Each month, a brave & beautiful woman from the Allume community un-shelves a volume of her life and unclasps her heart for us to share Her Story.

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More than a year, she lived in the chilling stranglehold of fear.  Trapped by confusion and doubt, the walls of control and deception closed in around her as she struggled to keep her faith untainted…and by the grace of God, fled with her family to freedom.

This is Tereasa,

and her story of freedom in Christ from spiritual abuse.

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Outwardly, belief of the community appeared wholesome, fresh, and freeing.  Tereasa and her family had been searching for a place to call home – to belong, to thrive with a sense of significance.  Led by their long-time friend {known as “the shepherd”}, the close-knit, “family” structure of the community and its focus on the church called their names.  It was literally like “one big happy family,” with generations living and working side by side, welcoming new-comers with open arms and a true sense of purpose.

But inside, the community wrapped its members in the psychological shackles of false doctrine and control.

Under the spell of the shepherd and his perversions of the word of God, the members of the community began to slip into a state of spiritual death.  While she prayed fervently that this man, once her friend, and the people she loved so genuinely would receive a revelation of understanding – of the truth – she fell into despair.  And as the shepherd led the members of the community further down the path of destruction, Tereasa, unable to leave, or even miss a meeting without consequence, felt the steely bars of false teaching and strange legalism closing in around her.

In her anguish, she cried out for help…to the only One able to rescue her.

“I had spent a year and a half caught between fear of man and confidence in the Spirit; love and jealousy; peace and strife; truth and confusion.  I kept hearing that if I persevered, everything would come together and I would understand.  I was weary and ready to give up.  I began to think that if I just stopped thinking everything would be alright.  I gave up trying to figure it all out and begged God for understanding.

God opened my eyes to so much more than I expected.  My perfect world fell apart and I saw that the love I had longed to embrace was not what I thought.  All of a sudden I was no longer caught between two worlds.  I was terrified.  I didn’t know who to trust and I didn’t know what to do.  For almost two weeks, I silently cried for help.  A few times, my cries cut through the terror and squeaked enough for anyone to hear.  [My husband] was the only one to hear.”

 

One night, after reading to their children about Jacob’s flight from Laban under the cover of night, Tereasa’s son vocalized his thankfulness “for a dad who will always do what’s right, no matter how hard it is.”  After a terrifying string of events, brought to a head by the tender words of a child, they knew it was time to run. 

Homeless and penniless, Teresa and her family fled the community last summer.  The process of healing has been excruciating;

 

“I had nightmares for months, cried for weeks, lost weight and then gained weight. I felt like I was incapable of knowing truth. I was afraid to love or be loved. I was distrusting, skeptical of anyone who spoke about love, faith or anything related to Christianity. I couldn’t let people look me in the eyes. I startled easily. You get the idea. It was awful, but for the first time in my life, I was completely reliant on Jesus.”

 

With Jesus holding her close, Tereasa’s faith that she so carefully sheltered from the damage of the shepherd, and the strength she could only find in Christ are roaring to a blaze.  And despite the pain, throbbing through down to her very soul, she wouldn’t have changed her experience in the community if given the chance.  For it was by this very pain – the confusion, the terror – that she came to that raw, rock-bottom place where only Jesus Christ can meet you.

So now, with her back to the wind of the Truth and her hand wrapped in the tender protection of the true Shepherd, Tereasa is stepping forward into her new life, in the Freedom of a daughter of the King.

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Tereasa bares her soul, and explains her breakthrough in far more detail on her blog, His Pen On My Heart.  She also tweets @MTereasa.

Daily, she faces obstacles that you and I never will, even at our worst moments.  Often bed-bound, breathless, wrestling with discomfort and pain, she faces life with a courage and an incandescent faith beyond what most can even imagine.

This is Rachel Lundy,

and her story of unfaltering hope in the broken places.

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In our early twenties, we are filled with dreams.  Our lives as adults are beginning, and the wild possibilities of God’s plans for us are as wide as the endless blue sky.  It is in those years that we strike out, forging the paths we’ve carved out in our dreams with grit and abandon.  For many, this time is a highlight in our lives.  But for Rachel Lundy, a young lady with remarkable zeal for living and a budding marriage, those years were a time of disorientation and tumult.

Over the slow and perplexing years, her health began to decline in unusual ways for a woman of her age.  When the severity of her condition became apparent, Rachel knew that her life would change in drastic and alarming ways.  She notes:

“When I began to realize that life wasn’t going to go back to the way it had been when I was 21, I was sad, but not despairing.  I remember being so thankful for everything I had had the opportunity to do in the first 23 years of my life – swimming, figure skating, hiking, climbing, rappelling, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, theater, choir, traveling to Germany, Austria, and Mexico, working at summer camps, living in Alaska, and doing children’s ministry.  I had had a full and happy life.  It was time for me to slow down.  I could no longer do any of those big activities that I had done previously, but I had a deep down peace about it.  It was okay.  God was in control and I trusted Him. 

That doesn’t mean that it was easy, however.  I did wish that I had my energy back, and I struggled to figure out how to live well within my new limitations. I had to learn to be content with my circumstances.”

Rachel suffers from dysautonomia, a condition of the nervous system that undermines the function of her heart rate, circulation, temperature regulation, blood pressure, sensory perception, and digestion, among others.  Specifically, she is afflicted with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, which prohibits her body from adjusting properly when she stands up.  If she is upright for more than a few minutes, blood pools in her feet and legs – which, if she stands for long, causes unbearable pain.  She is unable to be outdoors in warmer months without the aid of a cooling vest.

She is often unable to play with her children, cannot manage her home, and is in a state of flux, adjusting to the twists and turns of life with such an illness.  As this wave of physical suffering has washed over Rachel, it has pulled her farther from the shores of the life she had known – and the life she planned to live – with each passing year.

But suffering is a distant undertone of Rachel’s blog, Cranberry Tea Time.  Upon clicking over, the reader arrives in a calming place, permeated by positivity and joy.  One finds anecdotes about the milestones and accomplishments of children, and enjoyment of family life.  There is a sweetness in this space.  And just under the header, there is a tab labeled “Hope and Joy.”

On this page, Rachel shares the hope she has, and the source of the incredible joy in her life: which is, of course rooted in the gospel.  However, she never shies away from discussing her physical condition in her writing.  She discusses joy in suffering, longing for heaven, – and woven throughout is an unshakable sense of true, steadfast hope, shimmering through her words.

Her heart, full of the promises of God, breaks for others suffering with chronic illnesses who live in bleak and grief-stricken despair.  Of her writing, she says,

“The primary reason I began blogging was to share the Gospel with others who suffered from chronic illnesses and didn’t know Jesus.  The “Hope and Joy” page was created for them.  I wanted them to have the same hope that I have.  I wanted them to know Jesus, the joy they can have in life because of Him, and the future joy that awaits believers in Heaven.”

In the signature of her email, she has placed this verse:

“Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”  2 Corinthians 4:16-17

How many of us would have the strength to believe this, whole hardheartedly, day in and day out?

Her hope is remarkable and inspiring: her faith precious and strong.

Rachel is more than a valued member of the Allume community – she is a fine example of trust in God’s sovereignty, provision, and love for His children.  Without a doubt, she shines with the radiance of hope that can only be found in Jesus Christ…

and inspires others to do the same.

 

{Connect with Rachel!  She can be found blogging at Cranberry Tea Time, and Tweeting @cttRachel.}

 

We believe that every woman in the Allume community has a story worth telling – a story worth hearing.  That the Cliff Notes are wonderful, written from her heart and lovingly offered to us, but also, that the story God has given her to live and tell is gritty and arresting and complex and amazing – just as she is. Each month, we share such a story.  We trace a cover with our fingers, smell the glue of the binding, hear the crinkle of pages turn as a brave and beautiful woman unclasps her heart and un-shelves a volume of her life.