![]() ![]() I left the Mennonite church and married the love of my life twenty years ago. Timidly at first, but then eagerly as I discovered a new relationship with Jesus Christ based on grace and not performance. As he grew in his faith, I reexamined mine and what Biblical womanhood looked like. ![]() On a furlough, I met my future husband – a new believer who wasn’t looking for a door mat in a wife but a partner. Work outside the walls of the compound was reserved for the men. I longed to make a difference but was limited to working on the mission compound – teaching, cooking, cleaning. All around me was heartache and disease and glaring need. ![]() I taught VBS on Indian reservations, led school for missionary children in Haiti and Africa. I became a missionary teacher and then a nurse and escaped to the mission field, the one avenue open to single women. I became a confused believer with a heart for Jesus but drowning under a sea of rules, regulations, and legalism. Faith, step parents and unquestioning obedience is a dangerous combination when mixed with mental illness, legalism, and heavy handed physical correction. My teen years took a drastic turn when my mom got saved, got married, and joined an ultra-conservative Mennonite church. Raised by a fun loving, atheist single mom who struggled with depression and mental illness, I spent my childhood backpacking around Europe, visiting yoga communes, eating vegan, living on a houseboat, then an old pony express outpost in the backwoods of Montana. ![]()
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