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Fearless and Free: From Panic to Power
Part Three After the baptism, I was helped out of the tank. I was then wrapped in a clean, dry towel and led back to the bathroom. I changed back into my Sunday best dress clothes. Now that I was baptized, did that mean I couldn’t wear these sinful clothes anymore? Would my mother have…
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Fearless and Free: From Panic to Power
Part Two It was a pivotal, terrifying moment in my life. The fear I felt that day still lingers, a constant reminder of how deeply that experience affected me. The air in the church was thick, charged with emotion. I could feel the pressure of the moment, like the weight of every saved congregant’s expectations…
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Fearless and Free: From Panic to Power
Part One I was scared. We all were, or at least I thought we were. But one thing was for sure, I was terrified. He stood there, a striking figure. His shirt was a glaring white, nearly blinding, with a jet-black tie wrapped tightly around his neck. The electric blue suit he wore was something…
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When Obedience Isn’t Faith
Part Four Growing Up Apostolic — and the Quiet, Unnamed Journey of Leaving Without Leaving All at Once “Any religion that doesn’t allow questioning and curiosity is dogma.” Without knowing it, I had stepped onto a path I didn’t yet have the language for. I didn’t know to call it deconstruction. I didn’t know others…
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When Obedience Isn’t Faith
Growing Up Apostolic — and the Quiet, Unnamed Journey of Leaving Without Leaving All at Once “Any religion that doesn’t allow questioning and curiosity is dogma.” Part Three She was large, physically imposing, and had a stare that could strip paint off walls — or as I often thought, stare Jesus off the cross. She…
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When Obedience Isn’t Faith
Growing Up Apostolic — and the Quiet, Unnamed Journey of Leaving Without Leaving All at Once “Any religion that doesn’t allow questioning and curiosity is dogma.” Part Two It was during my adolescent years that the church’s Women’s Department began organizing special classes for the teenage girls — some sort of purity class, though I…
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When Obedience Isn’t Faith
Growing Up Apostolic — and the Quiet, Unnamed Journey of Leaving Without Leaving All at Once “Any religion that doesn’t allow questioning and curiosity is dogma.” I don’t rememberwhere I first heard this quote, so I can’t give credit to the individual. But when I heard it, it struck such a deep chord within me….
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Made for Freedom
I was living in three worlds.Each one demanded a different version of me. There was my inner world—soft but questioning, endlessly curious.A world where I felt things deeply,asked the hard questions,wondered about the stars and the souland what it really meant to be good.This part of me whispered: There’s more. Then there was my school world—where I…
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Not Fading, Not Shining
High school is where people reinvent themselves.Where we experiment, evolve,fade into the background orstep into the spotlight.There are cliques,crowds,friend groups that form like constellations—bright and distant.People dress to express themselves,to speak their truth without saying a word. But I couldn’t do that. I was different—not by choice. My difference wasn’t a statement.It wasn’t an identity…
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The Peephole
Every promised heaven has walls. White silk covered the entire room. The walls were carefully draped in it—no holes where nails could’ve been, just folds tucked neatly under the corners. The room was smooth as silk. No imperfections. No furniture save a pillowy soft bed, the right length for a teenage body to lay comfortably…