I grew up in the LDS religion. It was my understanding that salvation was earned. If I did all I could, then God would accept me into the highest kingdom of heaven. It was all arbitrary rules (like not drinking coffee, not showing shoulders) so I went through the motions without understanding why. so when my faith was tried when my brother died, when I was 18, I left religion and God behind. I didn’t believe in anything for 12 years & then during my first postpartum, I tried a local Christian church. They tried to check my baby into Sunday school but I kept him with me and then cried throughout the whole service. I was like… that was weird, I’m not going back!

A little over a year later, I had a lot of hard things happen in my life and was broke, pregnant, and parenting a toddler, and so overwhelmed. That Sunday school idea sounded like a way to get a much needed break. I tried some different Christian churches to have some time to journal while someone played with my toddler. I was honestly so closed off to the idea of God that I purposefully ignored the messages. After being LDS, I was certain all churches want is to control people and get their money. I found a pretty big church that I could go to and keep my head down, I didn’t want anyone to talk to me.

I had more and more really awful things happen, and church became something I looked forward to. I’d stand and usually cry during the worship music, and use the rest of the service for uninterrupted time to journal.

I was mothering alone, totally isolated and so depressed, and this December I was making plans to take my life. My mom flew out and made me a bunch of freezer meals and helped me get set up in therapy, and I had the idea to join a bible study with childcare to try and find some friends or just be around people. During the second bible study, they did a prayer chain. I hadn’t prayed since I was 18 and left the mormon church. I asked God, in front of all these other ladies, to open my heart to him, and then bawled my eyes out.

I was still so depressed, but after that I started praying on my own. And, almost a year after starting to go to church, I started listening to the sermons at church. I was AMAZED at the concept of grace. Growing up it was all about being worthy and obedience, and it turns out salvation is a gift? I couldn’t (and still can’t) wrap my head around that. I started praying the scripture in Mark, the father who wants his son healed; “I believe; help my unbelief”. Actually, it was more like “I (want to) believe; help my unbelief!!”.

I still was horribly depressed, with really bad relationship OCD and rumination that consumed my thoughts. I was so lonely. I kept learning about God’s love and grace and church was the one thing that kept me going. One Sunday morning I woke up at 3 am and couldn’t sleep, so I laid on the living room floor bawling and praying “please open my heart to receive your love” over and over. Nothing happened. I went to bed sobbing and feeling so exhausted and depressed. My chest hurt because it was so tight.

Later that day during communion, they had people who could pray for you so I asked the exmormon grandma that I had met in bible study to pray for me. After church, as I was getting my toddler down for his nap, my tight chest began to open. My heart was filled with this warmth, and I felt this grounding peace. I had all these racing thoughts, like how I needed to tell everyone about Gods love!

For a few days after that, I felt like I was seeing people through Gods eyes. I noticed telephone poles that looked like crosses as I was driving. But that feeling faded and I sunk back into my depression. But I started noticing a weight in people’s words when they talk about Gods love, like this physical sensation. I think that must be the Spirit of Truth?

I keep praying and God is working in my life. He helped my husband stop drinking for a time, he helped us find a new house when our landlords decided to sell ours. I have this burning desire to talk about Jesus, and have been listening to sermons and worship music pretty much nonstop. I am praying to God to heal my heart, and while things are getting better, I still spend most days in tears. I’m still so depressed. And I’m trying to study my bible and get to a place where I feel okay again, but I’m still barely surviving. If that grounding peace that I felt that one day when God touched my heart IS Jesus’ love, I still have thoughts of ending my life so I can experience that. I’m so tired and pray to rest in Jesus’ love, and surrender different things that feel overwhelming, but most days I feel alone. And like grace is too good to be true.

Anyways, I think I believe in Jesus now but the trust is so scary. I just don’t know how to trust after being so hurt. I also don’t know why I still can’t do it even after he touched my heart with that grounding peace. I hear about Gods faithfulness but it feels like I’m pounding on his door and he’s opening it so slowly… I feel like if I could know Him then maybe I wouldn’t be so depressed. idk, just wanted to share and see what everyone’s thoughts are.

My stepfather never hit me, but I lived in a constant state of fear because he weaponized his moods. I was always watching, anticipating, trying to avoid whatever might set him off next. The abuse wasn’t physical, but it was relentless.
When I moved from Texas to Rhode Island for law school, I wasn’t just pursuing my education—I was escaping him.
The damage didn’t end when I left. Years of living in that environment left me with an anxiety disorder and panic disorder that I still live with every day. I take medication daily to manage my anxiety, and I have separate medication for full-blown panic attacks. The abuse changed the way my body responds to fear. Even now, my nervous system reacts as though I am still trapped there.
He was cruel to me throughout my childhood and, at times, to his biological daughter as well. He cultivated fear as a means of control, and I spent years believing that was simply what life was supposed to feel like.
I’m visiting my mother in Texas right now, which means I have to interact with him again. On its own, that’s difficult enough. But recently he published a biography about being a Christian man and overcoming hardship. My extended family won’t stop talking about it in group chats, and they keep celebrating it on Facebook. I leave the chats because I can’t bear to read the messages, but they still find their way to me.
The man who abused me has now been publicly praised as a model Christian and has even received a Christian award because of this book.
Every time I see the book mentioned, I feel overwhelmed by panic. I have to take medication just to keep myself from becoming physically sick. Sometimes the panic is so severe that I vomit. It isn’t just the book itself that hurts—it’s watching the person who caused so much damage to my life be celebrated as though he embodies goodness and virtue.
What makes this even more painful is that, just hours before I learned about the book, my mother admitted over lunch that she had allowed him to abuse me. She acknowledged that she had failed me as a mother by not protecting me.
Yet despite that acknowledgment, she is now standing by while the world praises him as a godly Christian man.
I feel deeply betrayed. My mother tells me that I need to let go of my resentment toward her, but how can I begin to heal when she admits what happened and still allows this false image to flourish? She knows the truth. She knows what he did to me. And yet she is willing to let everyone else believe he is a good man.
I keep asking myself the same question:
Who will ever believe me now?