Wren’s Story

The following account contains descriptions of spiritual and emotional abuse that may be triggering for readers. 

Virginity. The trophy of womanhood. The uncrumpled rose. The unchewed gum. The thing every good Christian man required and desired. Purity. A wife unspoiled. 

I was the poster child for it. 

I had the purity ring. I went to the conferences. My skirts were the right length. My shirts covered my curves despite how "blessed" I was. I wasn't about to make those around me stumble. If I did, it was my fault. 

As a teenager, I waited and dreamed for my soulmate. I just had to be patient while my love story was being written. Soon, my 18th birthday would arrive and my parents would allow me to court someone. All my dreams would come true. 

But 18 came and went. I briefly had a boyfriend at 20, but that didn't get me any closer to my goal of being married and being a mom. I turned 23...then 25. More years rolled by and my heart grew weary. 

Younger girls around me started marrying. They were 18 years old with that beautiful baby bump, glowing and accepting congratulations as I disappeared into the background. I had no voice and very little value. My life was on hold until I leveled up in status. What did I have to offer as a woman that worked full time? Where was my place? CFC’s only focus was on teaching women to be a wife and a mom. 

I joined multiple ministries with the hope of just feeling included, telling myself it was preparation for that someday marriage. I tried to pretend that I wasn’t wandering this nebulous no man's land between childhood and marriage. I was still considered a child at 25, under my father’s covering, even though I was a homeowner and had lived on my own for years. 

Married women could be heard, through their children, through their husbands. At 27, the only sound that was heard from me was a resounding ache, the echo of my empty womb. 

I felt a growing bitterness toward God, the God that had my soulmate ready for me, but for some reason kept him from me. I did everything right. I played the game by all the rules but still came up short. 

Because my parents were not CFC elite, there was little support. I managed to win an occasional meeting with Rick to discuss what we could do differently. I suffered under laments from the congregants, "How are you still single?" But I wasn't a Sinclair so I wasn't the cream of the crop. No one would recommend me to the young men. No one would tell them, “This woman is worth pursuing.”

When a young man at work started to show me affection, the dams broke, and the years of pent-up frustration, the feelings of not being enough, not being desirable, came out of me like a rushing storm. 

The storm broke me into a thousand pieces. The storm landed me in a position of moving in with that young man and being verbally abused. Emotionally abused. I wouldn’t know until years later that what I experienced in the beginning of that relationship was love bombing, a common tactic used by narcissists to pull you into a relationship. 

The day he asked to move in, I remember just sobbing. I knew I wouldn't have the backbone to say no, especially with the tiny child that he would bring with him. My empty arms couldn’t resist that temptation. 

Years of preserving my virginity led me to a place of desperation and utter self-destruction. The overlooked one suddenly had attention, but at such a high cost. CFC didn't see an abused young woman. They saw a rebellious one. They didn't see someone who was being taken advantage of by a narcissist. They just saw a girl who turned her back on her beliefs. 

They didn’t see that I was drowning.

That's when the meetings started. Unending meetings. In one meeting, Rick Sinclair told me that I was an embarrassment to the church. I received it. I internalized it and I agreed with it. I had already removed myself from ministry voluntarily because a lifetime of conditioning told me I was in sin and didn’t deserve that position any longer. We were in agreement that I had fallen from grace. 

I was drowning.

The response from CFC leaders was to threaten to strip me of membership as I drowned. CFC leaders cornered me in my workplace, harassing me in the aisles as I stocked shelves, reminding me that I needed to kick my abuser out. 

One pastor’s wife tried to show up at my house, presumably with the intention of confronting my abusive housemate herself. I eventually stopped agreeing to meet because the meetings grew increasingly hostile as their panic rose. I wasn't submitting. I wasn't kicking him out. 

I was drowning. 

They finally trapped me into a meeting before I was allowed to attend Presbytery. My own father had reached out to them, asking if I was allowed to attend despite the fact it was open to the public. I still wonder if he wanted to avoid a scene and was worried they were going to publicly ask me to leave, but CFC leadership used his inquiry as another opportunity to corner me. 

That's when they challenged my church membership. They pulled up scripture stating that it was the biblical thing for them to do. I was in sexual sin and they should shun me. They could have no part of me until I repented. 

There were no recommendations for therapy or assistance. There was no escape plan, outside of “just kick the man and his toddler out.” No one could see through my obsession for acceptance and love to the broken girl inside. They didn’t see the little girl whose confidence had been shattered by years of CFC and CFA cliques and rejection.

It was my work colleagues who identified that I spoke like a rape victim, not the pastors that were supposed to shepherd and protect me. If I mentioned any sexual encounters, the pastors responded with disgust. When I “bragged”  to Rick Sinclair that I hadn’t slept with my abuser in three months, he didn’t hear me saying that I was finally able to say no. He didn’t see the strength required to reject the manipulation and coercion. 

He didn’t see that I was drowning.

I finally left CFC for the safety of another local church, away from the harassment. I found a place where I wasn't seen as blemish in their perfect tapestry. 

From there, I plotted my own escape. I moved out of state to get away from my abuser and CFC, both of which had equally abused their power. It wasn't until 36 years of age that I started to unpack my church and intimate partner trauma. 

How could I end up vulnerable to such a man? Because I was used to abuse at the hands of the church.

The church told me throughout my whole life that I was nothing without God. I was nothing but a wretch. Nothing but sinful and worthless without a savior. I was helpless and weak, deserving of damnation. 

His manipulation and coercion felt commonplace and comforting. I was taught to follow the pastor and not to question his teaching. I was taught to do what I was told. When this young man entered my life and told me that I needed him, it felt normal. When my abuser treated me like I was weak and useless and could be walked all over, it felt familiar. It was the comforting chaos of trauma. It was all I'd ever known. 

Drowning. That was love, right?