In Bible study last night, we spoke of the missional mindset, the call to “go to the nations.” This call has been heavy on my heart for most of my life. I remember Amy Carmichael being one of my major heroines. I was asked what planted the idea of missions in my head, and I was perplexed. My mother did.
My mother, the one who along with my father, introduced me to the occult and ritual abuse, also was a missionary for the message of Christ. How do these two things co-exist? Surely my memories are false, if my parents also raised me in the evangelical Christian church. Serious, death-centered cult by night and Bible-believing evangelicals by day?
How did this happen? Does this happen? The wonderful, loving pastor of our church was supposedly at the hospital when I was born, yet during the first four years of my life, I was exposed to unbelievable evil, darkness, death, and terror. How did this duality exist? How did my parents live two lives? How could the darkness and the light live side-by-side in my life for so long?
This dichotomy is one of the main reasons why it is so difficult to believe my memories. Sweet, loving pastor one day. Demons the next. “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” followed by Satanic rituals. I don’t get it. Was it a smoke-screen?
My life is like two seperate puzzles out of two different boxes. One is idyllic, and the other is horrific. I am trying to fit these two puzzles together into one, and they do not fit no matter how hard I try to drive the pieces together. Am I two people? How does this happen?
Missionary to torturer….my mother’s magical switch. I can’t make sense of anything.
The Beautiful Broken 