I Am Free

Posted on July 24, 2010 by elizabeth

IMG_0345
Dear Elizabeth in 2000,

I know that right now it's hard to believe you'll ever be happy. It's been a tough summer for you. You're 23 and your whole life should stretch out before you with hope. But instead, you just want to die.

You're not alone. Being trapped inside an abusive fundamentalist church tends to do this to people; especially to women.

The desperation and the despair you feel is so deep that you've asked God to strike you with a terminal illness just so you can escape this life. But I want you to know something: I'm waiting for you in 2010 and your life here is beautiful.

Will you do something for me? For us?

Don't give up. Instead, get angry. Because I know that if you get angry, you'll fight. And sweetheart? This is a fight for your survival.

Get angry because what they are doing to you is wrong. I know nobody believes you. I know you cry to God and think He doesn't listen. I know you cry yourself to sleep and wish you wouldn't wake up.

But hear me.

One day you will be heard.

One day you'll be so free from fear that you will share your stories with courage and dignity. You will speak the truth and discover that you're not alone.

One day all the things you thought were your liabilities will become your strength. You think you're too sensitive and emotional. You've been told that you should remain silent. You cover yourself because you think physical beauty is almost sinful.

One day you will realize that being sensitive enables you to empathize with others. You'll recognize that God gave you the gift of being able to feel. You'll use your words to speak your stories. You'll be comfortable in your own skin.

Elizabeth, you'll even spontaneously dance in public! There is a sunset in your future that will so enrapture you that you'll bust out a dance right there on the beach cliffs. And you won't care who is watching.

IMG_0344
Here's the best news ever: Elizabeth, you are FREE.

So, hang on. I know this might sound impossible, but can you try to find the lesson in the suffering? Can you let the suffering make you a beautiful, compassionate, just human being?

Because one day you will be free. 

And one day your freedom will help others be free, too.

With love, Elizabeth in 2010

This entry was posted in Depression, Grief&Loss, RecoveringEvangelicalsAnonymous, RecoveringFundamentalist, Religion, This Is My Story.. Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://andi-horton.livejournal.com Andrea

    Wonderful Elizabeths, I hug you both!

  • http://MeditativeMeanderings.blogspot.com Susanne Barrett

    Yes, dance away! You are FREE!!!! :) Celebrate!!!

  • Christopher

    Thank you, Elizabeth, for the opportunity to share in this great joy. May God help all those who need help enduring, and may he heal them and inspire them to love and freedom, just as I have been inspired by you.

  • http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com Lewis

    Great piece, Elizabeth. I’m glad Elizabeth 2000 hung in there.

  • http://sevenlittleaustralians.blogspot.com/ Erin

    Welcome to Freedom! :) :)

  • Mel

    Thank you Elizabeth. I am 23 now, and feeling the same way your 23 year old self felt.

    I hope that in 10 years I will write something akin to what you share here.

  • http://www.emilymacon.blogspot.com/ Emily M.

    Beautiful, Elizabeth, simply beautiful.

  • http://www.beautipage.ca/taraseguin Tara

    I just love you so much girl! You are such an important voice, not only for the women who are standing where you stood, but those of us who are coming from the other direction…trying to find a life of faith after the Secular (capital “S”) world. We have to be reminded of the dangers that lie in embracing the trappings of faith without the spirit and the love.
    I’ll see you in the middle, where God is most clearly seen…away from ideology of any kind!!! <3

  • http://profile.typepad.com/elizabethesther Elizabeth Esther

    We will definitely meet in the middle. That’s where I’m permanently camped out. :)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/elizabethesther Elizabeth Esther

    You WILL get there, Mel! In the meantime, you and me can travel together, K? :)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/elizabethesther Elizabeth Esther

    Thank you, Christopher.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/elizabethesther Elizabeth Esther

    I’m glad, too! :) Thanks, Lewis.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/elizabethesther Elizabeth Esther

    and we hug you back!

  • http://profile.typepad.com/elizabethesther Elizabeth Esther

    Susanne, you’re welcome to join me anytime. We can dance together! :)

  • http://flourishingmother.blogspot.com Andrea

    so beautiful. thank you for sharing.

  • Hope

    As someone who is not yet free, thank you. Thank you for giving me something to look forward to. To know that I cannot give up, because good will come. To fight. To live, and survive, and to live abundantly. Thank you so much

  • http://pleasingtoyou.com TeriLynne

    Beautiful … your heart and your spirit are so inspiring! Keep sharing … and keep living in the freedom that is in Christ!!

  • frogla

    i can relate to this part of your letter as well as other parts. “One day you will realize that being sensitive enables you to empathize with others. You’ll recognize that God gave you the gift of being able to feel. You’ll use your words to speak your stories. You’ll be comfortable in your own skin.

    Elizabeth, you’ll even spontaneously dance in public!” well, i don’t know about this last part about dancing but it goes along with this devotional that i read this past week about suffering. http://www.lifetime.org/high-call-suffering-d-184.html Thnx a bunch EE!

  • Katrina

    This is beautiful!

  • maryann

    You are beautiful, Elizabeth,inside and out.You just need to give yourself time to heal.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/morningstarr Dina

    love it!

    I can’t seem to find the exact reference at the moment but isn’t there a verse that says, “shake what your mama gave you”?

    there must because dancing so helps me, too!

    love the elizabeth of 2010!

  • http://www.heidijowhatdoyouknow.blogspot.com hcomes@juno.com

    “i am free to dance! i am free to live for you—i am free!”

    yay!

  • http://inspiringsisters.blogspot.com Sistergirl

    When the Lord heals your burdens one can’t help but to feel FREE. Its funny that the Lord makes us go through the PROCESS before we get FREE. While we go through the process it seems like it will never end.

    Some people never get to the place where you are at a young age, for some its a lifetime process.

  • Jenelyn

    Your amazing words and photos together are stunning. Just beautiful. Love you :)

  • http://tw-us.blogspot.com Mary

    You look great! Love the outfit! What’s all this talk (it was facetious, I hope) you said about your needing plactic sugery? You don’t! (Not that I am against it for those who need it.)

    Hope you stay free. I like the anger part. Nothing wrong with that. It is admitting reality.

    After my husband and I left our first abusive semi-cult, we fell prey to another (we were in our 20′s and perhaps emotionally needy and needing to be “right” and gung-ho religiously). Like you said in an earlier post, that sense of mission and purpose and evangelism that come with cults and semi-cults is gone, and plain old church seems unbearably boring. We fell into a worse cult. Thank God, we moved and went to a good church and broke out of the mind-set. Like another commentor said, sometimes this is a lifelong process of staying free.

    After leaving a cult or semi-cult, you are like a wounded animal that has been almost killed by another animal — you are easy prey for still another animal to kill you off. Be careful.

  • http://cindyholman.wordpress.com Cindy Holman

    I can SO relate to this! Raised in a music minister’s AG church background and a pastor’s wife for over 25 years – a year and a half ago due to a personal situation my husband left the staff position we had been in for 13 years in that church. I am free. I am no longer a ‘pastor’s wife’ – it almost killed me. It almost killed our marriage – your article is ME. Thanks for posting it. Now I’m able to help others through my blog like you are – on a road of healing that’s not over yet.

  • From Illinois

    Have prayed for delieverance for many involved with this fellowship…and I will now pray for you as you continue to heal.

  • Ahava216

    needed this. thank for sharing