My Experience with Inner Healing Prayer

CW: spiritual and emotional abuse

NOTE: This post was originally published on a different Medium account in late 2018. I removed it in January this year to publish “An Open Letter to Denise Hughes,” again hoping for some kind of resolution (which did not occur), and I have since redacted it.

Reasons I Write

Greetings, gentle readers. I have a story to tell, and I would never normally tell something like this publicly, but the level of bullshit I’ve been made to endure throughout the unfolding of this whole entire situation has made me decide to go against my natural tendency to be extremely private.

There are multiple and layered reasons I am telling this story. Culturally, women are at a boiling-over point with how much we will continue to tolerate being silenced and dismissed when we speak up about something that happened to us that wasn’t right. My story just so happens to involve a Christian ministry that’s run by women, which makes it doubly ludicrous that this is even happening to me. Christians acting this way regardless of gender, for one thing, when they’re supposed to be all about the love of God (which they still claim). And women treating other women this way, when we already have enough trouble being treated this way by men. Both of those things heap insult onto injury.

BESIDES all that, here are some OTHER reasons I’m telling it:

· I’ve been trying since July 2018 to resolve this privately and keep it strictly between me and the individuals involved. If you ascribe to the conservative evangelical branch of Christian faith (which I don’t anymore, which is more than a little bit related to this entire experience), I’ve even tried to do this the Biblical way. I went to them privately. That didn’t go anywhere. I then got the “two or three witnesses” in the form of their board of directors. That step is in process but doesn’t look promising. I am now going public, not because I particularly want to. This hasn’t been fun. I would have preferred to keep it private.

If I could have resolved it that way, I would have, and no one would have needed to know except the people who have been directly involved. However, they have consistently and utterly refused to engage with me after I reached out initially. They’ve even blocked me on Facebook (which is super mature), not that I was — or had any intention of — trying to reach them via social media. (I’d actually un-friended them both way before then.) So now I’m done with trying to protect people’s names. If people want to keep a good name they should act in ways that merit it. This doesn’t mean people won’t make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. It does mean that people who are in positions of power who inevitably mess up, should have the humility and compassion (that they preach regularly from behind a podium) to admit it and offer to make amends. They’ve had the choice all along, as this story unfolds, to decide to change direction and respond differently. But that’s not a choice they’ve elected to make as of yet.

· Another reason I’m telling this now is that people who have been abused in the past (and I have, extensively and systematically and over a long period of time by various people in various ways, because trauma tends to beget trauma) develop a habit of protecting their abusers. Whether it’s for survival, or because of trauma bonds (e.g. Stockholm syndrome), or they lack the self-worth to fully believe that what’s happening to them is wrong and they do not deserve it and it’s therefore okay to defend themselves, or other individual reasons, survivors more often than not refuse to name names or tell the truth about what someone did. I’m tired of protecting people who hurt me. And by “hurt,” I’m not even necessarily referring to the original wounds, of which there are more than a few. I’m referring to the fact that ever since I brought this up, they now refuse to admit any wrongdoing, or even give me the courtesy of a direct conversation, so that I can find closure. They are now hiding behind others in their circle who will use bureaucracy and policy to give me the runaround and make a show of taking me seriously when they are actually being extremely dismissive of the whole thing.

· I’m a writer. While I do often write for other people, I also write for myself. And telling our story is one way that we — collectively as human beings — own our voice and take back the power that was stolen from us from our victimization. I know that I’m not the only one who has experienced something like this. Perhaps if people see that one person has the courage to share their story, they might borrow from that courage and share their own.

The Setup

So here’s the deal: I used to have a very strong Christian belief system. I was raised in a typical conservative, evangelical Christian church, and I carried a lot of those doctrines into my adult life. Only in the last few years have I started to realize how patriarchal, misogynistic, dysfunctional, and utterly toxic a lot of those concepts and communities really are — which is another topic for another day. But I’m saying that so you know where I’m coming from.

This upbringing, combined with a lot of very traumatic and disempowering experiences in the realm of psychology and psychotherapy, made me seek other options when I needed help as an adult coming to terms with having a dissociative disorder (caused by ongoing trauma during childhood). This appealed to me because of the importance of my faith to me at that time. So instead of starting the grueling and frustrating search for a capable psychotherapist, I turned to a faith-based approach to healing.

Enter the concept of “inner healing prayer,” and all its corresponding methods, techniques, and ministries.

Inner Healing Prayer Ministry

If you are unfamiliar with the idea of inner healing prayer, there are various methods (theophostic, Sozo, Immanuel moment, HeartSync, etc) and you can Google them if you want to learn more. The overarching theme in all of them is that you — and a facilitator (or two or three) — are attempting to communicate with God and/or Jesus to ask them to heal you from specific traumas. Also contained in all of this is the idea that God/Jesus can supernaturally change your perspective about what happened to you so that you can reframe the resultant thoughts and emotions that sprang from it.

To be fair, I still believe in the idea of it. I do not condone the system by which it is administered. But that’s also another topic for another day.

How It Began For Me

What happened to me is this: I started meeting with Denise Hughes of Transformation Ministries in 2013. I actually knew her casually for about 6–7 years before that. I met her in 2006 when she was working for Grace Ministries Tennessee, and since then she’d started her own 501(c)3 called Transformation Ministries. In between 2006 and 2013 I’d been in infrequent communication with her. We emailed occasionally, talked on the phone every now and then, and met at a coffee shop once or twice to chat. I stayed overnight at her house once when on my way home from a long road trip. My oldest child took their first few steps at Denise’s house. She made me breakfast that next day; we went to a park and walked the trails together while chatting and let my child play on the playground, before I had to leave for home.

I did not live in Nashville, where Denise operates her ministry, until 2014. At that point I had been doing internal work on my own — and with the help of a couple of insightful friends — for about 6–7 years. But internal work can be difficult and confusing, and by 2013 I felt like I needed more help. I was starting to have flashbacks again; I was becoming overwhelmed. So I reached out to Denise and asked if she would be willing to take me on as a regular client.

Confusion of Boundaries

From the very beginning, my relationship with Denise was that of a spiritual mother-spiritual daughter. She is old enough to be my mother and is known for having a very maternal vibe. She called me her spiritual daughter more than once, to multiple people. By coincidence I stumbled into the church she attended one Sunday morning after I’d moved to Nashville and she invited me to sit with her. It became a regular thing. Every now and again if someone asked us if I was her daughter she would just smile and say “Spiritual, but not natural.”

We were only able to have sessions once every 3 weeks, but she allowed me to contact her outside sessions by email and text message. I don’t know whether phone calls would have been allowed or not but I’m not much of a phone person anyway and the few times I did need to call her for something logistical it was hard to get her on the phone, so I didn’t call very often. Although occasionally she would call me — especially if it had been a particularly hard session or the session had to end less smoothly than anyone liked. If the dynamic had been anything other than mother-daughter, this would have seemed inappropriate to me. But because that’s how things were set up, it didn’t seem inappropriate. She invited, and seemed to enjoy, hearing how I was doing and what was going on with me in the 2 weeks in between sessions. From the very beginning she told me it was not my job to manage her boundaries. She said she’d answer if she was able to, and if she wasn’t able to, she wouldn’t answer. The thing is that she did answer, nearly every single time, every single text message, every single email. Usually within half an hour, and almost always by the end of the day or within 24 hours. The times when she had to go out of town for a conference or vacation, or out of the country (once or twice in 4 years), she would send videos of herself telling me that she loved me and she would be back soon. She would even frequently sign emails or notes or text messages “Mama Denise” or “Mama Dee”.

PICTURE MISSING

Side note: If that’s not how she meant it, how should I have taken it? Particularly in light of the fact that she is very familiar with the concept of someone being a “spiritual orphan,” as this is something she teaches about. So if this language wasn’t specifically meant to speak to that, it shouldn’t have been used.

Truth be told, I thought she had intentionally done things this way. I thought she specifically chose this way of interacting with me because of the severity of the attachment disorder that I wrestle with. I thought she was trying to heal the neglect and mistreatment from the past by exampling a stable and responsive caregiver. I thought she’d thought through this and determined that that was what I probably needed and had endeavored to give it to me, believing she had the energy and the stability and the staying power to see it through. I thought she was intentionally trying to re-parent me.

Just to be clear: I was a fool.

The Chaotic Healing “Work”

There’s no particularly adequate segue, so I’ll just move on…

Sessions occurred in a lot of different places over those 4 years. We started off in a large ministry room at Belmont (the church, not the school) that had a lot of couches and floor pillows. Most of the time there was a lot of physical contact in the sessions. She hugged me, put her arm around me, held my hand, touched my face. And sometimes if I was in a whole lot of pain that session, she would hold me. It was always a loving touch — but only in retrospect do I understand the inappropriateness of it. And only in the context of the fact that she actually isn’t — and can’t be — my mother, is it inappropriate. It didn’t seem so at the time, with her operating in that role.

Not that long after we started doing inner healing prayer sessions together, the business relationship between Denise and Belmont was dissolved, and we met at her home for prayer sessions. This went on for several months. Sometimes when sessions went longer than usual she would provide dinner during our prayer time. Eventually there was a conflict with her husband needing to work from home more often, so we had to once again meet elsewhere. Through networking or however these things occur, the ministry formed a relationship with the leadership of One Stone church in Nashville, and the church gave them an unused room in their building to serve as a (semi) permanent ministry room. Sometimes we met there.

The Revolving Door of Assistants

For the first six months or so, Denise had an assistant facilitator attend my sessions, Ginger Ludlow. Ginger is her ministry partner. Ginger is the yin to Denise’s yang; she is a rather opposite personality to Denise, and often has insights that Denise misses. I appreciated having her be part of the journey, and formed a deep attachment to her. She is younger than Denise so I saw her sort of as a loving older sister, the kind anyone would have wanted to have. Six months in, Ginger had to drop out of my sessions when she and Jon adopted their daughter. I understood this, but she was sorely missed and it was still hard to avoid the feeling that I had been pseudo-abandoned by her. I saw her infrequently after that, so the attachment to her died a slow but inevitable death. She remained a ministry partner to Denise, however, and remained on staff in the ministry. Because of her status as the “partner” to Denise, she was gradually allowed to become privy to everything that happened in my sessions, as well as emails and whatever outside communication occurred. This was confusing, as the confidentiality (or lack thereof) was never made particularly clear. What was being shared, when, why… none of this was communicated clearly. I didn’t really understand why Ginger needed to know everything that was going on if she was no longer personally involved in any of my sessions, but at the time I was too afraid to ask questions or rock the boat. The only reason I bring up the presence of Ginger on the scene is because it matters later.

Once Ginger was no longer able to attend sessions, Denise had to find someone else to be part of our sessions because her policy was to minister in pairs. From then on, only occasionally did I have the same person present in sessions with me from month to month. Frequently we met at the home of the other person, whoever and wherever it was. Otherwise we met in the ministry room at One Stone.

Broken Promises

To recap so far… I cannot overemphasize the impact of the mother-daughter dynamic with Denise on me. By putting herself in the position to play the role of the mother I’d always wanted, I was so enamored with her that I would have done anything for her. And I cared about her opinion on every conceivable topic. I don’t really know how I didn’t drive her nuts purely by the frequency that I was in contact, looking back on it (or maybe I did, and she was just too nice to admit it to my face). But I was in contact with her nearly every day. She never gave any indication that this was too much or that it wasn’t okay. When I saw her at church or even at other church events in other locations, I always sat with her and if I arrived first, she would find me and sit with me. What was I going to do, say no? She was my mom. Not my real, narcissistic, toxic mom…she was my good mom, the mom I’d always wanted, the mom I wished I’d had. I have emails and text messages that prove that I didn’t just fabricate this perspective. 75% of our communication was in writing (email or text message) and I have gone through many of those recently (but not all…that could take days). I have found a half dozen or so emails signed “Mama Denise” and text messages in which she called me “baby” and multiple types of communications in which she expressed a longterm commitment to me. (I also have a journal that she bought for me as a gift with a note in the front — signed “Mama Dee”.) She told me I would always be in her life, even if we should decide to stop praying together. She said I would always be in her heart. She said she wasn’t going anywhere, ever.

At this point in time, it appears to be bullshit. I honestly can’t figure out if she meant it at the time and then changed her mind when it got too hard, or if it was never sincere at all. I’m not sure which one is worse, but it doesn’t matter because I’ll probably never know.

Inadequate Resources, Inappropriate Support

For the first few years of doing inner healing prayer with Denise, I had a horrific time outside our sessions. I was often suicidal or prone to self-harming, and the magnitude of what I was trying to overcome caused constant distress and chaos. I could only see Denise once every 3 weeks and it seemed like so little progress was made in sessions that it was all undone — along with taking a few steps backward — in between. But I’d already tried to find someone else who was willing to work with me in addition to Denise, and I just couldn’t find anyone. They were either too expensive, too far away, retiring, or flat-out unwilling (they did not feel qualified). So since I didn’t really see any other options, and since no one else seemed willing to take me, I kept plugging away with Denise.

At times there were things that seemed off. Like when I was suicidal. It was incredibly hard for me to admit it to begin with (there were lots of occasions that I just didn’t tell anyone and chose to fight through it on my own). But if I admitted it to Denise, she would always bring up her obligation to report it to the police if I couldn’t agree not to hurt myself. Knowing that a mandatory psychiatric lockup was possible if that happened (with all the trauma that that involves), it was always a desperate situation. Somehow it seemed to come up somewhere in the conversation that if she didn’t report it, and I died, she would be removed from ministry and wouldn’t be able to keep fulfilling her God-given calling to help people like me. I’m sure that might have been a concern of hers, but it just always seemed odd to me that she chose to bring it up when I was so severely suicidal that I was having trouble agreeing to stay safe. Rather than making it about her and what consequences she would face if I died, perhaps just telling me she loved me and didn’t want me to die might have gone over a bit better.

Ignoring Red Flags

I was able to ignore the things that seemed off at the time, because — outside those things — Denise was one of the most loving, joyful people I’d ever met. For those reading this who know her, I’m sure this is going to be hard to believe. That something that started so lovingly and beautifully could end so badly… that something that had so much potential for such powerful healing could take such a devastating turn… It’s heartbreaking.

And that’s what’s made this all so difficult. Not that I have this story about a bad person getting worse and I didn’t see it until it was too late, because she’s not and she didn’t. My story is about some really loving people making some very hurtful choices.

That’s the irony of it. That’s the pain of it. This person who has taught me the most about healthy love, who has taught me the most about healthy boundaries, ended up discarding all of those concepts in her final interactions with me, thereby undoing everything that she had spent so much time teaching me.

That’s why it hurts so much. Because she’s the last person I would have ever expected to do these things. It contradicts everything she teaches, everything she purportedly tries to live, everything she says she believes.

So anyhow…

Finding Out It Gets Worse

About a year into my 4-year ministerial relationship with Denise, it became more and more clear that my dissociative disorder was causing me to black out regularly at night. Ultimately, the truth is: I was being trafficked while in an altered state of consciousness. Yes. You read it right. I was being trafficked. I am a trafficking survivor.

Take as long as you need to let that sink in.

The details are complicated to explain, and they’re really nobody’s business anyway, so the facts I’m including in this story are all that I’m willing to share.

I am a white caucasian female in my mid-30’s who has definitely never been well off, but I haven’t lived in abject poverty either. And I was trafficked. I am not the typical demographic. Feel free to imagine the emotional (and physical) fallout that I’m STILL DEALING WITH TODAY.

If you’re not educated about dissociation or dissociative disorders, the blackouts might sound impossible or strange, but it’s actually a fairly common symptom of trauma-induced dissociation (the blackouts, not the abuse). I was not immediately aware of the trafficking, but as I continued to work my ass off to do the internal work to heal, I began to gain awareness of it. My physical body had been so shut down for so many years, because of prior childhood trauma, that I spent decades being out of touch with my body and physical sensations. During all that time, I didn’t immediately recognize pain or sickness. But my body also gradually began — bit by bit — to “thaw” from its trauma-induced frozenness, and I started to be able to feel the after-effects of the beating it was taking in between sessions. To say I was terrified is an understatement. I never knew if each new day might be the day my traffickers finally killed me. (As a side note, my husband did some research and found that 2–4 years is the average life span of trafficking victims before they are killed…either accidentally or intentionally. I was subjected to it for 3 years.)

Here is where it gets even more messed up.

Trapped in Silence

It would have been nice if I’d been able to go to Denise and Ginger for help. But because I was so scared, instead, I first casually asked in an email what, theoretically, could be done if that were happening. I was told — again, in writing (I still have the email) — that I could not tell them about it unless I wanted them to call DHS, because if that were happening then my oldest child was not safe with me and they were obligated to report that a minor was living in an unsafe situation. Apparently it didn’t matter that I was being hurt. It only mattered that my child could potentially be hurt. (They weren’t, by a miracle of the cosmos. They were referred to by some of the men, as leverage, but no one ever harmed them. They never even knew what was going on.)

I have no reason to trust the foster care system at all. We’ve all heard the horror stories. I couldn’t bear to allow my child to be taken away from me. Even if they just happened to miraculously be placed in a good foster home, the trauma of sudden separation from their mother would be immeasurable.

So Denise and Ginger let me know, essentially, that I had to choose between keeping my child or being sexually exploited.

If you had to choose between your bodily safety and well-being, or keeping your child, which would you choose?

I had also become aware that one of the men in the circle was a police officer. So reporting it could have potentially been catastrophic — even deadly.

Yet, apparently, I couldn’t tell Denise or Ginger about any of this. As they put it, their hands were tied. For obvious reasons, so were mine.

The only option I was presented with was to keep trying — in sessions every 3 weeks (and in my own time, whenever I could manage it) — to free myself, without actually speaking plainly of the abuse going on outside the walls of the ministry room. I could tell them just about anything else, but not that.

I would eventually become aware that the trafficking was severe. The knowledge of it was too overwhelming for me to even admit for many months. Denial runs deep, and its protective component is there for a reason. I do not look like the type. I am not the stereotypical demographic of the type of person at risk for trafficking. But I was.

Others are Worth it, But I’m Not

One of the people who ended up attending some of my prayer sessions when Ginger stopped was a lady named Laura Connor. She was learning to work with people in a similar manner as Denise and Ginger, but due to scheduling conflicts she was only present in my sessions a handful of times.

Later I would see her from time to time at conferences hosted by Transformation Ministries. I remember seeing her at one of such conferences (all of which were conducted in order to teach others the principles of inner healing prayer methods), and just to be polite, I said hello and asked how she was doing. “Okay,” she replied, “But I’m working with another person who is being abused and the perpetrators keep finding them so I have to keep moving her. She’s lived in three different apartments now, but I’ve got to find somewhere else for her to go because they tracked her down again.”

In the back of my mind, I remember thinking, Why is this person worth saving, but I’m not? Why is she worth going to all that trouble for, but I’m not?

But I dismissed those thoughts at the time, and trusted Denise and Ginger’s lack of action, because that’s what I’d been taught. These people supposedly knew better than me. They knew God.

Freeing Myself On My Own

Fast forward to 2016. I’d had 3 years of utter hell on earth in my private life. (I ended up having a nervous breakdown of sorts in August 2016…this was a major component of why that happened.) I was working full-time in the workforce, and in my own time I was also working my ass off trying to heal old AND new emotional AND physical wounds without anyone’s direct support. It was grueling, exhausting, and terrifying. I couldn’t rush anything. Most of the time it felt impossible, until it was over.

But I did the work. I got myself — and my kid— out of there. I quit my job, moved to another city, and erased every avenue that had been used to victimize me.

That alone is some mind-fuckery right there. But I did it. I freed myself.

The Beginning of the End

In October-November of 2016, as I was coming to terms with a traumatic pregnancy, Denise stopped communicating with me outside sessions. Maybe the timing was coincidental, as she says. But even so, the timing was bad. Pregnancy in the best of situations can be an emotional rollercoaster. And losing the support of someone so significant in my life was utterly devastating.

It may have been more gradual than I remember. But it felt like she stopped overnight. Rather than responding quickly to texts or emails as she had for the first 3 years, she began taking days or sometimes a week or more to respond to me, if she responded at all. And the responses were rarely more than one or two words, and often they were just emojis (like a heart or praying hands, etc). As someone intimately familiar with my history of being neglected, abandoned, and abused by mother figures, there’s no way she could have been unaware of how devastating this would be to me. There’s no way.

Because of the busyness of her ministry and the holidays, we didn’t get to have sessions at our regularly appointed intervals. The next time we got to talk — which was on the phone, because it was all we could manage, in early December — I tried to ask about her withdrawal from me. I could not get a clear answer.

Things went on like this for about 4 months. I kept hoping that it was “just a season,” a phrase she had used regularly throughout our relationship when she was especially busy with her ministry. I kept reaching out to her, hoping and believing that her sudden disinterest wasn’t personal. She kept being non-responsive, or only minimally responsive.

My default tendency is to blame myself when something goes wrong in a relationship. I wracked my brain in those 4 months, and beat myself mercilessly with the tirelessness of the desperate, trying to figure out what I’d done and why she had emotionally abandoned me. There were so many possible reasons, but the only one who could definitely answer all my questions was Denise — and she wasn’t talking.

Maybe It’s Not Me?

Finally I got wind of the fact that she was having some painful events going on in her personal life. Which I can understand. But it didn’t — in my opinion — absolve her of the responsibility of someone in her position as a minister to deeply wounded people. That was a role she’d taken on willingly. No one forced her to do that. No one made her start a ministry. No one made her stay in one. I, of all people, know that shit happens. I know that. But if shit is happening, take a break, maybe? Just admit you need to tap out for awhile? If you can’t minister to people because things in your personal life are interfering with your capacity to finish what you started, no one is forcing you to. That was a choice she made. The tendency for abused people (and just people, in general) to misinterpret and misunderstand someone’s actions — in the absence of actual communication — is immense.

People don’t experience your intentions. They experience your actions. Communication is the only buffer we have between the two. So if you’re not communicating, people don’t give jack shit about your intentions. They don’t know they’re supposed to.

Power Flex

After 4 months of radio silence, and me trying desperately to figure out and correct whatever I’d done wrong, a confrontation about something unrelated brought it all to the surface. Denise and Ginger unfairly reversed a decision they’d made regarding me being a student in their yearly “ministry school” and it pissed me off. They’d approved my participation in the school with the promise that I could wait to receive ministry (as part of the training) until one of them rotated into my small group for that particular week (they rotated amongst the groups for the 14 weeks of the school). So that I could pray with them rather than a random stranger I didn’t know and who didn’t know my extensive history. Then when it came time to follow through on this promise, they reversed their decision and said that I couldn’t pray with EITHER of them during the whole school (14 weeks), since I had the privilege of praying with them privately outside the school. I could pray with a stranger in class, or not pray at all. Besides the fact that they broke their promise, this was hardly fair at all. I’d paid the money to be there just like everyone else. And on top of it, I’d have to watch them pray with everyone else and leave me out of it, being reminded of that broken promise, for the length of the school. (I don’t know what to tell you other than, at that time, I was obvs a glutton for punishment.)

I couldn’t stay quiet anymore. In an email, I asked a lot of questions I’d wanted to ask all along, but didn’t know how to. I am able to live with cognitive dissonance, but only up to a point. I can compartmentalize things I don’t know how to live with, but feel I must, but I have my limit. So I asked the things I’d silently wondered all along, but hadn’t given voice to. At the time I thought I’d lost my temper because the emotions were so intense. I held that perspective for more than an entire year, until close friends came in and gently pointed out that my message had been restrained, earnest, and respectful. Up until then I had blamed myself for the situation. But after that, I realized this wasn’t my fault.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Denise never directly responded to the email. Ginger responded on Denise’s behalf. She offered to let us drop out of the ministry school if we just couldn’t be at peace with the last-minute decision reversal. They would release me from the financial obligation and I could just drop out. (So I’d only be out a couple hundred bucks instead of $350, or whatever it was that I still owed.)

Since I am not a quitter, I persisted in continuing the ministry school and finishing it. Although the irony of listening to Denise stand behind a podium and tell a story about how painful it had been for her when a family member had inexplicably decided to “ghost” her for a year with no explanation was not lost on me. The cognitive dissonance was very impressive.

Ironically, both Denise and Ginger teach regularly about boundaries and finding freedom from codependency, as well as how to have a healthy marriage and raise emotionally healthy children (among other things).

At my next session after the emails, both Denise and Ginger were there. It was unusual for Ginger to be there, but it had already been established that she had taken up the “bad cop” role in the ministry. They’d even admitted it and laughed about it in front of a crowd. I’d already come to realize that when Ginger was directly involved with a situation, something hurtful or unpleasant was about to go down. I was on high alert. They handed me a page of new “rules” for personal ministry sessions, including reducing the frequency to once every 4 weeks (rather than 3), no more physical contact in sessions, and I was now required to see someone else for help in addition to them. Communication outside sessions was still not directly discouraged (oddly enough), but hinted that it would not be a priority anymore.

I saw the formal disintegration of the mother relationship, and all its former promises, in that session.

This was a disciplinary session, and everyone knew it. No one said it, and it could have easily been denied by Denise or Ginger, but everyone in that room knew what this was. The timing of it — coming immediately after the email — and the presence of Ginger, along with all the new rules being implemented; it was crime and punishment.

I’d done something “bad” — I had dared question the ministry and its ministers — and now this was the punishment.

All the Right Words

It’s notable at this point to make it known that Denise and Ginger will invite questioning from behind the podium. They will say “You get to be powerful and disagree with us; you are allowed to question us.” But when one of my friends first told me that they’d said that, I responded with “But has anyone ever actually done that? To see how they react?” And she got very quiet. Actually doing it — despite their insistence that they welcome it — makes a very different story unfold.

They asked me if I had questions after they went over all the new rules. I didn’t. I was in full freeze mode because that’s what I do initially when I feel threatened, and that session felt every bit like I was in the principal’s office, receiving a paddling.

I only had one more session with Denise after that, because I was about to give birth, and I had moved to another city outside Nashville. I wouldn’t be able to attend sessions with a newborn. It was extremely obvious that everything that had transpired between us in the 4 years before that (or even the 7 before we’d ever started praying together) was irrelevant at that point.

It hurt too much to bring up.

I was in shock for about 6 months. I couldn’t even be angry. I couldn’t cry. I was just in shock.

This relationship that I’d thought was going to extend and last for my entire lifetime — because that’s what had been promised over and over — had crashed and burned.

And — so it seemed to me at the time — it was my fault. I’d done it again.

I’d ruined things again.

My “mother” had left me again.

Revealing of a Pattern

It took another year after that to start questioning those thoughts. And honestly, I don’t know that I ever would have if I hadn’t started dating my husband-to-be. As I began telling him the story in bits and pieces, he was outraged. Not anticipating that reaction, I slowly began to relate the story to a couple other close, trusted friends. They reacted the same way.

Hmmmm….

I also discovered that this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to people in a relationship with Denise… or Ginger. There is a history on both of their parts, of intense closeness, and then dropping people — with no warning or explanation. (Unfortunately, I don’t have permission from those people to involve them. And since they didn’t ask or volunteer to be part of this, I’m going to respect their wishes.) But the point is, I know — now — that I’m not the only one this has happened to.

This is a pattern. It didn’t start with me. It didn’t even start 2 or 3 people before me.

I slowly began to realize that none of this was my fault. There were so many problems, so many places where this whole thing started screwy and ended in disaster. I even dug up the email that I had sent to Denise, and let John read it. I’d never been able to make myself look at it again since then.

He read it, and said to me (referring to how I had written it), “There’s nothing wrong with anything you’ve said here. It’s kind. It’s earnest. You’re obviously in pain, but you weren’t mean. You were very restrained. You were candid and desperately wanting answers. They should have answered this! You deserved an answer.”

So many paradigm shifts. So many devastating realizations.

So here’s the rest of it.

Attempting to Find Closure

Back in July 2018, I reached out to Denise via email.

I told her that after taking a year to process what went on between us, I was requesting to have a conversation about it so that I could have closure. I was open to that conversation happening via email or phone if an in-person meeting wasn’t practical (because we don’t live close by anymore, if you recall).

She apologized to me for the pain she’d caused me but told me that she wouldn’t meet with me or talk to me about any of it. That “Jesus will have to heal you” because she was going through some things herself and did not have the capacity for anything further.

I probably would have accepted this, as insufficient as it was for closure of any kind on my part. There had at least been an apology for causing pain.

I responded to that email with one more reply of my own, citing some things I had seen as problematic (and also part of a repeating behavior pattern I’d become aware of). I said what I needed to say, and did not expect her to answer any further (she didn’t).

It probably wouldn’t have gone any further than that, except for the fact that then Ginger decided to get involved. Ginger came in and spoke on behalf of Denise once again. She attempted to tell me that I had misunderstood the mother-daughter dynamic between myself and Denise. That they had never set up inappropriate boundaries like that and never would (implying that they — as ministers — don’t do wrong things, which is blatantly false and speaks to a very deep denial of their fallibility as humans). And that confidentiality within their ministerial relationships made it impossible for her to comment on the behavior pattern I was noting, because they couldn’t betray that confidentiality.

Essentially attempting to gaslight me and tell me the blame was all mine for not understanding the dynamics in the relationship.

This was too much for me. I am a fairly tolerant person in how much bullshit I will put up with, simply because I often have better things to do than split hairs or argue semantics with people who are determined to misunderstand me. But having someone who knew me THAT WELL, and who had witnessed THAT MUCH of my story, try to tell me the fault was mine for misunderstanding the situation — that they were free of any responsibility or accountability in any of it — was not something I am willing to tolerate. I responded to her with screenshots of my emails and text messages from Denise with the written documentation of her perpetuating the mother-daughter dynamic.

Blocked and Deleted

Ginger did not respond. I requested that she respond before I would be compelled to go to their board of directors, but she refused. It would not surprise me if they both blocked my emails after that.

I have not heard from Denise again either, although she AND HER DAUGHTER, , have now blocked me on Facebook. They both blocked me sometime in July and I remain blocked. (Ginger recently blocked me as well.) I had not contacted Erika about any of this, and had no intention of doing so. I only ever contacted her twice before this — one time when I was out looking for her dog that the dogsitter had lost while they were on vacation (which I found for her, by the way, after a full day of searching and putting up fliers and driving several hours to take the dog back to Denise’s house late that night once it had been found, while they were all on their way to Florida). And the other time to ask if she’d be willing/interested in doing a commissioned painting for me, which she declined because it was not the type of work she endeavored to create. I respected her decision and I had never contacted her since then. But it all casts serious doubt on their claim of confidentiality within their ministerial relationships if Erika (who is not involved with their ministry at all) has blocked me without having been given a reason to do so, which would have betrayed the confidentiality Ginger claimed was so important.

Going to the Board

In light of this development, I contacted Kevin Hyer (yes I am naming names now, because NOT naming names hasn’t resulted in any sort of tangible change) who is on the board of directors for their ministry and asked to file a complaint. They are formally a nonprofit organization and I donated a substantial amount of money to them in the course of those 4 years (and even before then), so I am considered a stakeholder. Even if I wasn’t, it’s not okay to treat people this way.

Kevin Hyer was the leader of a small group I was part of while living in Nashville, by the way. So I’m not a stranger.

It’s not okay to cause a shit ton of emotional damage to someone and then refuse to even have a conversation about it, send your lackey to tell them it’s their fault anyway (not yours), and then block them.

It’s not okay to refuse to take responsibility and have accountability for your actions within a ministry.

It’s not okay to pretend like it’s the mentally ill person’s fault for misunderstanding you (which is a convenient line to fall back on since we’ve been taught to question our perceptions anyway, and as the mentally ill person the doubt all falls on you when there’s any question), rather than just admitting you made a mistake and apologizing and doing your best to fix your own shit so that you don’t keep doing the same thing to other people.

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

I told Kevin and — by proxy — the board of directors my story. I left out any assumption of what I believe Denise or Ginger thought or felt, because there’s no way I could possibly guess and it’s rather irrelevant at this point. I included only what was done and what I can prove because it’s in writing in emails or screenshots of text messages. I included the emails and text messages, and the email conversations from July.

A Diplomatic Response

I was informed that the board “agreed to review these items with TM within the next 60 days” (the 60 days was over on September 28) “and make any necessary adjustments and/or training.”

What does that even mean?

It would be really really great if they could just admit that they’d screwed this up.

We could have resolved this quickly and privately and quite easily, to tell the truth. I was not even asking for restitution, although I think any sane person reading this would surely think agree after all I’ve been through, at the least, I deserve for someone to look me in the eyes — in person — and apologize.

At least.

And look, I know that technically they did not break any laws by not reporting the trafficking. I posed the question as merely a hypothetical question. I’m not stupid. Maybe somehow they felt they were doing me a favor in that regard, so that I could keep my child. Cognitive dissonance works strangely sometimes.

But the problem, if it isn’t obvious, is that Christians claim that they are accountable to a higher moral code than just that of the law of the land. They claim to be accountable to God, whose two “greatest commandments” are to love God, and, love your neighbor as yourself.

How is it in any way loving to know that someone is being sexually exploited, abused, and possibly having their life threatened on a regular basis, and offer only your sincere prayers and hopes that they can sort things out on their own — or, alternatively, the threat of calling the police to have their child taken from them?

They Don’t Even Follow Their Own Codes of Conduct

In their own Bible Christians read in James (2:15–16, NIV) “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if not accompanied by action, is dead.”

Do you think this could or should be applied to someone who is being raped and threatened and intimidated and silenced?

Understandably, I’m still kinda messed up — mostly from the trafficking, but also from the abandonment by Denise — but all that notwithstanding, I’m still here. And I live in a beautiful house with my beautiful children, we have our pets and our health (sort of), and I run my own business now.

So I’m doing better than I could be. So there’s that.

So here’s where things stand.

An Invitation to Meet

I emailed Kevin again on September 28 and asked to follow up on these issues. I noted that — even though I’d made the suggestion — there was still no Code of Ethics posted anywhere on the ministry’s website (best practice for nonprofits strongly suggests developing a Code of Ethics, sharing it, and…you know…abiding by it). I requested the IRS Form 990 which all 501(c)3 nonprofits are required to make publicly available for inspection and copying if someone requests it. I also requested contact info for the ministry’s lawyer.

An entire week went by before I received a reply that simply told me the board would like to respond to me via letter. Fine. I sent my mailing address and another week went by. Then I received a letter from David George, of Grace Resources (who is also on the board). While patronizingly telling me that they have made every attempt to take my concerns seriously, he invited me to attend their next board meeting on November 10 so that they could all hear from me in person.

By the way, Dave George’s wife, Gail, attended many prayer ministry sessions of mine, of which many were held at her home in Brentwood. Although Dave was not in the room with us, he was sometimes home during those sessions and I would see him while taking a bathroom break. I am not a stranger to him either, nor to his wife.

Despite the fact that I laid everything out very thoroughly and clearly in my emails, along with the written documentation, I am willing to go speak at their board meeting and tell them exactly the same things. At least it’s going to be a lot more difficult to dismiss someone directly to their face — although Christians are one group of people who are particularly skilled at this very thing.

(And by the way, that is one thing I’ve noticed about Christians: that it’s all too easy to dismiss questions and attempts at constructive criticism as “being persecuted,” which they take to mean that they’re actually right and shouldn’t change anything at all. It’s a strange sort of echo chamber where evidence that they might be wrong is interpreted as evidence that they are absolutely not wrong. But I digress.)

I responded to his letter via email and once again requested the Form 990 as well as contact info for the ministry’s lawyer. This time the reply was much colder. He informed me that at this time they were still choosing to view me as a friend, not an adversary, and that they do not provide the Form 990 to people who intend it for improper use, and that they would be happy to provide a copy after I have addressed the board (on November 10).

I’ve been blocked by Denise, Ginger, and Erika. But they still choose to view me as a friend.

Okay? Apparently nonprofits work in mysterious ways.

He also told me that they only furnish their legal counsel’s information when legal situations are implied. In other words, no one on the board or within this ministry is taking this situation seriously at all.

Fair enough.

Protecting Their Own

All I have to say about that is that either he doesn’t know the law in Tennessee, or he’s bluffing because he thinks I don’t. Their “policy” is illegal. Nonprofits are required to provide Form 990 within 30 days of the first request, either on paper or electronically, unless the nonprofit applies for an exemption due to the request being made as part of a harassment campaign, indicated by being flooded with so many requests for the form that it would use up all of their time trying to fulfill them. They have 10 days from the first request to apply for this exemption. In my case, their time was up days ago. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter why someone is asking for it. The nonprofit is required by law to provide it within 30 days, and they are subject to a financial penalty per day for every day that they fail to do so. My first request was made on Sept 28. (I have the nonprofit complaint form, addressed to the IRS, ready to send. Their 30 days is up on October 28.)

Funny how people in this nonprofit are super concerned with the law, but only when it suits them. They are very concerned about following the law when I’m suicidal or when my child might be unsafe. But not so much, when it comes to complying with the law in regard to the business side of their ministry.

My husband and I looked into seeking legal counsel for this clusterfuck of a situation. However, I don’t know that we will pursue anything at this time.

The discarded spiritual mother-daughter relationship was manipulative and spiritually abusive, and it sucks, but it’s probably not a lawsuit. The negligence of having the knowledge that someone is being trafficked and in danger — not just in general but possibly also by local law enforcement — and doing nothing about it when one supposedly has a higher moral calling and alternate resources, as much as that sucks, probably isn’t either. Going against the stated mission of their nonprofit, acting immorally and unethically, as much as that sucks, probably isn’t either.

I am not expecting anyone to consider this a legitimate legal case, and honestly, it’s probably not worth the trouble (or the expense). (If I’m wrong, email me.)

So the main reason I am sharing this is because I want people to know that this happened to me and that it’s not right.

And honestly, as sad and messed up as it is, it’s not even that uncommon.

No Place to Go Except Forward

I have a lot of healing to do — emotionally AND physically — and not a whole lot of resources with which to do it. I do want to make it very clear that I am safe now. But I have a lot of needs that I am trying to meet now, in order to gain back some semblance of health. And reaching out to Transformation Ministries about what happened has only created a new layer of wounds.

This could have gone a very different direction.

Believe it or not, I’m actually not telling this story because I’m mad. I AM mad, but that’s not WHY I’m telling it. I’m telling it because people should be held accountable for their actions, particularly when they cause this much damage and refuse to even have a conversation about it.

I am so completely done being invalidated and dismissed and silenced. I’m done with the hypocrisy, I’m done with the two-faced Christian habit of acting like you love people — but only until it gets hard.

I don’t necessarily want to see their ministry shut down. If they’d have some humility and empathy, and take my case seriously and make some changes so that they don’t continue hurting vulnerable people, I would drop all of it and we can all go our separate ways. Believe me, this hasn’t been fun for me. I was bringing these things up to help them, and help people that have been or will be negatively affected by them like I was. But my input has never been welcomed or taken seriously at any point. So here we are.

ALL THEY WOULD HAVE NEEDED TO DO IS LISTEN TO ME. AT ANY POINT.

I am not above calling a news reporter and asking them if they want to hear my story. Regardless of how this goes, even if we don’t pursue any legal action, the court of public opinion can be very quick and very intense. I don’t want that. I haven’t wanted to do any of this. But I’m worth being heard. I’m worth being listened to. What happened to me matters. And it wasn’t right.

Take note: this is the length I’m willing to go to, to be heard.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.