by Vyckie Garrison @ No Longer Quivering

Do you remember when it first dawned on you that your relatives are all a bunch of crackpots and weirdos?  Seems like I was around 8 or 9 — my mother worked all night in the casinos and slept most of the day, leaving me alone to protect my naïve older sister from the depraved advances of Mom’s alcoholic boyfriends and worry about my big brother’s drug addiction. I couldn’t count on my grandparents to help — they were too preoccupied with their own divorce, dating, and remarriage dramas.

“Holy sugar,” I thought to myself, “these people are seriously messed up!”

That’s about the time the fantasies began.  My home, I imagined, was a three-ring circus — and my relatives were the freaks and the clowns.  In my daydreams, I was not really one of them.  No — surely, I was of aristocratic origin.  My REAL family were royalty in a faraway Kingdom and I was born a beloved Princess in a fancy castle with many servants and my own Fairy Godmother.  Somehow, I’d been separated from my blood kin as an infant — I was captured by gypsies and sold in a black market adoption — that’s how I ended up being raised by this group of crazies!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ABC’s Primetime Nightline recently aired a segment featuring the Gil & Kelly Bates family — a conservative, Evangelical mega-family of twenty.  The Bates, who are close friends of JimBob & Michelle Duggar of TLC’s “19 and Counting” fame, hold to the extreme fundamentalist ideals of the growing “Quiverfull movement.”

During the one-hour special, Gil, Kelly, and their children explained the family’s lifestyle which, to all modern appearances, represents a throw back to the imaginary 60′s-style “Leave It to Beaver” family combined with strict, Victorian Era sexual mores and the atavistic gender roles of ancient goat-herders. The Bates eschew all forms of birth control and adhere to the marriage model of the biblical Patriarchs — with Gil as family leader and Kelly as submissive “help meet.”  Kelly and the girls adorn themselves in modest, hand-sewn dresses, while Gil and his clean-cut sons teach bible study and participate in local Tea Party politics.

Aren’t they lovely?  Don’tcha wanna be just like them?

I sure did!  I left home at 15 and embarked on a quest to recreate my long-lost perfect, happy family — my REAL courtly family, where I truly belonged.  After a false start involving marriage at 16, a baby at 19, and divorce after seven years of abuse rivaling the most astonishing freak show acts Mom’s circus family had ever performed — I remarried, found a “bible-believing” church, and worked hard within the Quiverfull counterculture to implement the best of the best biblical family values into our home life.  I had six more children. I homebirthed, homeschooled, and home-churched. I submitted to my husband and joyfully sacrificed my time, energy and talents to build him up and help him to succeed.  I published a “pro-life, pro-family” Christian family newspaper to inform and encourage other Christians to defend “Traditional Family Values.”

In 2003, we were honored as Family of the Year at the Nebraska Family Council’s “Salt & Light” awards. I’d finally made it! I had built my own Magic Kingdom where my husband reigned as King and I was his Queen, the children were our loyal subjects and we could all live happily ever after …

Like the Bates family, we were the perfect picture of the “biblical family values” fantasy — an idealistic vision of big, happy families: devoted husband and wife surrounded by a passel of respectful, obedient children — we were all sweetness and smiles.  It is this mesmerizing dream world which energizes and motivates Tea Party Republicans like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann to work tirelessly to implement the “pro-family” theocratic agenda into every aspect of American society: not only in politics, but religion, family, media, education, business and entertainment.

Fundamentalist Christians are convinced that contemporary American society is the World’s Most Spectacular Display of hideously mutated, diseased and anomalous freaks.  ”Step right up folks!” the preacher yells, “and witness a grotesque parade of ho-mo-sex-uals, lesbians, Wiccans, radical feminists, godless liberals, secular humanists, and …” (congregation gasps!) “Muslim extremists!!”

Simultaneously fascinated and horrified, respectable religious parents scramble to shield their innocent children’s eyes and ears from the depravity and corruption of “The World.”  They homeschool and form special Chastity and Creation Science clubs designed to insulate and isolate their vulnerable young from the miscreants and most depraved elements of popular culture.

It’s completely understandable and normal for preteens to create imaginary worlds — their own private, safe hideout where they can dream of nobility, of rising above and doing so much better than the clowns running the Big Top’s Museum of Mutantstrosities.  The grown-ups watch in silent, knowing amusement as kids disavow their relatives as “psychos” and “bozos.”

But when otherwise responsible, Christian adults in recent years set out on a mission to create a radically distinct way of life based on “biblical family values,” the resultant countercultural movement known as “Quiverfull” has become an all-too-real Hall of Mirrors horror show.

In my own life, perpetual pregnancies destroyed my health, and my indiscriminate acquiescence to my husband’s every whim transformed him from a loving father into a tantrum-throwing tyrant. Burnout and disillusionment led to abuse, neglect, family disintegration and a particularly nasty divorce.

When the dust settled, I took a good look at myself in the mirror.  I could no longer deny the strong family resemblance — I saw my mother in my own face staring back at me.  After all those years of fighting and denial, I had to finally accept the fact that I really am one of them — I belong to these crazy people.  I, too, am a conspicuous oddity — a bizarre spectacle and an embarrassment to my own noble children.

Funny thing is … these days, I don’t mind so much being associated with my misfit clan of circus freaks.  Life experience has given me perspective and a deep appreciation for the inevitable realities and desperate circumstances which deformed and mutated Mom and the rest of us into shocking and extraordinary creatures worthy of society’s disquietude and awe.

Black market adoption fantasies and youthful idealism are important wayposts on the journey to adulthood.  Rebellion against blatant injustice, hypocrisy, moral compromise and the myriad of other common grown-up failure is a healthy manifestation of a kid’s personal power and strong moral agency.  Arrogant and annoying, yes — but in moments of truth we have to admit, the kid’s got a point.

Society sucks.  Bigotry, racism, inequity, corruption, greed, depravity, malevolence, and all manner of evil abound. Let’s just face the fact that in many ways, the contemporary American social and political scene has devolved to become the World’s Greatest Freak Show.

No wonder Tea Party Patriot families like the Bates and the Duggars escape into their own personal fantasyland.

Ironically, with maturity comes humility — along with a profound sense of connection and belonging to that wacky bunch of buffoons who share our DNA.  We see our people with new eyes.  Sure, Grandma’s got a beard and Uncle Stan is a charlatan — Aunt Betty’s such a lunatic, she may as well have two heads.  But in the end, they’re all we’ve got.  That perfect, royal family whom we imagined searched frantically for us for years and never gave up hope that one day we would return to our true home?  They’re not real.  Cousin Roger is real — never mind that he doesn’t have a lick of sense and the only thing he’s good for is shoveling elephant shit — he’s the one who truly understands you, knows all about you, and loves you anyway.

Tea Party family values are the fundamentalists’ desperate attempt to deny their own imperfections, vulnerability, and their inescapable mortality.  Sure it hurts that they look down on us regular folk — those of us who make no pretense of actually having our acts together — they avoid being seen out in public with us, they disown us, and they shrink away in fear of catching our cooties.

But take heart — perhaps they’ll grow up.

I did.  Not saying I don’t still sometimes get all starry-eyed and visionary over the possibility of influencing our society for the better — I’ve got a bit of spunk left in me and I’m doing what I can to stick it to The Man.  But I no longer think of myself as qualitatively different or “other” than all the rest of my fellow human beings — my family.  My freakish, crazy, wonderfully imperfect people.

I don’t believe in God anymore, but I still have faith.  I have hope and I trust that collectively, we’re all gonna make it — we are learning from our mistakes and growing more compassionate.  Our shared experiences make us wiser and I have confidence that better times are just ahead.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum! Comments are also open below.

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by Chandra

I still remember what I was doing on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001. It was a gorgeous morning, crisp azure sky with nothing but the blissful autumn sunshine overhead. Not even a cloud. I pulled into the church parking lot, sunroof back and something along the lines of Green Day blaring. I arrived at the office early, unlocking the door and booted my computer, prepping to attend to the stack of projects that pastors needed completing. I glanced over the counseling schedule for the day and realized that it was going to be a light day. After I had started a pot of coffee for all the guys, I went back to my desk to begin my day.

Somewhere around 9am the news came flooding into the office about the tragedies that were surrounding our eastern coast. Several key members of our church were in the air on business meetings, yet to be accounted for. My co-worker and I went to the sanctuary to pray and when I came back, my inbox said, “You’ve Got Mail” from this mysteriously attractive guy named Darren that I had met over the summer in the singles group. I was a baby, just 19 when I met him. And he was 29. But we were friends and we started an email conversation on 9/11 about the current events facing our nation. And for some reason, this conversation never stopped.

I was still living at home and I knew for certain I wasn’t about to let my parents screw up my chances at finding love and happiness. I knew I needed to leave the house before I could date, because there was no way in hell that I would ever consider courtship. My parents were so screwed up, that that model would not have worked, even though that was their clear desire for me. They wanted to be able to control whom I married so that they could continue to control me from beyond my father’s house.

I began to actively search with a dear friend for a place to rent later that same month. Things at home had grown substantially worse, if that was even possible. I was never home, often leaving early in the morning and often not returning until well past midnight. My sexy Honda became my refuge and respite from the intolerable home environment. My mom grew increasingly intrusive and controlling, opening my mail (keep in mind, I was 19), analyzing my credit card statements (again, I was 19 with a full-time job and zero overhead), my eating habits (she told me that I had bulimia- HA! I wish!), and my choice in clothing (my father told me while going to church that I looked like a prostitute).

I was told that my lack of pitching in with my hard-earned money to help out with household costs was the reason that my parents were in so much debt. I believed it, and internalized these statements, rather than recognizing that my dad’s sexual addiction was the cause of their financial state. Rather than throwing my money to them, I determined that my best option was to leave.

I was weary of trying to make things work at home, of no freedom and completely humiliating incidences. My mom would call people I was hanging out with, demanding to know where I was and when I would be home. Many times, she would be awake when I arrived home, and would begin her emotional tirades against me from the moment I stepped into the house. They never set a curfew, so I never felt compelled to keep it. Once, my mom barged in on a church single’s party, tracking down where this social gathering was. She appeared and demanded if I was there at the house. She came in, and dragged me by the hand out of this home and humiliated me in front of everyone. Again, I was 19. That was the final straw. I ripped into her, telling her how much I hated her and it was not two weeks later, that my friend and I found a condo that was offered to us by a member of the church where I worked.

I was thrilled to at last have found a place to live away from my parents toxicity! I had my little red Honda packed and ready to go weeks in advance, but I would be required to live with my parents through the holidays. My girlfriend and I were free to move in anytime after Christmas, so the day after Christmas, I planned my move. And this guy Darren, who had befriended me that autumn had the truck that I needed. I did not need help from my parents, and refused to take it. I needed to leave, flee- as far away from them as my situation would take me, and I wanted them to have no part of my new life.

I got myself moved and found my parents and my brother in my new condo, unannounced. I had forgotten to lock the door. I was more than just a little angry that they wouldn’t leave me alone, and told them to leave. This was my life, and I wanted to live it apart from them perpetrating their abuse and control on me. Little did I know what a long road I would have ahead of me in actually obtaining that freedom.

Darren and I had had an unadmitted attraction to one another that grew out of our email conversations. But my parents were weird, and he knew it, and our age differences kept us at bay. Until I moved out. The day I moved out, we had our first official date. We went out to the St. Louis Zoo, watched the polar bears, and then went to a wonderful Irish pub for lunch. We talked incessantly the entire time. Ironically, though I had a strong desire to flee my family and knew that I was abused, I still maintained that homeschooling was something that I wanted to do and I wanted to do it differently. And even more ironically, this came up in our first date, and Darren felt the same way. Funny how God works. On New Year’s Eve, we became an official couple and watched the fireworks on the Riverfront underneath the St. Louis Arch as the New Year dawned.

I had moved out of my parents’ home and got a boyfriend all in one week. And I had never been happier in my life. I refused to call my parents and I was free at last. I was so happy! For the first time in my life, I finally knew what it was like to be loved and to have the freedom to love completely. My whole life, I thought that I was some sort of freak, some degenerate pagan that was so unlovable and unlovely that God simply didn’t care about me enough to let me experience that. I believed that there was something so inherently and deeply flawed with me that no one would ever find me lovely or acceptable.

Hope sprang eternally in my heart and even though I felt this way about myself, I kept on hoping that maybe there was a chance that love could hypothetically happen to me. And even if it was a tiny sliver, I refused to snuff it out. And to my amazement, he loved me for who I was and didn’t want to change a thing about me! He accepted me just The Way I Am and it was the first time in my life that anyone had ever shown me that kind of love or compassion. My dreams were coming true, and the wounded heart inside of me was finally beginning to thaw and melt into a lovely array of blossoming fragrance.

With my continued therapist sessions, the new love in my life, and my new condo, all was well in my world. I had my cat-the only friend I ever truly had until recently, a group of besties, a wonderful job, and this amazing man (the only thing lacking was that I couldn’t wear heels around him!). My heart was happy, it was free, and it was free to be loved and to love.

Darren and I became serious with one another. But the enmeshed web that I was raised in came back to haunt me as our relationship grew to the point where we were desiring to become engaged. It was as though my parents had grown invisible fingers and knew how to have a hold on my life, and continue to control it, even though I was physically gone from their house. It’s a thing called, “spiritual molestation” according to Stephen Arterburn. I was the victim, and they were molesting me of my dignity and self-respect. Robbing me of joy. My mother had become an expert in exactly what to say and how to phrase it in order to get me to acquiesce. This time, it had to do with a guy they didn’t like. It proved that if I was going to find true love and happiness, that I would have to fight. And it was only just the beginning.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum.

Read all posts by Chandra!

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by Chandra

It wasn’t until this past year, while speaking to my counselor, that she looked me in the eye and asked of me, “Did you ever think to call 911?”

Something like a tidal wave went through me. I still feel like I am picking up the pieces of that.

“No,” I replied. “It never even dawned on me.”

I still don’t understand the full implications of living in such a mind-controlling cult. I really don’t. It’s…indescribable really and I often feel like a blundering, clumsy writer trying to articulate it to the outside world. The truth is that I had been trained to believe since I was six that all law enforcement was to be feared. The only authority that was to be trusted was that of a God-ordained institution: marriage, family, and sometimes, the church (if that church was legalistic or a home church). Government, social workers, doctors, lawyers, police officers…were all to be feared implicitly and never, ever trusted. I had become so trusting of my caretakers that I had turned into the girl who was ignorant of their abuse: because I had been trained to rely on them for everything.

I stumbled through the next few months after my graduation with a feeling of being a nomad, feeling like I was waiting for a game of chess to end, but somehow the game continued to be sustained by a few pieces. In retrospect, I see how certain events were orchestrated to my benefit, leading me slowly into the path of freedom. Even in June, after I had graduated, I was still weak and sickly from my previous pneumonia and ARDS. I got tired very easily, and frequently felt short of breath. I was also depressed. After all, I was a newly graduated senior and I was without friends. It had been well over four years since Hannah and I had last spoken to one another and probably about a year at that point since we had seen each other. Still, somewhere in my heart there was a longing and an aching for the hope that we could renew our once precious and sisterly friendship.

In truth, I had never had another friend like her. We were more alike than not, even in the way the thought about life. What I didn’t understand, even at nearly eighteen, was that we were both cut from the same cloth: brainwashed, controlled, and manipulated. Because our parents were the best at manipulating and “raising godly daughters as a heritage unto the Lord” it was a very natural thing that we would approach the world in the same way. But at almost eighteen, I didn’t understand that. All I knew was that there was loneliness, an aching, a void, a starving and thirst for human companionship and the sisterhood of true friends.

After I graduated, I received a sizable amount of cash, and combined with money that my grandparents had generously gifted me with over the years, this allowed me to purchase my first car. My dad actually spearheaded the entire purchase of the car. I purchased my first car when I was 18: a 1993 Red Honda Civic, with all the bells and whistles. I loved that car! It was the best thing that had happened to me in nearly seven years. I would drive with the sunroof back, the stereo blaring and loved the feeling of burning rubber. This car held out its metaphorical hand to me, encouraging me to embrace the freedom of my future. And I took it.

I began to look for a job, since going to college was completely out of the question. I was actually encouraged to get a job, because I was “creating a strain” on the family budget, according to my mom. My parents lived frugally, but they were always in massive debt, something that I did not understand. I saw how little they spent on us kids (my grandparents bought all of our clothing and they spent next to nothing on our education), and I saw how much my mom did without. My dad’s profession was a white-collar one, and even though he was largely unsuccessful at what he did, he did not make bad money. With only two kids to support, their lifestyle and the debt to which they incurred did not match. But as I aged, and especially when I began to work, I was made to feel like a financial burden if I did not help out with purchases around the home.

There were several of these arguments, where my mom would take out her frustration on their financial situation on me- blaming me that I was the reason why the family was in so much debt. Given everything that they had put me through in my short life, I believed her and internalized these perceptions.

I was desperate for friendship, and since I had a car, I sought it in every way possible. I really only had one dear friend at this time, who was two years younger than me, Dani (You can read about her story here). I was in her family’s home as much as I was able. I had no other friends in the homeschooling arena, since all had long since shunned and abandoned me year’s prior.

Since I was 14, my family had attended a large, suburban church. This was something that Candi hated and sought to actively undermine my mother’s commitment to the church whenever she caught a whiff that my dad was influencing her to become more active with church and less active in the homeschooling Movement. Without fail, she was successful. Her charisma and powerful sway over my mom’s thinking prevented me from becoming involved in church youth groups, activities, or even Sunday school.

According to Candi, it was fine that we attended church, as long as my parents didn’t hand over the responsibilities of training their precious children into the hands of the youth group or youth pastor. We attended Sunday school with my parents, which was incredibly humiliating and of course any other social activities were out of the question, since we were leaders in The Movement. I hated the way that they treated the church- like it was something to be afraid of. They were terrified of me learning things and inappropriate ways of relating to guys in the youth group. Mom and Dad viewed the kids in the youth group as being worldly and bad influences. They were also terrified that I might start to think for myself.  The youth pastor, on one occasion, met my mom and me outside the sanctuary after service. He was incredibly gifted with perception and sensitiveness to the needs of adolescents. He asked my mom if I could come to Sunday school that day and my mom coldly shot him down with a glare, telling him that it was her responsibility to “teach and train her children.” He shot me a glance of, “I’m sorry, I tried,” as I returned his gaze with something that probably spoke volumes of my depression and unhappiness.

Somehow throughout the years, my family continued to attend church. After the encounter with our youth pastor, I knew that there were people who were watching our family, and knew that they were extremely enmeshed, unhealthy, and controlling.

For a few years, the sole motivation to attend there was because as members, we could request the facility to use for our State Homeschool Convention. And with the purchase of my car, and my recent graduation from the homeschool world, there was no way that my mom or dad could keep me from seeking authentic relationships through church, which is something that I had very much longed for. I tentatively began to stretch my wings.

I signed up to become a staff member at our church’s nursery. It was a paid position, but it felt like a safe place to begin to seek out relationships. I have always loved little ones, and my level of commitment to them soon brought me into more babysitting jobs than I knew what to do with. This was a blessing, as I was still living at home. I could be gone for hours on the weekends, away from the toxic environment in my home. Within a couple of months, God answered a prayer that I had been praying faithfully and unceasingly for: a friend.

I was asked to join a tiny group of about four girls for a college girl’s bible study. I jumped at the opportunity and within a few short weeks, these girls became the sisters that I had been praying for. To this day, though scattered to all corners of the United States, we remain the closest of friends. These girls had something I longed for: peace in their hearts and an enthusiasm for Christ. They all grew up in public or private schools and yet they were more real, more accepting, more authentic and more fun than any other person that I had met in my narrow circle. Hardly a day goes by that I do not thank God for at least one of them. They met me where I was at, welcomed me, and loved me for who I was. It was the first time that I had ever experienced that kind of acceptance from anyone and it did my broken heart amazing wonders.

I increasingly became more and more involved in the church, and because my parents were consumed with trying to control me through over-involvement in my life, they decided that it would be a good idea for them to start as well. The business executive at our church understood this and approached my mom to ask her if she would consider letting me interview for a full-time staff position in the church office. He knew that if he asked me without their approval, it would never happen. God proved himself to me yet again, when my mom amazingly consented.

I started within a few short weeks, and was quickly busier than I had been in years. The main part of my job was assisting the counseling staff with their clientele and developing their programs. I was encouraged to read everything that they recommended to clients, and I met with the counselors once a week. This soon grew into personal counseling for me, which I actively pursued. I understood that I had much that needed working through and understanding before I would ever consider becoming someone’s spouse.

This job was nothing short of a gift. Not only did it provide me with the healing that my heart so desperately needed, it also provided me with the income that I needed in order to leave my parent’s home. One of the other girls in the bible study was ready to move out of her parents place, and together we began searching for a place to live. It all seemed so simple: get a car, get a job, move out. But there were two things that I had not planned on: falling in love and just how deep the clutches of control my parents had over me were.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum.

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A boy discovers that there are right and wrong kinds of blood.

by Frank Schaeffer

I’d never heard of pheromones when I was ten. All I knew was that each month the large wicker basket in the bathroom on the middle floor of our chalet filled with softball sized, tightly-wound wads of toilet paper. These tissue bundles were evidence that—in biblical terms—the time of Our Girls’ Monthly Uncleanness was once again upon them.

Let me explain why I’ve capitalized those words. My late father, Francis Schaeffer, was a key founder of the Religious Right. My mother, Edith, was herself a spiritual leader—not merely the power behind her man, though she was also that. My parents raised me in L’Abri Fellowship, a sort of fundamentalist hippie commune before there were hippies, really not much more than a big old Swiss chalet where we lived, along with everyone who visited for “spiritual help” and/or to “find Jesus.” Mom divided everything into Very Important Things—say, Jesus, Virginity, Japanese Flower Arrangements, Lust, See-through Black Lingerie (to be enjoyed only after marriage), Our Girls’ Monthly Uncleanness—and everything else—those things that barely registered on my mother’s to-do list, like home-schooling me. So I’ll be capitalizing some words oddly in here. I’m not doing this as a theological statement so much as as a nervous tic, a leftover from my Edith Schaeffer-shaped childhood and also to signal what Loomed Large to my mother and what still Looms Large to me.

This was back in the days when a sanitary napkin was a fluffy and formidable thing, about the size and shape of a canoe. I knew God didn’t like the Menstrual Mummies because I’d heard Mom read from Leviticus 15 in a Bible study:

When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. And everything on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean. Everything also on which she sits shall be unclean. And whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. And whoever touches anything on which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. Whether it is the bed or anything on which she sits, when he touches it he shall be unclean until the evening.

So I never touched the Menstrual Mummies—except once. I unwrapped the tissue-tethered Unclean Thing and took a smear of blood from it to study with a small microscope that a kindly L’Abri student had given me. I wanted to see the egg that Mom said was “washed out each month unless it gets fertilized by the marvelous seed.” I didn’t see an egg, but I did observe several doughnut-shaped red blood cells after I dabbed a little blood on a glass slide and stained it, as per the student’s instructions.

About forty years after investigating the Menstrual Mummies in the wastepaper basket, I read an article in the New York Times science section about how humans’ sense of smell triggers physical responses. The article cited as an example the fact that women who live together—for instance, in college dorms, convents, and girls’ boarding schools—tend to menstruate at the same time. I don’t know if this theory of menstrual synchrony will stand up to the rigors of scientific inquiry, but I do know that our middle-floor chalet bathroom wastepaper basket seemed to fill and empty like some sort of metronome, keeping time with a cosmic rhythm as sure as the tides. Maybe Mom and my sisters reset the hormone “clock” of the women who stayed with us, from the helpers—cheerful, though virtual slave laborers working in return for room, board, and spiritual help for years at a time—to the students—who might stay for six to ten months or so.

These nubile, yet torturously unavailable young women filled our chalet with their pheromone-perfumed presence. And, as I learned from Mom’s Bible study on Leviticus, they were monstrously defiled as they plunged into their monthly menstrual freshet. I imagined that God was right there with me, in our middle-floor bathroom, brooding over the evidence of His Big Mistake: women.

That said, when The-God-of-the-Bible hastily made the first woman as a sort of garden-warming present for Adam, He must have carelessly botched her plumbing. Soon after Creation, the Female Plumbing Problem began to weigh heavily on The-God-of-the-Bible’s Mind. Women brimming with bodily fluids—like shellfish, Canaanites, and the wearing of wool and cotton at the same time—are among the many things that got out of hand soon after The-God-of-the-Bible completed Creation, thus inciting His Divine Regret. So The-God-of-the-Bible expelled the first man and woman from the Garden; He sent a Great Flood; He killed at least as many unruly beings as the numberless descendants He promised Abraham. The-God-of-the-Bible issued countless factory recalls—for instance, miscarriages—and complex owner’s manual updates, replete with regulations and strict rules about how to deal with women, fix women, repair women, curb women, keep women in line, and, if need be, kill women if they didn’t keep The-God-of-the-Bible’s Women-Managing Rules.

The-God-of-the-Bible’s Women-Management Plan is particularly focused on controlling bodily fluids. The-God-of-the-Bible hates wetness! Certain kinds, at least.

There’s a lot in the Bible about menstruation, and it’s all bad. Blood isn’t the problem; just womb blood is bad. If a woman finds a stain after, say, cutting her finger, she does not become impure since the blood isn’t from her womb. Blood squirting from countless sheep and cows dying while being slaughtered as sacrifices to The-God-of-the-Bible is just fine. So is male mutilation: circumcision. Even better for Christians is the blood pouring from Jesus’ hands and feet. The Christian believer is encouraged to drink it, get to Heaven through it, and “claim” it! “Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?” ask the words of the old camp meeting hymn. “Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

The Bible is full of vengeful bloodshed. As the Psalmist says, “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.” Such “triumphal” blood runs in God-of-the-Bible-pleasing crimson rivers throughout the Scriptures—from the Slaughter of Midian right up through the Book of Revelation.

About thirty years after peering into that wastepaper basket full of sanitary pads, quivering with curiosity, my grown-up and terrified self was crouching next to my wife, Genie, at three in the morning. She was hemorrhaging. I’d already watched our three children being born. I’d seen a doctor cut her to make the passage wider when Jessica—the eldest—was tearing her mother’s flesh as she made her way into the world.

Now, on this night, after a year when Genie’s increasingly long periods became one long trial, it was as if something inside of her had broken loose. Even bath towels couldn’t soak up all the blood. I’d been squatting on the bathroom floor at her feet, watching her bleed dreadful clots that looked like slices of raw liver. I was zeroing in on them because one possibility we considered was that, long periods or not, Genie was somehow having a miscarriage. So—illogically—I studied those clots looking for little hands or feet, imagining that a face might stare back at me.

Waiting to be examined by a gynecologist, Genie was waxy pale. There was a smear of blood on her cheek that I washed off with a paper towel. I was gingerly perching on a stainless steel stool close to a short table with stirrups. I was holding her hand.

Next to me was a clear plastic bag hand-labeled “Rape Kit.” We’d been stowed in a gynecology examination cubicle reserved for female emergencies like ours—and, apparently, for gathering evidence from rape victims. I surreptitiously studied the bag without mentioning it to Genie. There was a fine-tooth comb for combing through a woman’s pubic hair to snag any pubic hairs from her rapist. There was a test tube with a Q-tip-type swab in it to absorb fluids. There was a sharp plastic stick, something like an overgrown toothpick, used to scrape under the victim’s fingernails to retrieve blood or tissue from the rapist, in case she put up a fight and scratched her attacker. Next to the rape kit was a Polaroid camera with a handwritten label taped to it that read “Evidence Camera. Do NOT Remove from Rape Room.”

The night-duty nurses kept us waiting for the doctor, a bleary-eyed gynecologist. He was a stranger to us, since Genie’s doctor was several towns away, and we’d made a beeline to the nearest emergency room. He smelled faintly of liquor. We waited for over two hours—plenty of time to study everything in the room twenty times over while Genie grew colder and colder. I asked for another blanket and eventually was given one that was as thin and useless as tissue paper. My wife was lying in a dingy cubbyhole dedicated to collecting evidence. I’d been Genie’s lover since we were teens, and by that night her menstrual blood was merely another drop in the ocean of bodily fluids we’d exchanged. What had once been a very big and titillating event—evidence of women bleeding—was, after twenty years of marriage, one more example for me of the intimate reality in the universe that binds man and wife. If I were asked to choose between any religion—let alone the woman-hating, rape-sanctioning Bible—and my love for the women in my life, by that night the choice was clear. A God that doesn’t side with women isn’t worth following, let alone worshipping.

Adapted from Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible’s Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics—and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway, published by Da Capo Press. For more info. on Sex, Mom, and God ~ see the NLQ review by Hopewell.

[Note: This article first appeared at Killing the Buddha and is re-posted here by permission.]

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below.

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Readers of this blog who read and critique my Duggar-family posts, will be especially interested in Frank’s role in birthing the Quiverfull movement. Way back in the Day, when he was still styled “Franky Schaeffer” (to distinguish him from from his same-named father), Frank was literary agent to a new Christian author named Mary Pride. With the Schaeffer name attached, Pride’s book was a shoe-in. Today we know her, and her (in)famous book, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality as the Spiritual Mother of the Quiverfull Movement. Frank(y) then, was her midwife.

What makes Frank(y)’s role so intriguing, is the fact that his parents were very much pro-birth control. His mother, who in fact and fiction, loved nothing (except maybe the Lord) more than discussing sex, revealed to her very young son that not only was his father a “passionate” lover, but his needs were such that they had marital relations every day–even when Mom was “off the roof” and Biblically unclean due to menstruation. She also showed him her diaphram and explained its purpose fully to her surprised son.

Known as well for her talks on the importance of keeping a man’s needs fulfilled as she was for her Hidden Art of Homemaking
[life style and book of same name--which predate Martha Stewart and still have a cult-like following today], Edith famously said that even on the Mission Field a wife needs a see-thru black nightie to entertain her husband. After “The Way Home,” Edith questioned her son with “Where did you find this unfortunate woman?” Like much of Edith’s prose, rhetoric and general life questions, this is a question still relevant today.

Quiverfull also promotes stay-at-home-wives who “support” their husbands, by staying quiet, gazing adoringly, popping out child-after-child regardless of consequences to Mother’s health, regardless of the Father’s ability to provide a decent standard of living, regardless of whether the needs of all those children as individuals are being met. Yet, Edith was very much a career woman and very much a “stand UP to your man” type wife. A missionary serving alongside her husband, she was also his secretary, agent, fundraiser, financial adviser, PR person—oh yes, and housewife and mother. Edith became a success in her own right, publishing books, giving lectures, etc. She also generally traveled with her husband–due to his “needs”–leaving her children at home. Meanwhile, her youngest child, Franky/Frank pretty much was left to raise himself.

Aside from family read-alouds and the education that the work of L’Abri itself provided, the famous homeschooling, that her daughter Susan Schaeffer Macaualy, would raise to the level of a near-idolic adoration in her classic book, For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School, was almost non-existent in Edith’s role as Franky’s educator. So neglected was his formal education, that he was finally sent to boarding school in England to catch up. His informal education, though, could have sent him straight to Harvard if the College Board had an admission test that covered Calvinist doctrine, Biblical sex and other essential “life skills.”

Also interesting is that many Christian homeschooling parents, if they even expose their children to the fine arts, are known to cover the genitals on Michelangelo’s “David” in photographs with black Sharpie-marker or post-it notes considering them “defrauding” to their children (I can sympathize with the endless jokes young boys can make about David’s “stuff” though…). Fran and Edith Schaeffer believed in ART and beauty as part of God’s creation. Frank grew up with Fran blasting music of the world’s great operas to drown out his family, L’Abri students and his unsaved Mother all struggling to muddle thru the day in the Chateau in Switzerland

Still another way that Edith Schaeffer is totally at odds with the Quiverfull wives of today is fashion. Far from hiding herself in the ubiquitous “frumpers”*** of today, Edith kept herself in shape, wore the “right” amount of makeup and dressed in ways that showed off her neat figure. She would never have drawn attention to herself in a way that would make her look ridiculous–such as appearing on the beach in a Duggar-style wholesome swimsuit or riding a float in a parade nursing a baby in a huge pink cape! Instead, she choose a modest bathing suit (and other clothing) in tune with the day’s style.

Nor would she draw unwelcome attention to her children by saddling them with a name like “Levicticus” or “Justice Truth” or other politically-charged “wear-the-parents-politics-for-life” name. But unlike many Quiverfull families today, instead of trying to isolate herself from the world, she fearlessly and unashamedly lived the Great Commission. She had the courage to share he faith whenever possible. [Please, can anyone EVER forget the "Gospel Walnut"???] She could pray extemporaneously in any situation, in a volume guaranteed to be heard by the UN-churched anywhere. Now, how many Quiverfull wives today would dare pray when their husband is at the head of the table [well, without being TOLD to by her husband!]? How many would allow STRANGERS, (“WORLDLY” ones at that!) whose beliefs were not in any way close to the “party line,” to live in their home and possibly “corrupt” their children??

For all that many critics accuse Frank of belittling his parents in his books, I think the fact that Edith READ all of his books speaks volumes. She is not offended, or if she is, it has not been offended in such a degree or way as to ask him not to publish his work. Also telling is the very love that shines thru from Frank to his mother in all of his writings. He may not agree with everything, but he does certainly “honor” his mother in his own way. Probably with hindsight, like most parents, Edith can see how outrageous some of life was in those hectic L’Abri days.

Hopefully, hindsight will help some of the extremely-isolating Quiverfull and Christian Patriarchy parents of today to see that moderation is a good thing. I am only sad that Edith, approaching 100, cannot write her own book–a follow up to her The Tapestry: The Life and Times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer
that would set the Quiverfull movement on its ear in her gracious, very positive way!

***[Note: "Frumper" is a made-up name for the long, shapeless jumpers so beloved of extreme-Quiverfull moms.]

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum! Comments are also open below.

This book review originally appeared on Hopewell’s blog: Hopewell Takes On Life!

More from Hopewell:

A FULL QUIVER OF INFORMATION [my information only site]
Personal Blog

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by Chandra

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by Chandra

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by Chandra

My sixteenth birthday was fast approaching and something unusual was going to occur: I would be allowed to have my second birthday party, and this was no small matter: It would be my first co-ed party. I had sufficiently stuffed my depression and became exactly what they wanted: quiet, gently, reserved, and pious. In fact, I became so good at playing this game of theirs that I had eventually gained respect because I was so vocal in support of The Movement. Never a complaint was uttered again from my lips about how much I hated my situation. I learned to adapt so that I could survive and escape the abusiveness. Granted my father and I did not get along, but at least my mom’s spiritual abuse subsided. I learned to accept that this was simply my lot in life.

I actually regret that. I was telling my husband just the other day that if there was one regret that I had while in my parent’s home, it was that I allowed my personality to be squelched to such a level that even I barely recognized myself. I wish that I would have been a stronger person and simply refused to listen to their Kool-aid. I wish I would have talked to my grandmas and my aunts, I wish I would have been true to myself and been the person that I was created to be. I suppose hindsight is everything.

The big nagging question in my life was how on earth would I meet someone to marry out of this family? And how on earth would I do that when I was never allowed to be around guys? I knew that I had missed the boat on scholarships, and whenever I would bring up to my mom about going away to college or taking the ACT or SAT, I was pushed aside.

My family had risen to quite the level of power and status in our area, though the homeschooling groups themselves were riddled with infighting and politics. I listened daily to my mom giving advise to those who would call asking for help on applying for scholarships, when to begin applying for colleges, and when to take the ACT or SAT. I knew the answers. You apply for scholarships at the end of your sophomore year, apply to colleges in your junior year, and take the ACT or SAT every year from your freshman year on.

But I was a Daughter of The Movement, and those types of girls just simply did not do those things. It did not matter that I requested, nagged, and implored them to let me go to college, I was to remain at home until I married. I was to remain under my father and mother’s tyrannical reign, and then my husband would rule me. At that point, that actually sounded appealing. I wanted to take the ACT or SAT exam, but that was where my mom and Candi’s sick paranoia kicked in. They believed that “the government” used those tests as a means to “track” individuals and “come after them.” Think extremist and conspiracy theorist paranoia. That was who they were and that was Mom and Candi’s reason for not allowing us kids to take the exam. And there was no convincing otherwise, not by us girls or by our dads, because we all knew who really wore the pants in the family. Their idea of biblical submission was all for show.

So I knew that I would be left with very little options, other than to marry. My parents were all over arranged marriages, courtship, and betrothals. Richard “Little Bear” Wheeler and Norm Wakefield were frequent visitors at our homeschooling conferences. With as dysfunctional as my family was, that concept caused me great cause for anxiety. I knew that if they were to spend any amount of time with my family that my chances of securing a courtship-proposal were as good as over. While for some girls, this concept may- and I emphatically stress, may- have worked to their benefit, I knew that this simply would not work for me. I knew that I was going to have to take those matters into my own hands.

Candi had a dream…a clear vision to secure her power, prestige and status on a national level. And that was to orchestrate a courtship that would later lead to marriage for my former best friend, Hannah. She was unmoved in this resolve and sought to bring in any national speaker that she knew of that had young men. To her, this would be the ultimate success and show “her people” that homeschooling really does work. Every year, her and John would court these families, bringing them into their home, talking to them, taking them out for dinner, and escort the speaker and their families to and from the airport.

With the dawn of the Clinton administration and the approaching Y2K scare, Mom and Candi began to preach to “their people” to head for the country. Survivalist and stockpiling strategies became the topic of concern at every homeschool support group meeting, conference, and conversation. They were terrified of the Clinton’s implementing communism in our country and preached of a world collapse because of Y2K.

This led up to a big survivalist conference in October of 1997. I so did not want to go, they were not making Hannah go, but my parents did not trust me and kept me on a very tight leash, even at 16. Our support group was to have a table at this conference to represent our State homeschooling organization, and I was needed to be present to “be an example.” I went, but they were not about to keep me behind that table for two whole days.

Wondering around from booth to booth, I was nothing short of feeling eerily spooked by all of the doomsayers. The rifles, the pamphlets on how to obtain illegal weapons (of which John and Candy bought several), the generators, the canned goods, the Missouri militia sign-ups, the prominent display table of The John Birch Society…. was enough to make my skin crawl and my stomach feel queasy. I needed to find an escape and fast.

Down a couple of booths from where we encamped handing out generous doses of Kool-aid, there was television playing a video of Michael New’s court marshalling. He refused to wear the blue beret of the United Nations, displaying a flagrant act of rebellion to authority. This young man was hailed as being a hero in our circles, so naturally this video drew me in.

I stood mesmerized by the drama of this documentary and a winsome, squatty man spoke up.

“So have you heard about Michael New?”

True to form I replied that I had and that I really respected his act of “patriotism.” I noticed the Texan flag hanging behind this man’s booth and I was instantly drawn to his twinkling, kind eyes.

“I’m his dad.”

This brought on a non-stop conversation that lasted the remaining of Friday night and on into Saturday. He was so easy to talk to and so kind. I told him of my dreams to one day open a school and teach The Principle Approach. This was the current method of teaching that my mom was using and I actually enjoyed it, although looking back it was unabashedly revisionist in its “history.” This caught his instant attention. He kept asking me all sorts of questions, questions that never seemed odd or misplaced. It was a relief to have someone to talk to and someone whom I didn’t feel judged by. Later he showed me a picture of his second son, Gabriel.

Wrapping up later that Saturday afternoon, he informed me that he was coming speak at our homeschooling conference the following June. And then he informed me that he had been looking for a “special girl, a godly girl” for his son and that he intended on bringing him to meet me in June with the intention of starting a courtship.

My heart soared on the wings of freedom and bliss for the next several months. My mom and dad knew that I was talking to Mr. New, and they wondered of course what it was about. There was no way on earth that I would let them destroy the one chance of freedom that I had had from them, by telling them what I knew. I understood that if they found out, they would stop it cold in its tracks. The truth was that my parents wanted to remain in control of me for the unforeseeable future and they had a sick need to control an individual.

I determined that it was not going to be me.

Chandra Hawkins-Bernat, was homeschooled K-12 (1986-1999), and is currently enrolled to get her Bachelor’s Degrees in Secondary and Art Education. She is also authoring her autobiography, Dispelled: One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult and is seeking to have it published in the near future. She is happily married to her best friend and is also the proud mother of three sons, two of which have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum.

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by Chandra

The next morning was back to business as usual in our home. There would be no mention of my suicide attempt until I would bring it up, nearly ten years later. I knew waking that morning that Christ himself had pulled me through last night, even at fourteen. I didn’t know though, how I would get through the days and years ahead of me, that I had yet to live.

Emotionally I was spent. Going through puberty was difficult enough, and even more difficult because that also was a topic off limits to discuss. Sexual “things” were just not dealt with in our home, and like everything else that my mom and dad wanted to hide from, was swept under the rug. I had been on an emotional roller coaster in the last several months, ranging in emotions from being openly rejected to wishful hoping that somehow this scandal could be reversed: and I would once again be welcomed into loving arms by the only community that I knew.

Once everyone’s positions and the issues had been exposed, I was left alone. Alone. I hate that word…what I had remaining in my life were three things: my journal, my Bible, and my cat. I sank into a deep, deep depression.

Oh, I covered it well. I had to. But deep down there was a daily nagging, a restless wondering of, I have no one. I have no friends and no one to confide in. No one to talk to. Nightly for years, I would cry myself to sleep on my pillow, silently praying out to God “to just give me one friend, any friend, someone that I can talk to.” Those are still painful moments for me to remember and recall.

I felt like such an outcast and every social interaction that I had painfully reminded me of what I lacked: companionship. I was incessant in expressing my need for friends to my mother to which came her cold, calculating and abusive advise.

“Well, Chandra, we just need to pray that God would give you friends. And if you were just a little less loud…laughed less…talked less…and asked God to give you a the quiet and gentle spirit of a godly young girl then I know He would bless you with one.”

That usually made me cry, and I would tell her how hard I was trying to please her and everyone else.

Her way of comforting me on this sore topic of friendship was to misquote and abuse this scripture from Jeremiah: “ I will restore the years that the locust have eaten.” I just wished that she understood that she was the locust who had been eating away at me for all those years! She felt like God would restore to me the years that had been eaten away by my lack of compliance with the Bible or what others had done to me. She took no responsibility whatsoever in the mess that she had put me in. The phrase that states, “You can’t ask God to bless your crop without a hoe in your hand,” is aptly fitting here.

She never helped me find friends. Rather, every time we would try a new homeschool social circle, Candi would come along and discourage my mother from allowing me to take part in them because I was a bad influence on the other young girls. And every time, my mother listened. The same thing happened in our local church, a refusal to let me participate in youth group or Sunday school or any other church related youth activity. While this subject is a whole other blog post, the main reason was that my mom was fearful. Fearful that I would learn things that would make me even more rebellious, that would encourage me in worldliness, or that I would become “influenced” by these “worldly” kids. So this left me feeling like there was some terrible flaw in me, something like a cancer that I just could not cure. The reason, I concluded, why I could not make friends, was because there was something deeply and irrevocably wrong with me. When in reality, there was something deeply and irrevocably wrong with my parents.

I don’t know how I made it through the next two years. I really don’t…They were terribly depressing years for me, going through high school without one single friend and going through a series of what felt like constant social rejection. I cried daily, multiple times during the day. I hated my birthdays. They were nothing more than a painful reminder of how I just wasn’t wanted or loved by anyone in my life.

I found two neighbor families whom I could baby-sit right next door. It was heaven, just to have little people love you and accept you and shower you with hugs and kisses. One family in particular, had me over for dinner every Friday night and slowly, my heart began to warm and thaw due to the sunshine that radiated there, eating pepperoni pizza from Pizza-Hut (a reason why pepperoni is still my favorite topping). Looking back on it, this mother knew that my home life was incredibly restricting for a young teenage girl based on the types of questions that she would pose to me. Eventually my relationship with this family, turned into a job where I could come over to their home every Friday and clean house for them. I would stay over there as long as I could, sometimes nearly all day, escaping the toxic environment of my own home life. It felt good to be away from my mom’s constant phone conversations to promote The Movement and away from her abusive tongue.

My schooling was terribly shot due to my depression. I had little motivation to complete my studies, as now I was a “self-taught” learner. Though I was concerned about my terribly deficient math and science skills, it was hard to teach oneself those things. My math I would ask for help from my mom on, but she was usually too busy with homeschool support group responsibilities to offer me any real help; unless you count once a week for an hour “help”.

It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Because of my chronic depression, I had lost all interest in reading, schooling, or even my beloved music and art. I requested to stop taking flute and piano lessons, my only real outlet, because I was hurting and dealing with a sense of deep, deep betrayal and bitterness. Betrayal by my parents, and betrayal by John and Candi; and bitterness over the way that I had been treated. Whenever my bitterness would manifest itself, my dad would say in his pompous, sneering way, “You just need to forgive and move on, Chandra.”

So I learned the art of stuffing what I was feeling in order just to survive. Every day was a feat of survival and every day brought me closer and closer to the goal: Freedom from this tyrannical family and freedom from the abuse of it. I knew that happiness had to lie on the other side of the sewage tunnel that I was in. And I had one thing beating in my heart: the eternal optimism of youth that told me that there was someone out there would be a friend to me, and I to them, if we could just…meet.

Chandra Hawkins-Bernat, was homeschooled K-12 (1986-1999), and is currently enrolled to get her Bachelor’s Degrees in Secondary and Art Education. She is also authoring her autobiography, Dispelled: One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult and is seeking to have it published in the near future. She is happily married to her best friend and is also the proud mother of three sons, two of which have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum.

Read all posts by Chandra!

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by Chandra

I was a tender fourteen when my world fell apart. My parents had become entrenched and enmeshed with The Movement and because of this, The Movement had become everything in our life. The Movement had become a feudal lord, demanding everything from us: time, money, and resources. My family felt that The Movement WAS our family and it was The Movement that we served- from the rising of the sun to the setting of it.

John and Candi, and their four children, had become to us closer than blood. It was The Movement that joined us- heart, body, mind, and spirit. We lived and breathed for The Movement, and followed John and Candi’s every lead. My mom and dad were John and Candi’s devoted second-in-command leaders. Our two families were a potent force, having climbed The Movement’s social ladder to the head of the State of Missouri’s homeschool organization in just a few short years.

But through all of cult-like demands of The Movement, and my family’s worship of it, there was a teenage girl who longed to be free, understood, and accepted.

I had been shunned and rejected by John and Candi and my own family as well. (You can read about this on my last installment at NLQ). I had been battling something called anomie for several years (anomie is a psychological term used when a person feels utter abandonment, isolation, and rejection from their social circles and world around them). What kept me going though was eternal hopefulness- hopefulness that somehow, some way my family, my best friend Heather (John and Candi’s daughter), and our homeschooling support group would accept me back with loving arms if I “could just make myself into the ‘quiet and gentle’ that they all desired.” But their idea of a godly, homeschooled girl and the way the My Creator had wired me were two entirely different things. I simply could not be and do everything that they wanted. Not only were their demands unattainable, my family had also gotten to the point where it wouldn’t have mattered what I did- they needed someone to fill the role of scapegoat because deep down they knew that The Movement was not everything that they had promised to others. They knew it was Kool-aid.

I thought that I was “getting better,” which was something that I would daily tell myself. I wanted to be accepted and loved, and to me the only way to do that was to demonstrate what my mom and Candi were telling me that they wanted. I felt like that little, naked, diseased baby robin whose mother decides it will contaminate the others. She pecks and picks at it for its flaws and imperfections, kicking it out of the nest, and the baby robin slowly dies. That is very much how I felt. But somehow I also thought that I would “get better” and maybe, just maybe, fly back into that nest.

So this is how I felt when March of 1995 happened. My mom had scheduled a meeting with Candi do discuss me, to see if there was any way that Heather and I could become friends once more. Mom did this at my unceasing insistence. This meeting, taking place at Candi’s house, took a full day. The entire day I was hopeful and expectant, waiting eagerly to at last have a friend restored, my family restored, and to once again be accepted into the community of believers (this is what we called our homeschooling support group). Finally near the end of the day, Mom pulled into the driveway, and without so much as a hello, locked herself into her bedroom, discussing with my father in such hushed tones that even my eavesdropping ears could not detect.

I knew this was not a good sign. This was a very, very bad omen of things to come. My mom refused to tell me what the outcome was of their meeting, saying that she would tell me “when you are ready.” I didn’t quite understand that, it was my life that they were talking about. But for the next week, my mom barely spoke to me, pouring herself into the Bible and walking around with a mixed air of depression and anger. I knew that to ask what was said at “the meeting” was an act of futility on my part and the best thing I could do was wait this storm out.

A little over one week later, my mom said that we needed to sit down that night and “discuss some things” after my little brother had gone to bed. Little alarm bells were going off in my head when she said that because that felt a good deal too close to some sort of court hearing. My dad would also be present she proceeded to inform me. That made me even more uncomfortable because I never shared anything personal with him and the thought of just having him there made me unsettled. I was so nervous I about puked.

Finally the time had arrived and the feel in the room was about as sterile as a doctor’s office. The set-up was bizarre. My fluffy white and gray cat and I sat on the couch, and my mom and dad were in chairs pulled up across from me. This was not a warm talk with your daughter; no, I was about to go through an intensive interrogation.

My mom proceeded to inform me that I had let The Movement down by “certain instances” of ungodly behavior— which ranged from “degrading Heather’s hair and winter coat,” to “gossiping about other leader’s, even when told not to.” She proceeded to tell me that Candi had been keeping a record, a written record, on an 8 ½ x 11 yellow legal notepad (to this day, I can’t stand the sight of those things) of every “instance” that I had committed against Heather, their family, and more importantly, the homeschooling support group. My mom had spent the entire day at Candi’s home, copying down everything that Candi had written. And then my mom pulled out her own legal notepad…and proceeded to read it to me.

This is not an easy thing for me to write about. My entire world literally came crashing down around me. The anomie that I had been trying to stuff and ignore reared its ugly head. My thoughts were in a cyclonic whirlwind, making absolutely no sense. My head spinning, my chest tightening, my world was bleak and black as night. There was no hope of reconciliation with Heather, I had lost not only her, but any hope of ever having a friend. Candi had told my mom that she had warned all of the other families “about Chandra” and what is worse: my mom agreed with her decision. I had become the bastard child of the homeschooling movement and true to form, they needed to peck me until their problem went away.

I don’t know how one can feel much lower. By the end I felt so low, so angry with myself, so unworthy of anyone’s love that there was just no point in going on. I had been told as well that evening that to discuss any of this with my grandmothers (who most assuredly would have come to my rescue) was out of the question. For some reason I still don’t fully comprehend, I listened to that Kool-aid. My life had simply become worthless and not worth living for, and I really believed that no one cared about me. No one.

I remember my mom coldly staring at me through her icy blue eyes, with just a hint of hatred in them at me for having put my family through this hell. She was reading my reaction to see how I would respond to this newest information. I went into serious panic-mode. All of the thoughts that I had, everything that I had done- to myself, my family, The Movement- came crashing down on me like a two ton brick. Flinging my sleeping cat off of my lap, I ran to the kitchen and slammed every single cabinet door that I could think of. I was so angry with myself and I felt so worthless, and unloved. I think I broke a drinking glass before I ran to my parent’s bedroom and locked myself in there. It was the only room in the house that had a lock on the door. But there was also something else in that room.

My dad’s handgun. He always kept it loaded and locked. I yanked open the filing cabinet, tears streaming down my face, screaming, blabbering, completely incoherent. Shaking and trembling all I knew is that I wanted my life to be over. Ended. Done with. I had let myself down and I had no one left who cared. What on earth do I have to live for? The answer came back in a haunting…nothing. I took the gun out of its case.

My dad is no small man, towering at 6’8”. He could have knocked down the door, but all he did was knock. I pulled the gun out, while screams and pounding ensued from the other side of the bedroom door. My hand shaking, I put the gun into “unlock,” my slender finger on the trigger, and pointed it at my throat.

Then I heard a voice. It was unlike any voice that I have ever heard, and it was as audible as Someone sitting on the bed. It was calming and compassionate.

“Don’t do this Chandra. I have great plans for you.”

I dropped the gun, screaming, “I am going to do this!”

I picked the gun up once more, fully determined to end my misery. My finger once again on the trigger, I began to pull.

“Don’t do this Chandra. I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.”

I dropped the gun, hands shaking.

I chose to believe Him. And even though I knew that my parents hated me, and that they did not care what they had done, I knew at that moment that my purpose in this life was not done. I knew then that I was meant to tell my story- someday- and that I was to be a rescuer to the weary hearted. I also knew that this Lord of Mercy was not the one that my mom had been teaching me about. I knew that the religion and the version of the Bible that she had been teaching and training me up in were false. The Lord of Love had saved me, not the lord of condemnation.

I opened the bedroom door and fled to my room. My parents had seen what I had done; they knew what was going on behind that door. Yet my heart was hurt once more, when they chose to think that it was nothing more than a plea for attention. They brushed my suicide attempt under the rug; even though my little brother had awoken from his slumber and was screaming and crying inconsolably at me through the door, begging me to never, never try something like that again. His response to my suicide attempt melted my heart, because I knew that he loved me. And for now, that was enough to keep me going.

Family counseling was never looked into, and no calls for help were made on my behalf. Because of how shaken my brother was, my mom and dad focused all attention on consoling him. I went to bed, shaken by what I had done, depressed and crying. I did not know how I was going to pull out of this depression that I could begin to feel was cloaking me in its darkness. I did not know if I would ever have parents that would care for me. I did not know if I would ever find a friend again. All I knew, as I cried myself to sleep late that night, alone, was in the words of Scarlet O’Hara: “Tomorrow is another day.” I finally drifted off into a fitful slumber.

Chandra Hawkins-Bernat, was homeschooled K-12 (1986-1999), and is currently enrolled to get her Bachelor’s Degrees in Secondary and Art Education. She is also authoring her autobiography, Dispelled: One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult and is seeking to have it published in the near future. She is happily married to her best friend and is also the proud mother of three sons, two of which have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.

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