Lenten Project: Day Thirty-seven

After working so hard to secure employment at Bob Jones University, I felt like I'd achieved the highest level of spirituality.  Now, despite never getting to be a "spiritual leader" during my undergrad days, I was a respected staff member, someone who could influence students for Jesus, and also learn from the other BJU employees who had suddenly become my peers.

Senior portraits.
Why is it that yearbook staff always pick the worst pose?

I loved my job.  I was a staff dispatcher for the campus security, and often worked the 12 hour overnight shift.  Anything could--and did--happen in the middle of the night on and around campus.  One night, in mid-July, the campus watermain sprung a leak and flooded a part of campus.  I was on the phone with the fire department, coordinating the directing of outsiders to the cleanup crews to get everything under control, while also accomplishing all my other nighttime dispatch duties: recording everything on the blotter, paying attention to the alarms checking, and keeping track of entrances and egresses from the main gate of the campus.  It was fun, but also exhausting.  With all that, I barely had time to wonder about a summons I'd received that late afternoon from the head of human resources.  I was to report to his office in the morning, two hours after my shift was over (rather inconvenient and inconsiderate, since I'd have to attend the meeting on no sleep, plus find some way to keep myself awake for two wasted hours in waiting around on campus).  My coworkers had assured me it was probably just routine, to finish paperwork, or maybe even to get commended for working so hard all summer.

          

I napped in my sister's room for a couple hours, or at least attempted it.  Now that there were no distractions, my mind went to work imagining what the summons could be possibly be concerning.  Turns out, it was NOT for a commendation.

The HR head was there with the head of my department.  They weren't smiling.  HR glared at me and said, "I'm afraid I have bad news.  You are being terminated."

I was flabbergasted.  I stammered out a, "Why?" while I struggled to recall if I'd broken any rules in the two months I'd been employed. Nope, I'd been perfect, but BJU standards.

He said it was because I'd proven myself to be a bad influence and a poor example of Christ.  When I pressed him for example of what in the world he was talking about, he pulled out, quite dramatically, a sheaf of heavily highlighted papers.  He'd printed one of my emails to several of my friends who were still undergrads.  This email was one of those silly quizzes that kids forward around, what's your favourite food, what's your best childhood memory, what's the most daring thing you ever did, etc.  I'd filled it out a month prior, and sent it on to a few of my friends and coworkers.

Apparently, some of my answers on the quiz were less than pleasing and were downright evil.  I'd put The Patriot as my favourite movie.  HR head explained that, since that movie is rated R, I was being a bad example to the students by saying I liked it.  I shouldn't be even watching rated R movies, and definitely not leading others by example to appreciate or desire to watch them.

I'd said I'd gone skinny dipping. As a kid in the Caribbean Sea.  That was wicked to admit, because it brought to mind nakedness and encouraged young people reading my email to pursue wantonness.

I'd joked that I enjoyed kissing my husband (since all physical contact between genders is banned at BJU, I'd never kissed anyone or been kissed till I started dating and then married my husband, so it still felt a bit illicit, even to admit that I'd done it).  That was bad because it displayed my proud spirit, bragging about physical sexual contact to students who were not allowed to follow my example but who would be expelled if they tried to be like me.

And on the list went, HR man got really heated in his ranting and raving, while my department head just sat there, not saying a word in my defense.  I'd burst into tears after about five minutes, but HR man kept going, alternating between waving the sheaf of papers in the air and shaking his finger under my nose.  He spat, "You have no integrity. Can't you see that you're unqualified to be an example to students, to represent the University?"  He told me I should be becoming more reserved with my friends who were still students, because now I was staff and I had to be over them.  Never mind the fact that I'd been an undergrad too just a few weeks ago, or that school wasn't even in session yet.

What I was afraid of most of all was being barred from seeing my sisters. Friends I could leave behind, but the usual procedure for people who get fired from BJU is for them also to be blacklisted and banned from campus.  I'd been well-schooled in the Black Book during my time with campus security.  I knew how it went.  I finally broke in through HR man's incoherent sidetrack story of how he could not witness to people at his first job because he needed to glorify God by applying himself to working hard.

I asked him point blank if I'd be banned from campus and kicked out of the Alumni Association.  He said no.  He further said he'd make sure that didn't happen, since I hadn't actually done anything wrong, I certainly didn't deserve to be punished beyond losing my job.

With that, the meeting was over.  My department head finally spoke up and offered me a ride home. I could barely see through my swollen eyes, but I refused.  The man hadn't defended me or said much of anything at all during the entire meeting.  I didn't want any help from him if that was his definition of "stand up for and protect the ones in my department."

I walked home.  When I got there, I immediately checked my email to see if my campus account had been locked yet.  I found an email from my new brother-in-law, accusing me of being a horrible, inconsiderate, cruel, deceitful person, a slut, someone who he wished his brother had never met, much less married.  He'd sent a copy of his email to everyone in his family, even aunts and uncles I hadn't met yet.

One person on the recipient list contacted me and assured me his opinions were not shared by the family, but no one stood up to him directly and said what he'd said was wrong or that he shouldn't have emailed everybody like that. Even his brother, my husband, kept quiet. It made me feel so worthless. I was unworthy to be staff at BJU, and also not worth defending. All on the same day. 

I spent the rest of the day with my head in the toilet, throwing up.  A few days later, I received a letter from HR man and from the Alumni Association. I'd been banned from campus, blacklisted.

I blogged about that meeting, describing my feeling of shock, asking why it was morally and ethically okay for my personal emails to be read, printed, and held against me.  Why had it been acceptable for me to be closed in a small room with two older men I barely knew, one of whom then verbally abused me while the other watched?

I wasn't allowed to go see my sisters on campus (I had three sisters who were students that new school year).  It meant I was banned from attending their concerts, recitals, speeches, and even just picking them up to go shopping, or dropping off clean laundry in their rooms.  I was totally blacklisted.  (And no one I left behind knew why--that sort of thing is never explained, so everybody always assumes the worst.  People later told me they all thought I'd broken the law somehow, or had an affair.)

I wrote a letter to Stephen Jones, the president of the school, begging to at least let me be un-banished.  I didn't want my job back, I told him, but I shouldn't be excommunicated for forwarding a silly quiz to some students.

He wrote me back and approved my request to have my blacklisted period cut short (it's policy for all those who part ways with the University on not-good terms to have to prove their repaired testimony after one year of banishment has elapsed).

But before I could be allowed back on campus and special passes for my sister be approved, the dean of students demanded to see me.  He said that, while the University president had said one thing, he was saying another and would not let the un-banishment go forward till I met with him.

I went to see him, and he accused me of doing things I'd never done (he later called me up and apologised.  Apparently, he'd gotten me confused with my brother-in-law's fiance, who had also worked in campus security, and who had done some bad stuff, I guess. Yes, the fiancé of the same brother-in-law who had written me that horrible email).  He also waved some papers around (print outs of my blog) and demanded that I delete everything I'd written about my firing from BJU before my punishment could be lifted.  In order to have the privilege of my sister's company, I had to comply.

So, in exchange for reuniting with my sisters on campus, I did everything he told me.  I never promised never to blog about it again, though, and this is the first time since then that I have.

Bob Jones University is a terrible place, filled with abusers and enablers of abusers.  The focus is all Law (in made up rules which are hardly biblical), and little Gospel. Sure, sometimes the light of God breaks through and good things are accomplished, but it's clear that it is in spite of the people in charge over there, not because of them.  There is joy there, in small pockets, but not because Christ is modeled by the Administration.  There are good people there on staff and in the faculty especially.  I loved my teachers and respect them immensely, for the most part.  But even they are mistreated and abused by the school leadership. I sometimes feel like cursing them all for they did to me, for almost destroying my faith, for totally crushing my spirit, but I remember what the Scriptures foretell about those people's fate, and all I can only say may God have mercy on their souls.

Do I want BJU to be destroyed?  No.  I do, however want change.  I'm not the only one who was hurt while a student or staff member.  There are scores and even hundreds of others who have more horrific tales of abuse, sexual, physical, verbal, emotional, and spiritual.  Ignoring them won't erase the pain and won't bring about healing for anybody. Until BJU can admit past fault, without qualifications or excuses, and seek to actively repent, no change will be appropriate or effective.

Lenten Project: Day Twenty-two

"When I grow up, I want to be a marine mammal biologist!"

I said this many times as a kid and teenager, because I had my heart set on it.  I don't know where this desire originated--maybe one of our family trips to Sea World--but I latched on to the idea that I could be someone who studied and discovered more about God's creatures.  And I was consistent in it, never changing my mind or seriously considering other possibilities.

I adored the World Wildlife Fund, even though my parents told me it was worldly (those tree-huggers didn't understand that the world would end in fire, so their conservation efforts were futile and misdirected, amen?). I got books about marine mammals and created quizzes to test my knowledge.  I collected anything I could get that had a dolphin or whale on it.  I used old calendars as posters on my bedroom walls.

But my family, with my parents as the ringleaders, and my younger sisters following their example, mocked me.

"Why do you want to be a marine mammal biologist, Hannah?!  How does that serve the Lord?"

For a Fundamentalist female, there are few choices in what kind of life a girl can have, or even desire.  For a missionary kid or pastor's kid, the options are even more limited, because the belief that "people are dying and going to hell today," was kept ever forefront in our minds by our family's vocation.  How could we choose anything other than a life of service to save the world?  And by world, I mean people, because animals are just creatures, far below humanity in God's esteem.

The choices I felt I had, when I was privately honest with myself about the futility of pursing anything to do with environmentalism, or conservationism, or even just plain old science, were to be a nurse, a school teacher, pastor's wife, missionary, and, of course, the highest calling for a girl: a wife and mother.

I had no role models besides other missionary women.  My own mother had an unaccredited degree in elementary education from a Fundamentalist college, and now she was a wife, mother, missionary, and church piano player.  So this notion of mine that I could do something different with my life puzzled my parents, I'm sure.

And they did all they could to discourage it.  "You can't glorify God if you're pursuing your own interests....Sometimes God asks that we sacrifice our lives to his service....Don't you want to serve God, Hannah?...You'll never be a marine mammal biologist, so just give up that crazy idea now....If you pursue this, you'll only ever end up a traffic director in the parking lot at Sea World."

Not pictured: the parking lot is bigger than the park!

Yes, more than once I was told to just give up.  I remember the pain and anger I felt at being told that what I loved and desired was worthless, that my dream wasn't good enough to please God. And I honestly couldn't understand why studying a part of God's creation was so bad, anyway.  I could see that saving souls and saving dolphins weren't exactly the same in value, but why did that mean I couldn't still choose to do the latter and remain pleasing in God's sight?

This is me, petting a dolphin.  I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.

I went to college in 2001 and majored in biology.  When I registered and declared my major, I did so with a bit of obstinate glee: "I'll show you all!"  My whole family openly took bets about how many weeks it would take for me to quit and change my major to a more "respectable" vocation.  I enjoyed my classes, though, and stuck with it. I even took zoology my second semester, way before I should have, since it was an advanced class and I wasn't prepared for real science that wasn't just out of a textbook (which is all I'd had, being homeschooled). I loved it.

My family still mocked, saying, "When are you going to change your major, Hannah?  Just admit it already! Be a teacher; you'd be good at that."

Between my freshman and sophomore years, the years of pressure and mocking from my family combined with the similar cultural expectations of women at BJU to finally bring me to the breaking point.  And I quietly, shamefully changed my major to English.  Not English Education, because I didn't want to teach.  No, just English.  Because I liked to read.  A lot. I figured, if I couldn't have one thing I loved, I'd go for another thing I loved, and maybe they'd stop making fun of me.  Sure enough, the sarcastic comments stopped once I was in an acceptable degree program.

Looking back, I know I probably never would have worked directly with marine mammals. For one thing, I'm scared of deep water (too many Jaws marathons late at night will do that).  I have an irrational fear of putting my face underwater, too, probably developed when I nearly drowned in the rough Atlantic during a beach trip on the seaward side of Grenada in the mid-90s.  I'll never forget the overwhelming helplessness when I felt the pressure of the deep water on my body, realised I had no more air in my lungs, and couldn't figure out in which direction was the surface.  I now associate the feeling of being underwater with a resignation that death is imminent.

I'll keep my feet firmly planted on dry ground, thankyouverymuch. Let the fishies come to me.

Yet, I can't help but wonder if there really is no way to honour God in a vocation like that. Could I not have ended up as some sort of researcher?  A scientist seeking to promote the care of God's creation?  Why is that so disreputable and shameful?  And even if I'd ended up working at Sea World the rest of my life, why would that have made me a failure in my family's eyes?  Can't a Christian serve God anywhere, even in the Sea World parking lot?  More questions that Fundamentalism can't satisfactorily answer.

My youngest sister is about to go away to BJU, and she wants to be an archaeologist.  Yet no one in the family makes fun of her, even though her dream is way more unreachable than mine ever was.  Not only is it a vocation not on the list of acceptable ones for Fundamentalist women, but it's a career that is almost impossible to achieve without a handful of terminal degrees (from reputable, accredited colleges, which BJU is not).  My jealous little heart beats violently with indignation that she gets a "free pass" to pursue the improbable, with full encouragement from everyone in our family, while I was mocked and shot down till I caved and gave up.  I'm trying to be happy for her and encouraging, but it's difficult to forget the past, especially when every girl (but one, the lucky dog!) in my family has followed the same path to BJU, and ended up married to a Fundamentalist within a week of graduation.  Our journeys into BJU all look the same, except I was the only one mocked and belittled for my choice of major.

Join the conversation

When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Did you family approve, or steer you in another direction?
Do you think certain vocations are more pleasing to God than others?

Lenten Project: Day Eight

Much of my questioning of Fundamentalist theology and practice came to a head in Singapore in early 2000.  I'd been punished for going to the cinema, chastised for not-so-secretly liking CCM (my Avalon CD was confiscated), shamed for enjoying American teen tv shows (which I only knew about through the influence of other MKs), and generally had all privacy invaded and subsequently stripped away when my diary was read and taken.

I bought this album three times in the space of a couple years because, though it kept getting taken away and destroyed, I kept returning to my sin like a dog returns to vomit.

One day, after more, "Why can't you just be good, Hannah?  Why do you have to question everything?" I finally snapped.  I stomped to my room (which was shared with another sister), gathered up all my Bibles (every good Fundie has at least three) and Bible study books, and threw them into the dining room.

Only I didn't throw them, because I imagined that God would kill me, literally, right that moment, if I disrespected His book like that.  So I stacked them neatly outside my door instead.

I said, "If that's what being a Christian means, I don't want to be one anymore!"  And sat on my bed, contemplating this new-found agnosticism.  I liked it.  A lot.

The idea that I did not have to be just like my parents, that I could be different and unique (and not unique in the sense that I was the only one wearing a headcovering full-time), really grabbed a hold of me. For the first time, I honestly considered what it could be like if I rejected Christianity. I had no concept that there was anything other to the Christian faith than what I had been taught in Fundamentalism. All other "Christian" denominations, I was told, weren't really Christian, so I'd have to give up Jesus completely to leave Fundamentalism, I believed. What would it be like to be openly worldly?

Questioning the faith was never allowed. We had to all be fine, godly young women because we were the examples to the people we were trying to reach for Christ.  The show windows.  The attractive lure. People were supposed to be able to look at us and say, "you're different!  I want what you have," and thus be converted.  So there was never to be any doubt or dissent.  And what I was doing was both.

I wasn't allowed to meditate on agnosticism for very long.  My sister Mary came in to reason with me.  She warned me that Dad and Mom were discussing sending me away to someplace like Hephzibah House if I didn't conform.  I'd grown up regularly listening to the Hephzibah House radio program, and, though I didn't yet know about the severe abuse that goes on there still to this day, it still scared me that my parents were talking about sending me away, exiling me from the family.

My blood runs cold now at even the threat that I could have been sent to this house of horrors.

Mary said it was either send me away or give up the ministry and leave the mission field, because the Bible says a spiritual leader like Dad must rule his children well.  Since I was rebelling, it reflected badly on him (all about image again!), so I had the choice to conform or destroy my father's ministry.

That was really hard for me to hear.  Obviously, there wasn't really a choice.  I couldn't be the reason my parents left the mission field in disgrace! I couldn't let it happen. But in order to conform, I basically had to give up my brain and quit asking questions, quit believing things I knew from experience were true. It would have to be all in or nothing.

But I still wondered.  Would God punish me if I was the cause of their being forced to leave the mission field? And what would it look like, for them to move us all to the States?  Would I really be incarcerated in a reform school?  I knew Mary had been sent in by my parents to tell me all that. Mary has always been the peacemaker in our family, the one with the most tender of hearts, but for her to be able to tell me details like my parents plotting to send me to HH, they had to have either told her to relay the threat, or influenced her indirectly by openly discussing it in front of my siblings. I didn't understand why neither of them talked to me directly.

That night, as I was lying in bed, pretending to be asleep, my dad came into the room and kneeled beside my bed.  I stayed still, because I really didn't want to talk to him, since I believed he'd give me that ultimatum. I wanted to delay the choice making as long as possible. I'd only been given a few hours to contemplate the fact that I might be the destruction of our family's ministry. I still wasn't certain I could sacrifice my intellect, give up my hopes, and and live a submissive life, all for the sake of the ministry.

He didn't try to wake me up.  Instead, he started praying.  And weeping.

Now, I have never in all my life, before or since that night, ever seen my dad cry.  Not when people he'd respected and trusted were cruel and spread lies about him during an ugly, nationwide KJV-Only fight in Grenada.  Not at any of our weddings.  Not with us or for us during the normal trials of growing up.  Just never.

It scared me.  Then he started praying verses over me.  Things like how I deserved to be stoned to death.  How I was bringing shame upon my father's head.  How my disobedience was probably going to cause God to kill me with an early death and that grieved my father very much.  A lot of, "Oh, Lord, what am I to do with this, my wayward daughter who prefers wickedness to the joy of salvation."  And so on.

After a good bit of this, he finally stopped and left the room.

Now, here's the thing.  He may not have known I was awake, and was honestly praying over me while believing me to be asleep.  OR, more likely, he knew I was listening (because it was no mumbled prayer--he was really loud), and was choosing his words with care in order to hit me the hardest.

Basically telling your daughter she deserves to die (something he is an expert at) is a very manipulative way of getting her to capitulate and conform, fast!  Heaping on the guilt and shame certainly works.  It's also a great way to devalue a person.  Lots of MKs feel secondary to their parents' ministries, and I was no exception, despite being involved in that ministry.  I understood that preaching and teaching God's Word would always come first, before family.  Sure, missionaries love their kids.  But they love God more, right?  I believed that, if I were on the altar of sacrifice, there would be no hesitation.

In the morning I passed on the word that I'd decided to be a good little daughter and be a Fundamentalist again, so there would be no need to either call Ron Williams or buy plane tickets to move to the States.

Not rebellious anymore

And that was that. I was poised to begin my freshman year at Bob Jones University as a tried and confirmed Fundamentalist, one who refused to let herself question, refused to doubt, and who was intent on having higher standards than anyone else.  Because image is everything.

Lenten Project: Day Two

You've probably seen the news about a pregnant mother, Ebony Wilkerson, who drove her van full of kids into the ocean.  My Facebook feed is filled with posts and reposts, some offering compassion, most offering judgement.  If you go to the news articles online, the comments sections are horrifyingly filled with calls for the woman to be "locked up, and throw away the key," or for her kids to be taken away from her, or for her sterilisation, since "people like her shouldn't get to be parents."

All I can feel for her is sadness. It seems obvious that she was under the influence of a serious illness when she did this. I feel this sadness profoundly, because I am an Ebony.

Next, 2010

In the Spring of 2010, I attended Sovereign Grace's NEXT Conference in Baltimore.  With my sister Joanna, I rode the packed-full chartered bus from Greenville, SC, to the conference center.  Almost immediately upon setting out in the very early morning, I started miscarrying a baby.  It was my third miscarriage.

At that point, I was in the early stages of severe postpartum depression, brought on by my son self-weaning a couple months before.  I had sunk deep enough into my depression that my libido was completely gone.  For several months, I'd been saying no.  Thus, when I began miscarrying, I was shocked.  Somewhere along the way, consent lines had been crossed, and I couldn't even remember it!  I knew that my marriage was not a safe place, but I hadn't understood how unsafe till then.

The shock and sudden grief of discovering an unexpected pregnancy, only to simultaneously realise that the precious little life I'd unknowingly carried was already gone pushed me over the edge.  I was pretty depressed, but that event caused me to totally lose my will to live.  The next day, after settling in the hotel and attending a couple conference sessions, I wasn't at all better.  The bleeding had stopped, but it seemed my heart was hemorrhaging.

That afternoon, I attempted to step out into heavy rushing traffic in downtown Baltimore, right by the Inner Harbor.  My sister Joanna stopped me.  She didn't know exactly what my intentions were, but she could tell that something wasn't right, even though I wouldn't talk to her about it.  She stuck to my side, as only an annoying little sister can do, making sure I didn't try to hurt myself anymore.

In the evening, before the conference session (if I remember correctly, it was on Scripture, by Kevin DeYoung), one of the young men who came with our church group approached me and told me he felt led to pray over me.  Perhaps he'd noticed how I stared blankly at the ships in the harbor while at dinner.  I'd been wishing I could swim underneath those ships and intentionally fill my lungs with harbor water.  Maybe he just felt a leading from the Lord.  I don't know.  What I do know is that when he prayed, a peace came over me.  I knew that I would make it back home to Greenville alive.

I didn't know that I'd continue this struggle with postpartum depression for quite some time, or that I'd have to take medicine to feel half-way normal again.  I couldn't have imagined that my marriage would simply disintegrate and end up having heavy consequences that I'd have to live with forever.  I didn't realise that I'd keep my lost baby a secret till today, when Ebony's story would prompt me to tell mine.

What I did know was that I had hope for the next day.  That's it.  Just a day's worth of hope.  And I kept getting days' worths at a time, until, in October of 2010, I got that theme tattooed on my arm.

Ironically, I was required to cut off my NEXT 2010 wristband in order to give the tattoo artist access to my whole arm.  I felt as though I were cutting away the darkness of that past and fixing my eyes on the future, with my daily allotment of hope.

The rest of the story is crazy and imperfect and quite a winding tale (other parts of which I may yet blog about during this Lenten project), but suffice it to say, my ex-husband and I have reconciled, as much as a divorced pair of people can be, and have both affirmed our forgiveness for each other many times, for many different failings on both our parts.  I talked to him before even posting this, because I respect him enough to not want to be heartless and unkind to him anymore.  My past is my story.  I can only tell what I experienced.

However, the point is that I now look at my past through the lens of hope.  That hope gave me time to heal, time to grow, time and distance to learn to forgive.

PPD sucks.  I know how Ebony feels.  Abuse is horrible (and there's some indication from news sources that she may have been experiencing that as well).  Loss is terrible.  But there can still be forgiveness and healing.  There is still hope in redemption.  Hope for tomorrow.

If you or someone you know is acting strangely soon after having a baby or weaning, please know that there is hope.  You can't feel it, but it's there, waiting for you.  Please let someone know that you need help.  Talk to your doctor, a neighbour, a friend from church or your community, or contact someone at Postpartum Support International.  You are not alone.