This is Me
My story in a nutshell, preparing to speak to Gen Z, and waiting for open doors.
This is usually the week I podcast, but I’ve been fighting off sinus junk and my voice isn’t exactly podcast worthy. So I decided to do more of a personal update on life—like I used to back when I blogged.
As you probably already know, I changed roles at school this year and went from being a teacher to a behavior specialist. My days go by quickly and I take nothing home with me (except for some children who live in my head and heart). This has allowed me a little more time to create and dream. It’s been a gift.
One of my dreams is getting back into speaking. Before I went back to work full-time, I was speaking at MOPS groups once or twice a month getting my practice and hopefully my foot in the door. The pandemic and then a teaching job stopped all of that. I loved speaking and it’s something I’ve been feeling a pull towards once again.
But I want to talk to Gen Z. If I’m honest about my dreams, it would be to share at college chapels or other young adult spaces. I had no idea where to begin and was feeling pretty overwhelmed, when I remembered a speaking coach who offered me a free phone consult months ago. We chatted on Friday and she gave me some first steps one of which was to write out my initial talk. As I was finishing it, I realized it’s been a while since I shared my story in this space. There are probably new followers and subscribers who don’t know me or the real reason I write, podcast, or attempt to speak.
So here’s my story. Imagine I’m telling it to you from a small group circle or college coffee shop.
I started college for the first time when I was twenty-one—once I had decided that female education was acceptable to God. I’m serious. I went with my long jean skirts and waist length hair, and absolutely no concept of pop culture because all of that was evil.
I had just spent the last decade of my life homeschooled in a Christian cult. You can learn about it on Amazon Prime’s Documentary called Shiny Happy People if you are curious.
I was already a good Christian girl before everything went a little crazy—one of those annoying ones who always raised her hand, knew all the answers, and memorized her Bible verses. I went to Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and Whirlybirds—which is kind of like Awana only we wore a beany cap with a little propeller on top that held all of our badges.
We joined the cultic homeschool group when I was twelve and I quickly learned to follow their rules, expectations, and standards. Girls always wore dresses or culottes—which are like really wide leg pants, so wide they look like a skirt until you pull them apart. The girls were quiet and sweet. We learned skills we needed to be wives and mothers: like sewing, cooking, and caring for children. Boys were taught whatever they needed to learn to be the leaders and make the decisions. They had a lot more freedom.
My family withdrew from the world and started going to a church filled with families in the same cult. We were afraid of a lot of things like rock music, drums, cabbage patch dolls, care bears, movies rated anything but G, dating, the opposite sex, college education, and basically anything that could be considered worldly. We tried to live separate, holy lives. We thought we were better than everyone.
I wanted people to like me. I wanted to be godly. So, I did what was expected. I obeyed the rules and followed along. Then I met Jesus. I wasn’t even looking for Him, but He showed up anyway.
My mom had given me a list of God’s Hebrew names and asked me to go and pray them to Him as a school assignment. I went up to my room, knelt by my bunk bed, and began to pray.
“God, you are Jehovah Jireh; You always provide. You are El Roi; You see everything. You are Jehovah Shalom; You are the Lord of peace…”
Suddenly and without warning, I knew that I wasn’t alone in my room anymore. There was a Presence there with me quietly enjoying my praise. It freaked me out and jumped up and ran downstairs to my mom. I told her that God had just showed up and she smiled.
God was real and I was surprised. I’d always believed in Him, but He was more of a concept or an idea. God had been a flat name on the page of an old book, but now He’d leapt into a three-dimensional Being. And if God was real, then I wanted to know Him. It changed everything. I started reading my Bible to find Him, not just to be spiritual. I started praying as a conversation with Him, not just because I was supposed to. And I got to know God.
I want to ask you a question and I don’t want you to feel any guilt or shame in your honest answer. I simply want you to evaluate where you are right now. Is God real to you? Is He more than a concept or an idea? Do you want Him to be?
It’s easy to take that question and feel shame or guilt if your answer isn’t yes. But I’m not here to guilt or shame you because I think that’s a terrible way to motivate people—even if it works. The real God, that I’ve come to know and love, isn’t disappointed in your honest answer because He already knows it. And He knows you. And He loves you right where you are. But I still want you to consider this question and your answer. We are going to come back to this later.
I was fifteen years old when Jesus showed up in my bedroom—or more accurately the Holy Spirit. Over the next four years I got to know God for myself and eventually it dawned on me that the God I knew and the god they talked about in my cult and my cultic church weren’t the same. They couldn’t be the same. They weren’t even remotely the same.
In my church there were two groups of young people. The godly ones who followed the rules and the rebels who didn’t. For years I’d worked hard to build a reputation as the godliest of godly girls. I wore skirts that even covered my ankles. I stuffed my naturally strong personality down deep and tried to be sweet and gentle. I went to the early morning prayer meetings at every youth retreat and kept my hair long and curled. But despite everything, I still became a rebel. And it wasn’t blue jeans that did it me, or college, or even rock music. It was Jesus.
I started asking questions. I couldn’t stop the doubts. Why did we believe the things we did? Where were these things found in the Bible? Why didn’t the god they talked about look and sound like the Jesus I knew? Why didn’t we ever read the book of Galatians? The more questions I struggled to find answers to, the more questions I had.
Maybe you have questions about the version of Christianity you’ve experienced. Maybe you have doubts about what you once believed. It’s interesting, as I’ve been out in the real world for the past twenty or so years, how many normal people I’ve run into who’ve experienced similar religious lies, formulas, and behavioral expectations. Even if they weren’t in a cult like I was, there are a lot of pieces for them to inspect and take apart.
Some people are afraid of doubts and questions. It’s like they think the whole house of cards will fall if we dare to shake the table. But I suspect that many of us can’t let go of our questions because we’ve subconsciously recognized that the Christianity we’ve experienced is a bit of a counterfeit. It’s a cheap imitation of the real gospel. Maybe the house of cards needs to fall. My doubts and questions led me to encountering the real Jesus and finding the truth, and I believe yours will too.
I might have started attending college, wearing pants, and listening to music with drums. I might have tasted freedom from outward rules, but it took years for me to fully deal with the twisted roots of religion that entwined my heart and affected the way I viewed my relationship with God. I believed He was real. I believed He wanted me to know Him. But I still thought He liked me better when I was doing all the good things. And then I fell apart, and somehow, He liked me anyway.
I was twenty-five, finishing up my teaching degree, dating my first boyfriend (now husband), and finding it difficult to walk through the grocery store without feeling like I was going to die. My heart would pound, skip beats, and my chest would grow tight. I’d feel dizzy, lightheaded, and like I couldn’t catch my breath. It was my first experience with panic attacks, but I had no idea what they were.
Life was complicated and stressful. I loved my new relationship, but it also terrified me. Classes were overwhelming. I was trying to keep it all together, but I couldn’t seem to control my own emotions or body. Because of the years of formulaic faith in the cult, I thought I’d done something wrong and God was punishing me. There must be some kind of sin in my life or bitterness that I was holding on to.
In desperation I went for a walk at my favorite park. I prayed as I hiked, trying to confess anything and everything that I could think of confessing. I told God I was sorry for what a mess I was and how out of control it all felt. I begged Him to forgive me. I probably didn’t give Him much of a chance to talk back.
The trail led through the woods and suddenly opened into a clearing of sorts. It was so still. Sunbeams fell through the leaves and gently touched the grassy forest floor. I felt words that weren’t mine forming in my heart.
“Christy, I’ve never loved you more than I do right now.”
Was it God? Was He talking to me?
But it couldn’t be because I knew Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
I don’t know if I heard a sermon on this or just made it up in my own religious head, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t condemned when I was walking in the Spirit—doing the right things. But when I was walking in the flesh—doing all the wrong things like right now—then I was under God’s condemnation. If that wasn’t true, why did I always feel His disappointment?
I left the park confused and went home to get out my Bible and actually hear from God. I opened it to Romans 8:1 and, to my shock, half of the verse was gone.
In the cult we only read from the King James or New King James version, but I’d recently gotten a new Bible in a new translation. All it said was, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Period. The end. That’s it. What in the world?
I got on our dial-up internet and started searching different translations for Romans 8:1. No other version besides the King James and New King James had that extra phrase.
“Christy, I’ve never loved you more than I do right now.”
Maybe that was God. As the realization hit me, I sank to the floor and cried. Happy tears. Incredulous but accepting tears. I let Him love me. I let Him love me in the middle of my mess and even when I felt like I didn’t deserve any of it. And it was beautiful.
Guess what? That’s exactly how God loves you too. Remember earlier when I asked you if God was real to you? And I told you that I wanted you to answer without feeling guilt or shame? God is not disappointed in you. He doesn’t like you better when you behave and worse when you make mistakes. He knows us at our worst and that is where He loves us. That is where He pursues us.
False religion uses guilt and shame to motivate. It tells us we need to appease God with our good behavior. But Jesus came and appeased Himself. He sought the sinner and outcast and welcomed them in. He made a way to reconcile us to God. He reconnected us. Because we couldn’t do it by ourselves.
My story is a story of grace. Of a real God who found me when I wasn’t even looking, showed me truth so that I could question the lies, and gently led me into a relationship with Him that is built on love and connection not on fear and guilt. If He can do this for me, He can do it for you too. If you want Him too.
I’m sure this will be edited and tweaked as I work on it over the next few weeks. I’ll practice saying it out loud and make changes too. But it’s fun to think about telling my story to people again—face to face. I have more on my list of things to do from my speaking coach call, and that feels good too. I’m going to take some little steps forward and let God open the doors like He does. Will you pray for me?
Sitting behind my computer and writing or speaking to my screen is a lot safer than calling random colleges and high schools to ask how they choose chapel speakers and if they’d be interested in my story. I hate rejection. But I love Jesus and I want to follow wherever He is going. And I love Gen Z and I want to share calm, non-religious truth with them about a God who built them for connection and not performance.
Thanks, friends! For letting me be real today, less put together, and more honest about my dreams and adventures. And thanks for praying. I appreciate you all!
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or comments. You can find me on Threads, Instagram, Facebook, my website, and on my original podcast. I’d love to connect with you on any of these places!
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I first encountered that Romans verse in college, and it changed my life. I kept finding more and more verses that showed me a God different than the one I was raised with, and I will be eternally grateful to the Lord for revealing Himself to me. Your story is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.
I was not raised in a Christian cult, but I can relate to so much of your story. I was raised in the Wesleyan Church of the late 60s through the early 80s. My dad, in fact, was a pastor. I was told I could be anything I wanted to be; I was able to do "boy" things like hunt and fish with my dad, and going to college was a given. But Arminian doctrine is heavy on the "personal responsibility" of man, and avoiding hell was the main thing, and you had to say a certain prayer to get saved, and I was never sure at all that God really loved me. I somehow thought that if I said the prayer the right way (whatever that was), then I would "feel" saved, so I said it over and over, and answered altar calls, and lived in total fear of the rapture. I believed that if you sinned right before Jesus came back and didn't have time to ask forgiveness, that you'd be left behind. I was traumatized as a child by watching "A Thief in the Night" at a Sunday night movie night with a sister church.
And of course we didn't wear shorts away from home, and my dad would never take us to movies, and we knew drinking and smoking were right out of the question. Non-Christian music was severely frowned upon. Dancing was akin to having sex standing up, or something. Not to mention anything that even sounded like a swear word. At six or so, I had a book from the library called "Jeepers Creepers, the Little Frog" and my dad told me that "jeepers creepers" was just another way of saying "Jesus Christ" and was the same as swearing. Yes, he told me this when I was six. He had his own trauma and anxiety and he was terrified of his little girl going to hell. I always tried to be the good little girl, so I wouldn't make God mad at me.
Not until I was in my early 30s did I finally start to get my view of God straightened out. It started with a panic attack. Which, of course, I thought was God finally coming down on me and I prayed and promised to do better. But no, it turned out it was just suppressed grief from my mother's death several months before. But I went to a grief support group, and then started doing church more regularly and listening to Christian radio, and I have to say this ... God can use things to bring us to a revelation of his love, even things that aren't necessarily themselves all good. There are people I listened to on Christian radio that I would not listen to now, and who I believe have done a lot of harm. But the music was helpful, and it was a simple song I was listening to one day at work that brought me to the place of finally realizing he did love me.
Then, one day, I was praying when I had an experience similar to the one you had at 15. The only way I can describe it (inadequately) is that I felt as if I was surrounded and covered by a (non-physical) warm blanket and a sense of complete and wonderful peace and love. As I said, that's completely inadequate to really describe how it felt. And yes, it freaked me out too. It was too wonderful to bear for long. I jumped up and got on with my day (and hoped I hadn't offended him).
So yes, I believe he is real. Which is not to say I haven't had doubts. It's been 20+ years of deconstruction, and unlearning and decluttering and rebuilding. But God is gracious.