It is summer!! Buckle up and come with me on a multi - series quest.
His forty-five-minute shits were my demise.
Since August of 2021, I have taken a photo of myself daily. The haters call me a narcissist, vain, attention seeking and a virtue signaler.
I am documenting my resurrection.
Cult life was calculated by experiencing events. Eschatological dread does that to a person. My friends and I would often say to each other, “ If Jesus could hold off long enough so we could hold a boy’s hand, kiss, fuck, graduate, get married, and have a baby, we would then be ready for the rapture. I added continually, and one remained after checking off all the boxes.
My list looked like this:
Husband comes back to church
2016 - While the world was experiencing the best make-up year, I wouldn't say I liked mirrors. I cracked each one I looked into, and “Mirror Mirror” did not tell me I was the “Fairest of all.”
After a Wednesday evening cult service, a Deacon tapped my then-husband on the shoulder. With a shoulder tap, you knew, unless you had deep pockets, that your cult life was on the line.
As he walked up the cult stairs to the private interrogation room, I did not have the slightest clue why. I didn’t panic as usual because I had no reason to do so. Life had been flowing smoothly for a few months, but knowing now, that should have waved my non-existent red flag.
Reassuring me everything was okay, we left the cult with two toddlers and one baby, him beaming with that Grinch smile. On the drive home, I asked what had happened. After verbal vomit, he convinced me that an employee of his threw a disposable cell phone into the back of his work truck, and he was being framed to be made out to be the owner of it. It seems innocent enough. However, he left out that there were supposed messages to a woman, not me.
Through their investigative work, the deacons dealing with the matter found said woman, and she openly admitted to being on the receiving end, but due to the disposable nature of the phone, his name did not appear; thus, she couldn’t prove it was him.
To highlight my naivety, I did not know what a disposable phone was or how it worked.
I did not know about the investigative work, nor did I push for answers right away. I trusted my husband as I was raised to do, without question.
He took Thursday and Friday off of work. He took us to our local mall to go shopping and to restaurants for lunch and dinner; in these moments, life felt spectacular. By doing these things, he LOVED me. He loved us.
But then my phone began to ring.
Church elders began texting and calling. One thing led to another, and the cult leader himself called me. With my husband in one ear telling me not to answer and my gut telling me the opposite, I began to exchange messages with these cult men of leadership.
I wouldn't say I liked mirrors. I cracked each one I looked into, and “Mirror Mirror” did not tell me I was the “Fairest of all.”
“Don’t listen to them, Bre, listen to me.” Bre, it’s not true. Bre, you know I love you, right?”
Twenty-four, mom of three with world knowledge of an eleven-year-old, I began to question him. The seed of doubt had been planted, and it wouldn’t take weeks to sprout; it bloomed then and there.
He filled the awkward hours by love-bombing me while I was being bombarded with the task of getting him to admit to his actions.
For hours, my mind blurred while it spun.
I wouldn’t be shocked if he admitted to it; I hated who I saw in the mirror, the woman the cult made me appear as, but he was supposed to find me the prettiest girl in the world, wasn’t he? We were taught that a good, godly woman was a jewel in a man’s crown. However, with knee-length hair untouched by scissors, cracked eggs for tits and modest apparel two sizes too big to hide my gangling boy figure with, I braced for the confirmation from his lips that I was not a jewel but sediment.
When I went to the living room, the children were tucked into bed and sat kitty-corner to him sitting on the couch. Pins were dropping, and they performed at a rock concert. I wrestled with asking him. Ignorance was bliss if I didn’t ask, but I would never sleep again. More than that, God knew the truth, and I couldn’t face him every service with arms raised in surrender, knowing I did not follow the instructions of his chosen men who led.
“Did you text *Wilma?”
I knew the answer before the hour and a half of silence confirmed it. After swirling ways to ‘weaken the pain,’ to protect me, he verbally admitted, “I did, but it meant nothing. I promise.”
Numb and tear-less, exhausted from the silence, I ran upstairs and texted the cult leader.
“He admitted.”
Immediately, my phone rang. Asking if I was okay, the leader stated that he was out for dinner with a woman and would allow me to meet with them but knew I would want the conversation to remain private, so he wrote back,
“ Elder E will meet you at the church at 9:00 pm tonight.”
And when I asked why he did it, he replied,
“Because she’s a pretty girl, and I am a stupid man.”
To Be Continued.
*name has been changed to protect identity