me because my loving Pastors have been walking with me, every step, as I blog my way into more healing, and away from Spiritual Abuse. They read every post that I write and look forward to each post as I openly speak about the hurt, abuse, good times and low times that I went through. Because they have joined alongside me in my journey they are sensitive as to where I have been, but they aren’t afraid of my wounds and they don’t care that I wear my scars proudly as a proclamation that I am no longer the condemned but the free. There is no condemnation from them about where I have been and how I have been treated at the hands of others like I have received from others before them. For that unconditional love and acceptance, I am grateful.

To some church leaders a hurt, bruised, and abused church member is someone who is only to be treated with caution. I’ve heard the cautionary phrase, “hurt people, hurt people” one too many times from the mouths of church leaders that somehow seems to disqualify an individual as useful to the body of Christ. Too many times the bruised and wounded in Christ end up being our homeless in Christ as they wander from church to church looking for somewhere to call home. I encourage you reader to be like those who open their arms to the homeless, the bruised, the battered, the wounded warriors in Christ, both in the physical and the Spiritual. It is time that we, the church, started acting like we are the church, and as ambassadors of Christ, open the doors of the embassy, which is our hearts, to the wounded and hurting of this world.
This is a shout-out to my Pastors….You have now entered my Blogging Zone…(cue the sci-fi music)

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Blessings I Received


Before I get into all the nitty, gritty, nasty stuff that was really at the center of the spiritual abuse cake, the icing and the sprinkles too, I want to reflect upon the blessings that I did receive while I was at my old church.
I received a few things that were invaluable to me and I’d like to express that not everything was awful and terrible at that church. If there weren’t some good times, and every day that I spent there was unbearable, I wouldn’t have stayed. The problem was more with the underlying sludge that was at the bottom of their river of intentions. The water seemed relatively clear on the surface until you stepped into the middle of the river and your feet sank into two feet of river sludge, squishing and oozing between your toes as your feet sank deeper and finally getting logged, vacuum sealed in a thick blanket of muck. It was the things that I found at the edge and surface of the river that caused me to stay. There was that constant hope that the good things that I experienced would not be tainted by the sludge. Some of the good things I received did get a little mucky, but with God’s help I’ve been able to wash off the mud and continue on.
One thing that I did receive was an opportunity to walk into the ministry that God had called me into. Not many churches or church leaders would have given me the opportunity to lead worship and develop my gifts the way they did. God used them to grant me the opportunity to grow as a worship leader and as a minister and for that I am grateful.
Through that church I was also able to attend Bible School. Had I not been there I probably would have never received the opportunity to continue my education in the field that is closest to my heart. I probably would have never pursued the education on my own either. God again used them to help me to grow and succeed in my goals to become a minister.
At the beginning of the ministry, when the sludge wasn’t quite so deep, I did receive a lot of good teaching that helped me learn to stand upon the Word of God. I learned to trust God in that church. That is one more way that God used them to impact my life. At one time, that church was also like a family to me, dysfunctional as it was. When I had no close family to rely on they were there for me. They would buy us groceries when we were financially struggling and kept encouraged me when things were tough and Chris and I were struggling in our marriage. So there again, God used them to help support me.
The problem never lied with the good things that they did for me and my family, like helping us out financially, helping me through school, caring for our kids, giving me an opportunity to grow in my callings and giftings, or supporting me like a family would. The problem was they received, and kept for themselves, the glory of doing those things for us. Not too long after I left the church I received a phone call from the Pastor’s wife and the main theme of the conversation was the long list of things that they had done for us. It was almost like an accounts payable list. Apparently, I hadn’t settled my tab when I left. I guess five years of ministry and servitude wasn’t enough.
The downfall of a ministry always starts when we start taking the glory of our accomplishments and heaping it upon ourselves instead of placing the glory where it rightly belongs, at the feet of God. I’ve accomplished a lot of good things in my life, but I also know that I could have done none of it without God having my back.
So to end this post, I just want to give the glory to God and say “thank-you Father for leading me to that church where I received so much blessing and thank-you for leading me out of that church so I could receive so much more. Thank-you Lord for moving upon their hearts to encourage me and bless me when I needed it most. Thank-you for leading others to take their place, as encouragers and supporters, that will help me to continue to grow and to follow Your call and Your will. Thank-you for teaching me what it means to be a disciple and minister of Christ that is motivated by love and compassion. All I can say is thank-you.”

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Issue of the Tithe Part 2


Every Sunday and Wednesday, the Pastor, Associate Pastor, or the Pastor’s son would stand up to say a little something about the tithe and pray over it. The elected person for that particular service would usually speak for about 10 minutes or more and it would sound something like this: “At this church you never hear a sermon about the tithe like one of those other churches down the street . Here we give because we love God. Turn in your Bibles to Malachi 3:8
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.
“Folks, it is wrong to rob God. God also says in this portion of scripture to test Him in this. Pay your tithes; make your tithe the first check you write every month. Give God your first fruits of your labor, that first 10%. I do. Do this and see if God won’t open up the floodgates of heaven and bring you a new job if you need one. Test Him and see if He won’t give increase and favor in your workplace, and bring you increase in your home life and divine ideas that you can put your hand to, to help you be blessed to be a blessing. Test God and see. Now, you don’t have to do this but I made a promise before God that I would never come before Him without an offering to give. This is between you and God, but I will give an offering, above and beyond my tithe, to God today because why?”…and the congregation would automatically respond… “Because we Love Him”
The tithing message would continue, sometimes with a testimony thrown in. Malachi 3:8 was the most commonly used verse to reinforce the tithe. Despite their claim that the tithe was never preached in that church it was preached every service with a good helping of condemnation thrown in. If you didn’t catch the manipulation, it’s there under the surface with the implanted idea that if you don’t tithe and give offerings that you are robbing God, you don’t love Him, and you will be cursed. Some other subtleties within the message are: Tithe to be blessed, tithe first-pay bills later, and give an offering if you really love God and as a way to get into his presence.

Issue of the Tithe

From the beginning of my employment, the tithe was a constant staff conversation. The topic of the tithe was particularly popular when there was an issue that involved the worship team or its members.
On my team there were a few individuals, who I was informed of by my Pastor, who did not tithe. Whenever these “non-tithing” individuals would express their concerns or opinions the leadership would respond with a “their opinion doesn’t matter because they don’t support the church with their tithe” attitude. It didn’t matter that these individuals practiced 4 hours a week at the church for two services that only amounted to about an hour’s worth of playing time, or that these team members rarely, if ever, missed a service and loved what they did. The louder these “non-tithers” complained the more the leadership discussed the likelihood of establishing a no-tithe, no-play policy.
I was never an advocate for this rule and always tried to skirt the issue, which of course gave the leadership the impression that I was a weak leader, but by that time I knew better than to openly oppose the leadership in any way. In my opinion, the tithe is a very personal thing between the individual and God. Any Pastor who keeps track of who tithes and how much they give as a way of keeping a checklist of spirituality, dependability, or worth of an individual within their congregation is legalistic and abusive. It wasn’t until 2009 that I saw just how closely the leadership was keeping tabs on people’s tithes, particularly mine.
My husband and I typically paid our tithe in one lump sum around the 15th of every month. We had been doing it that way for months. At the beginning of August my husband and I had decided that it was time for us to leave the church. We didn’t know how and we didn’t know when. All we knew was that we hoped it meant taking a job out of state and that is exactly what we were trying to do. When we made that decision we also felt lifted from our obligation to tithe to the church. Because of the situation that was quickly developing (I will explain in a later post) we no longer felt that we could financially support the church so when the 15th rolled around we didn’t write our customary check. Later that month we wrote a small check, but it was less than a quarter of what we usually paid as our tithe. After that, we no longer paid our tithes to the church.
Around the first week of September, during a random discussion about the worship team, the Pastor again mentions that there are “certain individuals” on my worship team that are not tithing as they should. I remember that as he said the words “certain individuals” he was wearing his reading glasses and he lowered his chin and looked over the top of the rims as he said those words. It was evident that he was speaking about me. He then went on to explain that by not tithing that these individuals were in jeopardy of not receiving their full blessing from God and if they were struggling financially they should always pay their tithe first and let God provide the rest. I walked away from the conversation fully knowing what individuals, me and my husband, he was talking about. I walked away letting him think I didn’t have a clue as to what he meant, but inside I was seething. I had just witnessed one more manipulation tactic and method of control, but by this time God was letting me see the ugly truth and the truth of the matter really stank.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Staff meetings


After the Youth Pastor came on staff at our church, bi-weekly staff meetings became a regular thing. We would sit down on a Wednesday, eat lunch, and give updates on each of our departments. The Updates were never really updates, but were more like glorified gossip sessions. We were all expected to openly discuss people that were causing problems within our departments. Then we would all analyze and discuss what their problems could possibly be; the outcome of our discussions usually resulted in the problem person not being “in line” enough with God and the vision of the church. Most of the time a problematic person’s behaviors were not the result of a faulty church policy or leadership issue, the issue was always with the problematic person. We would then discuss how to fix the problem and that usually meant discussing the possibility of removing the person from their volunteer position.

Removing people from their volunteer positions rarely happened but the threat of doing so was always used as a manipulation tool during meetings with the individuals. If a church member didn’t serve and volunteer with a smile on their face, and dared to complain, it would result in a trip to the “principal’s office”. It’s always sad when a congregation jokes openly about going to the Principal’s office when referring to a meeting with the Pastor.

The only time our staff meetings weren’t based on gossip is when there was a reprimand from the Pastor. The Pastor began to use staff meetings to openly humiliate and reprimand either the youth Pastor or myself in front of the group. This was another manipulation tool to get us to tow the line.

On one such meeting, I was caught totally unaware that I had made an error as came into the crosshairs during one of “those” reprimand staff meetings. The Pastor began the meeting discussing how certain staff or staff members had failed to respect him by not doing what he had asked of them. He glared at me as he spoke, and never took his eyes off of me as he went on with his tirade. He kept going on and on about how he was disrespected and that this staff member obviously did not respect him as the leader of this church. This staff member needed to remember that the “anointing flowed from the head down”, and if they could not get in line, they would not be blessed and they would be fired as well.

At first I was stunned and my mind went into a tailspin as I desperately tried to remember what task I had been asked to do and had failed to perform. Finally, it came to me about half-way through the tirade, after I had already started to sob openly in front of the group. It was a song that he had asked me to learn about two weeks prior and I had yet to even bring it before the team to practice it. My failing to learn the song wasn’t because I was intentionally disobeying him; it was because I could not locate the music for the song anywhere. I had asked him for a copy of the song so I could learn the song by ear and write it out for my team on at least two different occasions, but he had never given me a copy of the song. I couldn’t learn a song I didn’t have access to.

The tirade kept going as I tried to stammer out an apology for my over sight. I hadn’t meant to disrespect him or the other Pastors as he had stated, and as I sobbed out my apology four other staff members sat there like stone statues as I was openly shamed and humiliated. I sobbed through the rest of the meeting as it continued to go on around me. Not once was I acknowledged after that point of my humiliation. When it ended, I left the meeting for the refuge of my office and sobbed some more. Soon after, it was time for me to go and get my children from school and all the way there I continued to cry, resting my head on my steering wheel at stoplights to hide my tears from curious motorists. I had never been so openly humiliated and I soon began to wonder how the youth Pastor had endured so many of these open reprimands. To have that happen behind closed doors is one thing, but in front of the other staff was more than I could endure.

Later that day, after all the other staff were busy in their offices, or had left to do some errands before the service, the Youth Pastor slipped into my office and asked me if I was OK. No one else on staff even bothered.

Things that Make You Go Hmmm

Things continued to get stranger between the Pastors and me. The Pastor would introduce me to people as his daughter and the Pastor’s wife would sometimes introduce me as the girl who my husband considers to be his adoptive daughter. The Pastor’s wife was constantly bringing to my attention how many times her husband discussed me at home. He would discuss my wardrobe, my talent, and how much he loved me like a daughter. When I preached a 12-week series on healing for a video bible school that we were producing, I found out that the Pastor had taken home most of my videos and watched them. His son had also preached a 12 week series and he didn’t watch his own son’s videos. When I found that out I thought it was very strange, but I hoped it was a sign that I would soon be allowed to preach from the pulpit occasionally. Looking back on it now it is easy to see the pattern of inappropriate behavior that was developing, but at the time each incident seemed isolated from the other. The only thing I knew was that I had become very isolated from my own parents and my Pastors had become their replacements. I was loved and accepted and that was all that seemed to matter. I even began to call my pastor, Dad. He even announced to his sons while I was standing there that he had included me in his will.

Gift Cards


With each special occasion that occurred, either at the church or within my personal life, it soon became customary while I was on staff at the church for me to receive lavish gift cards for Dillard’s from the Pastor and his wife. If we were having a series of special meetings at the church with guest speakers, I would receive a gift card so that I could purchase new clothes for the event. My anniversary at getting hired on at the church was also celebrated by a gift card to Dillard’s. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas and the occasional just because bonus was usually celebrated using a Dillard’s gift card. The amount of the gift card was never less than two hundred dollars and I gladly accepted those fabulous cards as I filled my arms with much loved designer labels that I could have never afforded without those monetary pieces of plastic in hand. But with each card there was always a stipulation. I was not allowed to buy anything with those gift cards for my children or for my husband. After each card was spent I would be asked to confirm whether or not the entire amount was spent on me alone. I was also expected to wear those clothes right away. That part never bothered me so much because being the girly girl that I am I would of course wear my newest items of clothing at the soonest opportune moment. I would sometimes leave the store wearing my newest favorite item. But the request, had I really looked at it, would have been considered inappropriate at the time.

I do remember one incident where a gift card was given to me and the Pastors wife didn’t know about it. It was October of 2008 and we were going to be having a series of camp meetings and the Pastor had invited a few influential guest speakers to attend and minister at the event. A few days prior to the event a Dillard’s gift card was again placed into my hands and there was an added stipulation that the clothes were not to be worn before the Camp meeting. He expressed his desire that I look professional and trendy and to keep that in mind as I made my purchases.

Wednesday service rolled around and I could not help myself as I decided to disobey his stipulation that I not wear any of my new clothes before the Camp meetings. As I got ready for work that day I chose to wear one of the items that was part of an ensemble. I chose to wear a green and white tiered Liz Claiborne skirt that I had purchased just the day before. I slipped on the skirt, gave it spin, and made my way to the church. The Pastor’s wife upon seeing me immediately commented that she liked my skirt and so my response was that it was one of the items that I had purchased the day before with my Dillard’s gift card. I hugged her neck and profusely thanked her for her generosity in giving me, yet another, gift card. As I pulled away from her I noticed something strange, although she tried hard not to show it. Her face showed shock and bewilderment. She hadn’t known about the gift card that had been given to me.

At the time, I didn’t think much of her reaction other than it was an oversight on her husband’s part, but that day was the beginning of some very strange conversations between the Pastor’s wife and me.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

New Youth Pastor


June 2008 also marked a time of excitement for the church because we now had a youth pastor. It had been almost two years that the kids had gone without one. It also meant that I could possibly have friends within the leadership outside of the Pastors and Associate Pastor. At this time, I was really feeling the pressure of constantly being scrutinized by my Pastors. If I said anything to the Associate Pastor he would go and convey it to the Senior Pastor. Everything I ever said, even to the core members of the church, went up the chain of command. Within the church there was an informant hierarchy that no one could escape from. Nothing was kept in confidence within the walls of that church.
Soon after the Youth Pastor and his wife joined our dysfunctional leadership team, I quickly felt extremely sorry for them. The Leadership was constantly nagging the young man for everything. This young man was reprimanded for everything and for nothing. The long list of complaints against him seemed endless. His suit was wrinkled, his shoes had paint on them, he missed a spot while painting the youth room, the darkening screen had fallen off the door and didn’t he know that meant someone could see into the building and steal our equipment, his wife was too quiet, she didn’t dress right, she wasn’t engaging enough with the kids, he couldn’t play the guitar well enough…. The list of complaints went on and on and the longer the list got the more I desired to reach out to them.
I started keeping my steamer and lint brush in my office just to help the two of them pass the “physical appearance” hurdle every Sunday morning. It wasn’t like these two were sloppy people because they weren’t, but it was like the Leadership had it out for them from day one. There was nothing these two could possibly ever get right in their eyes.
The constant rebukes that these two faced only increased my compassion towards them and it wasn’t long before the three of us had formed a bond of friendship. I had their back and they had mine. Within the confines of our friendship there was the knowing that these two would keep my confidence.

Graduation Part 2

My parents had made the long eighteen hour drive down from Canada to see me graduate, and that should have been a great time with my family but it wasn’t. I was still required to work and was not allowed any time off. By this time I had just accepted the fact that I was a permanent fixture to the church’s decor and I made excuses for my Pastors as to why I couldn’t afford the time off. I remember my mom being just a little upset that I couldn’t even take the Wednesday night service off to visit with her. I also remember my Pastor speaking his frustration too. His frustrated musings went something like this, “Doesn’t she know how important you are to this church? How can she expect you to take time off when there is no one else who can do what you do? I think your mother is actually upset and angry because she is jealous of you. After all, have you heard her actually say that she was proud of you for completing Bible School?” These are the types of things that I heard for most of my parents visit. These frustrated musings did not stop when they left either.
My Parents quickly became the focus of my Pastors concerns and I was often asked to speak at length about the relationships that had with my parents. These conversations would always end with their exclamation of how they could not believe how my parents were not proud of me. Seeds of how my mother was obviously jealous of me were constantly being planted and the seed that was watered the most was the one that I was their adoptive daughter. They were my new parents and they were proud of me. Slowly, it was like my parents were weeded out of my life by my pastors constant demeaning of them and the relationships that I had with my family. My family was slowly being replaced by my Pastors.

Graduation


June of 2008 was a month of sweet relief. Graduation. It marked the end of my school journey where I had done what no other in my class had done. I had done the work of the ministry and gone to Bible School. I ended up graduating only one tenth shy of the valedictorian and boy, was I glad for that one tenth. I was proud of my accomplishment but the church had invited key people to speak at the graduation and I had the task of making sure that the music was perfect and I only was able to play during half of it. I couldn’t have been valedictorian and do all that I was already doing.
When my mom was told of my one tenth deficit she was actually a little miffed that I hadn’t been recognized for my accomplishment. At that point, I could have cared less. I was just glad to be done.
Bible School had been incredibly tough on me. I had facilitated the classes faithfully and because of it I had been yelled at, abused, and had rumors spread about me by angry students. All of this was because as the facilitator I was required to enforce the rules. My position as Class Facilitator threatened the delicate balance of my position as Worship Pastor on a continuous basis. I was not liked.
What did not help that position was the constant indoctrination of beliefs from the leadership that I should keep myself set apart from my team and from the congregation. The leadership firmly believed that in order to be a good leader, that leader was not friends with whom they led. They believed that the minute that a leader became friends with members of the congregation that is the minute that the respect for the position and respect for the leader was lost. I was constantly being questioned and cautioned about my relationships with those upon my team. The senior pastor particularly did not like me having friendships with people in or outside of the church. I was even questioned about my friends on my facebook page. Some of those people, particularly those who had left the church, I was asked to delete and not have contact with. Slowly, I was being isolated from everyone else except them.
I was alone.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Wedding and the Jail Cell


When I had been on staff for just over a year I met a wonderful, sweet girl named Bethany and I invited her to join the praise team. She was a fantastic addition to the team who could play the guitar wonderfully and she could sing lead as well as harmony. She was exactly what I needed on my team. Up until that point I had no one who could have covered for me in the event of an illness, crisis, or even a planned vacation. It was like I was in a boat with ten people and I was the only person with an oar to row.
When Bethany joined the team, I was incredibly excited because up until that point I hadn’t had any time off and Bethany was my chance for some much needed R & R. Within weeks of her joining I began preparing her for that very possibility. My goal was to have her ready so that Chris and I could go up to Georgia for a very dear friends wedding at the end of March, 2008.
As the time drew nearer to the wedding, I approached the Pastor about taking that Sunday after the wedding off since the drive would have been a good 8 hours away from where we lived. The Pastor gave me a conditional release to go; the condition was I could go if he felt like Bethany could successfully handle the Sunday morning service on her own. I was completely elated when I heard that because I thought Bethany was doing really well. Her lead vocals were not as strong as my own but she had this sweetness to her worship that was somehow reminiscent of the innocence of a newborn baby. There was this intoxicating fresh quality in how she sang, which was completely different from my own bold style. I honestly thought that the Pastor would appreciate that about her and allow me to go.
A few days before I was to leave, I again approached the Pastor about the upcoming wedding. I fully expected for him to allow me to go as I hadn’t had a single day off in over a year. Instead I was completely shocked and disappointed as he refused my request for the Sunday off. He told me I could still go to the wedding if I could ensure that I would be back by Sunday morning and fully rested for the next day. I felt completely crushed as I heard him speak. Who could reasonably travel with two young children, eight hours in car, attend a wedding and visit with people who you haven’t been able to visit with in years, and then turn around and drive home another eight hours. There was just no way that we could possibly do that. As I sat there and contemplated what he had just said, it was like the very air was being sucked out of my lungs and the room was closing in around me. I felt trapped. It was like the door slammed shut on my cell and there was no escape and at that moment I knew it. I had signed over my fate when I failed to speak up and it was like I no longer held the title to my own life. Somehow the title had been transferred into his hand. He owned me.
That moment began a time of intense favor, but with that favor came the chains of control.

Behind Closed Doors


It wasn’t long after I started on staff that I began to question the types of things that went on behind closed doors. I noticed that gossip was a way of life within the leadership. At first this really bothered me, but as I became accustomed to its frequency I crumpled under the pressure to conform and I soon joined right in. I began to rationalize away the concerns that I had about the massive gossip issue that any outsider would have immediately identified as wrong. I kept thinking that if my stress in ministry was any indication then the stresses of my leaders must be so much greater than my own, so they must need to vent their frustrations like they did. I quickly rationalized away every prick to my heart about what my leaders and I were doing as we sat around every day and discussed the “issues” in the congregation. The worst part of it was the gossip train soon had more passenger cars added to its line.
People within the core group of the congregation were soon in the know about each other and every other congregation member. Secrets were no longer secret. I soon knew of who had had affairs on their spouses, who had committed tax evasion and had almost gone to prison, and which people had been kicked out of prior churches before landing at ours… I soon knew every nasty detail about every congregation member’s life and so did everyone else within the inner circle.
Another issue that I noticed was how past members and past staff were discussed. When I started working at the church it had been open three and half years and in that time one worship leader had resigned, the youth pastor/worship leader had been fired and a volunteer secretary had been asked to resign. These three ex-staff members had left the church and moved on, yet the leadership discussed them on a continual basis. Horrible things were said about them constantly. Statements about their character, integrity and mental capacity were always being made. There wasn’t a week that went by when these poor people weren’t discussed.
People who had left the church were also discussed as well. Early on in the ministry, before I was staff, there had been a deacon board and one of the deacons had accused the Pastor of misappropriation of funds. The Pastors response was to dissolve the deacon board. After that, one by one, every single deacon left the church. Every time another ex-deacon would leave, the same story of how the Pastor was falsely accused would be rehashed and this time the newest member of the “I left the church club” would be defamed and gossiped about. It wasn’t just that way about the deacons either. Anyone who left the church for any reason was bashed and talked ill about (except if they happened to move to another state). Some people were deemed as backsliders, some were labeled as un-teachable, some were described as having some form of mental illness, and even some were suspected as having some form of demonic oppression or possession. The theme of all the labeling soon became very obvious; the church was never at fault, only the ex-members.
I wish I could say that the gossip was only limited to happening behind closed doors but it wasn’t. It happened from the pulpit as well. Names would of course be left out when leaders were preaching, but it was always obvious to most of the congregation who was being discussed and it was never in a positive light. These gossiped about people were used as constant fodder for examples of how not to live our lives. There were many times when entire sermons were made up of these types of stories with the occasional scripture thrown in. At times it was like the scripture was thrown in there as a stamp of approval to justify the behavior that was happening from the pulpit. Most of the time, we all sat back, shook our heads in approval and laughed.

The Newest Staff Member

It was now September of 2006, and school was in full swing. Along with keeping up with my other volunteer responsibilities at the church I was now in school and helping to facilitate the classes. I was now spending so many hours at the church that my husband was beginning to complain about never seeing me. At this point, I had been attending that church for two years and the only service I had ever missed was when I was in Trinidad and Tobago.
Around that time I was also feeling this burning desire to be launched into ministry. I knew that somehow, just around the corner a ministry opportunity was there for me and I could not wait to see what it was. Little did I know how very difficult full-time ministry really was. There is a huge difference between being a volunteer and being the leader, especially in this church.
In October of 2006 the unthinkable happened. Scandal struck our church and the current worship leader and youth pastor was fired from his position and suddenly, without warning, the task of leading worship for the congregation fell to me. This is where the real journey of spiritual abuse began.
The first few months were awful, difficult, and filled with strife. There were constant battles to be dealt with because of my lack of experience, my lack of actual piano training and people did not accept my transition from volunteer to staff very well at all. One moment, I was just one of the group and the next I was the person who everyone relied on to “make it happen”.
One of my major problems was that I struggled with faster paced songs. I didn’t have a guitarist to cover up my lack of skill to carry the kind of fast paced praise songs that the Pastor was demanding. So I spent hours upon hours playing songs along with the CD’s so that I could master the rhythm needed to successfully carry the song as the lead instrument. In those early days of ministry, it was not uncommon for me to spend at least 8 hours playing the same song over and over. I was dedicated to succeeding. The constant rebukes and whispers that went on behind my back that said that I couldn’t do it only fueled my desire to prove them wrong.
Four months into my new position as Worship leader, the Pastor delivered a devastating blow. He sat me down and told me that I was not making enough progress in the faster paced songs so he was going to have an old worship leader, who had resigned just the year before, play the praise songs for me. He very plainly told me that despite the long hours of practicing that he knew that I was doing, he did not think that I was capable of ever playing those songs. He believed it was beyond my ability.
Later that week, I tried to resign but somehow he convinced me to stay. He praised me for my ability to lead the people in worship but continued to insist that fast paced songs were beyond my ability. He praised me for my obvious progress and skill at leading worship then followed it with a statement of amazement that I had made it this far. He never believed that I would have lasted this long. He told me it was his wife who believed in me and thought I would be a great worship leader one day, but he never saw those qualities in me. He thought I was a good leader behind the microphone, but not from the keyboard and it was ok to admit defeat and my lack of skill on my instrument of choice. Then he graciously allowed and encouraged me stay on as staff because he now saw some potential in me despite my lack of skill. I suddenly felt so grateful that I was given the opportunity to be on his staff. I felt so unworthy to be there as a staff member that I again was crying in that office.
I left that office even more determined to succeed at those faster paced praise songs. I was grateful that I still had my job but I failed to realize in that moment that I had just been masterly manipulated. Telling me that I couldn’t do something was the exact button to push to make me prove that I could. The manipulation may have worked but manipulating people is not godly. Manipulation is never love.

Am I lazy? Reprimand # 3

The months were flying by and I was busier at the church then I had ever been. I was volunteering in children’s church, co-leading the junior youth, leading a dance team, starting a youth band, volunteering on the worship team, leading worship for the Thursday prayer meeting, and leading worship for the occasional Wednesday service. I was involved! And to top it all off, the Leadership were talking about opening up a Bible School and they asked me to facilitate the classes in exchange for my tuition. I gladly agreed because it was my heart to minister and I desperately wanted to go to Bible school.
I had previously attended a Bible School right after High School that was supposed to get accredited but it never did. So I had spent two years earning a degree and paying tuition for a degree that was not worth the paper it was printed on. I looked at this new added challenge of going to an accredited Bible School as my chance to finally get the education in ministry that I had been longing for since I was a teenager. But just as school was about to start, I was again called into the office for a reprimand.
This time I was brought into the office with the Pastor and Associate Pastor. The Pastor began to speak with me quite harshly with what seemed like a prepared speech, complete with scripture to prove his point. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
Right after the mission trip in December of 2005, I had a meeting with my boss who explained to me that he could no longer employ me because of the economic downturn that was happening in the housing market. The housing market bubble had popped and people were no longer buying homes, or the much needed insurance that goes with the purchase of a new home. I had gotten laid off.
When I got laid off, I immediately pulled my children from daycare because we could no longer, on one income, afford to keep them there. When this happened I lost both my slots in the local daycare at the reduced rate of the part-time status that I had negotiated upon when I first started working. Since it would cost double the amount than it had previously cost to place our children back in daycare that would allow me to work, my husband and I both decided it would be best if I stayed home and cared for our two children. It just wasn’t economical for us to pay the increased rate of daycare when my paycheck, after expenses, would be less than 80 dollars a week. Once we included the extra cost of gas into the expenses of my working, I would have essentially been working for free. There was no economical benefit to my working outside of the home. Besides, my children were 2 and 4 at the time when I stopped working. It was much more beneficial for our kids for me to be at home.
I tried to explain all of this to my Pastor as I sat there dumfounded that he was essentially calling me lazy. He made me feel so guilty for being a stay at home mom. He said things that were hurtful, like I was blessed to have a husband to take care of me and I shouldn’t impose upon my husband like that. He even insinuated that my husband might leave me if I didn’t contribute more financially to our marriage. I cried, yet again, as I was made to feel ashamed. I left that office promising them that I would go out the next week and go look for a job. My heart was incredibly heavy as I cried out to God when I left the church that day. “Why Lord? If I am doing all these things, in this church, in Your name, why is being a mom and servant not enough?”
It wasn’t until years later that that I received the answer to that question. God’s requirements and man’s requirements are very different.

God Called Me!

The mission trip was truly great and I felt the Call of God upon my life like never before. I knew as I ministered to those people on foreign soil that ministering is what I was made to do. I was coming into my own and I preached my very first sermon to those precious Indian people. God moved upon their hearts as I spoke. Woman after woman approached me and spoke about what an encouragement I had been to their hearts. I spent a long time praying and encouraging each one as they came to me. No one could have told me at that moment that I was not called to be a minister of the gospel. That trip placed a seed in my heart that refused to die.
Soon after getting home, and back into the swing of things, God opened this amazing door for me to move into my calling. Our regular worship leader was out on Thursday and was not able to play the piano for our prayer service. I did not usually attend the Thursday prayer meetings but that particular day I was there and just tinkering around on the piano in the sanctuary. As I was tinkering, the Pastor’s wife noticed me and asked me to play for the prayer meeting that day. I thought it was fantastic. It had been a few years since I had lead worship anywhere and my last attempt had gone terribly awry, so I was eager to get my feet wet playing and singing in such a relaxed setting. With only a few people attending the prayer meeting and the focus on prayer and not me, I thought that was just what I needed to not feel nervous.
I began to play and as I did it was like this river just started to flow out of me that was mixed with scented perfume. It was like this scented river flowed directly to the throne of God. I received the shock of my life as God began to use me in worship like He never had before, and as I looked around the room at all the prostrate people I was amazed at what God was doing, through me! The Pastor’s wife soon got up and began to prophecy that this day was my beginning in ministry and I should never forget that day.
I have never forgotten that day and it is the one day that God reminds me of when I ask Him why I went through the pain and agony of Spiritual Abuse. He reminds me of February 2, 2006 as the day that I began to walk into what He had called me to do. He called me in that church. Then He called me out of that church. There was purpose for me in that church. There is a purpose for me out of that church. The purpose for me out of that church is greater than the purpose for me in that church. That church was just my beginning, not my ending.

Reprimand # 2

The next few months were a whirlwind of activity. Things were going ok in my marriage, I was working a new job, volunteering for even more ministries in the church, and in December of 2005 I went on a Mission Trip to Trinidad and Tobago. Right before going on this trip, I was again pulled into the office to be reprimanded. This time, it was about my tithes and offerings.
The Pastor, months prior, had made a policy that those who wanted to go on a mission trip were required to give offerings, above and beyond their tithe, to the missions fund at least once monthly. When the announcement was made at a missions meeting, I thought nothing of it. My experience had always been, with previous churches, that an established amount or percentage of each person’s tithe and offering would be automatically be placed into appropriate accounts according to how they set up their church. My assumption was that a portion of my tithe automatically went into the mission’s fund. Because of my assumption, I would give an additional offering every month but not specifically designate it towards the mission’s fund.
So yet again, I was sitting in an office ashamed, crying and sorrowful. I was told if they hadn’t straightened this out with me I would not have been going on the next mission trip. This was not the last reprimand or meeting that I would have to endure about tithes and offerings while I attended that church. It quickly became a recurring theme.

The First Red Flag


Things quickly changed for me. God totally restored my marriage and my husband started attending church with me. Within a few months of me being at the church I was invited onto the praise team and I was flourishing there. I was making friends. I was volunteering at the church and I was generally involved in almost every ministry there was at the church. Things genuinely seemed good until certain red flags started popping up.
One particular Sunday, after worship team practice, the Pastor’s wife pulled me into one of the offices and began to reprimand me for not honoring her husband, the Pastor. I was completely shocked and mortified. I had no clue what I had done wrong. I genuinely cared about these people and the last thing that I ever wanted to do was hurt or dishonor them. The Pastor’s wife explained to me, as I cried, how dishonorable it was for me to call her husband by his first name and not by the title of Pastor. She explained to me that in my short time at the church that her husband considered me to be like a daughter and as a daughter I should honor him by using his proper title. She demanded that I call him “Pastor”.
Never in my life had I ever just called a Pastor, “Pastor”. With more formal men, who I did not know personally, I would call them Pastor Jones, and if I knew them a little bit more intimately it would be Pastor John. The closer I was in relationship to a Pastor the more lax the title. With some of my old Pastors, I was on a first name basis with them. Of course, out of respect when speaking to someone else I would use their title, but in reality titles never meant much to me. In reality, titles never meant much to my old Pastors either.
I remember sitting there in that office so completely ashamed and humiliated. I was so completely distraught that I couldn’t even sing that morning. I sat there in the congregation, engulfed in my shame, instead of helping to lead worship that morning. Everyone could see I was upset and kept asking me what was wrong. After the service I went to this Pastor and I apologized for not meaning to dishonor him, and his response was that it wasn’t about the title, but it was about the place of authority that I allowed him to be in my life. If I allowed him to be my Pastor, I would be teachable and God could use me.
I called him “Pastor” that day. I cannot forget the look of pride that came over his face as I said it. That day the lasso of control dropped over my head and the rope began to tighten.

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…

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Where I've come from and how I walked away from Spiritual Abuse


Over the next few months I feel impressed upon that it is time that I tell my story. Some may not like what I have to say as it may convict their hearts, but I will only ever tell the truth.
The purpose is not to name names or cause strife, but to expose the truth in hopes that my story will inspire others to walk away from authoritarian, abusive church systems like I did.
I was a spiritual leader, a music pastor, in one of those such churches.

Why did I walk away? What was so authoritarian and abusive at the church where I was at?

The Pastor, instead of a loving shepherd leading the flock with love and compassion, was a spiritual cowboy who prodded his sheep like cattle, and I was his cowboy in training, until I walked away. He wore twin spurs of condemnation and guilt on his heels and had a lasso of performance that entwined you with a false sense of obligation in his hand.
I am here to admit my failings for following the cowboys and striving to be like them instead of striving to be like the Great Shepherd. When God tore the blinders off my eyes, I rose up, tossed away my spurs and lasso and said no more! I'm committed to my Shepherd and to His flock. I follow His voice and no other. I will tend to His sheep and His sheep need to know the truth about Spiritual Abuse. So here is my story...