My Story: Youth Group, Part 1
As I was preparing to write this section, I decided to see if I could find pictures from that time, and I did, and my heart burst open. I loved those friends. I still love those friends. I have precious memories with all of them, but we were also in such a vulnerable and dangerous place growing up in the cult. Some of us are out and still friends even now, and others, still trapped. I set one of our “iconic” photos from a youth group beach trip up in my office by my computer. When I write about these things, I can see their faces. I can do this for them.
I have been trying to remember how old I had to be to start going to girls’ youth group, but then I realized, my friends and I were the first ones to have youth group, and then I realized, I couldn’t remember when it actually started, just that we started when I was around 11 or 12, and that was when more and more dramatic things started happening in our lives in the context of the cult. We didn’t mix boys and girls as “youth” until a lot later.
As I was digging through a box full of old memories looking for photos, I came across a notebook where I’d written an essay, that I am pretty sure I read aloud in youth group, titled “How I Would Like to See My Life Change as a Result of this Study,” dated, 6/2000. We were studying Proverbs. I can tell my writing was a little stilted, a little afraid, and saying a lot of “christian-ese.” I also remember I was earnest, but being led into a legalistic path of introspection and an attempt at a kind of self-sanctification. In particular, I noticed this sentence, “The only way I can be used of Him is if my priorities change to be more submissive to the authority in my life.” There it is. That’s the big, dangerous part.
I also wrote, “Up until now, my priorities have been violin, myself, and worldly things.” I really have no idea what worldly things I was talking about, but we used that term a lot to cover a whole spectrum of bases, like immodest dresses, doing drugs, too much drums in a worship song or glitter body lotion.
I know we also read the book, Beautiful Girlhood, and I devoured it and any book that claimed it was telling me how to be a godly young woman, including I Kissed Dating Goodbye. At that time, it was “bad” to like boys and at one point we weren’t even allowed to talk to boys at church.
Purity culture was alive and well. When I use these words, it is not with bitterness or a hatred for biblical purity, but these ideas were given to us girls in a way that primed us for unhealthy relationships and expectations later in life. Certainly, at 12 years old, I had no business dating, but I also did take on a lot of burdens that were not mine to carry at that age, and one of the worst ones that affected me deeply was a teaching we received on Bathsheba. We were told that it was Bathsheba’s fault that David sinned, and not to be like her, not put ourselves into a situation where we would cause a man to stumble. I internalized that idea deeply, and it did damage, and I was always a little scared that I could be unknowingly be a Bathsheba, even to the point that I would double check that I had really closed the blinds tightly enough in my room when I was changing.
We constantly learned about modesty. Boys and men’s lust was our fault and we had to always be thinking of ways we could be tempting them, which actually sexualized our young minds far too early. I remember my mom took me shopping and I got some new shirts from the juniors’ section at JCPenny (oh so cool!). I was so excited to wear them and I wore one to girls’ youth group. Because I was in a room of just girls, I was not careful with my looser fitting neckline, and I will never forget our youth leader angrily calling me out, “Sarabeth, if I see down your shirt one more time…” And then she told me I couldn’t wear that shirt any more. I was so ashamed, but I also felt the sting of injustice and stood up a little bit on the inside. My mom altered the shirts for me and then they looked weird. And I started sewing extra fabric into the neckline of shirts or wearing tank tops under everything.
Because we lived near the beach, each year, finding an acceptable bathing suit had its own special turmoil. At the beach, we had all kinds of rules like, “you are allowed to wear your bathing suit without shorts over it in the water, but once you get out, you must immediately put shorts back on.” I was always afraid of getting into trouble or tempting someone, so I wore shorts most of the time, even in the water. I remember the summer in the early 2000s when board shorts had become very popular and one of the moms wanted them banned because they were a slippery slope towards bikinis.
I’ve told this story many times because of the profound impact that it had on me, and so I think it should be told here, too. My mom and I were called to the back of the church, and met by my youth leaders and several pastor’s wives. They told me that someone (they never said who it was) told leadership that a few days before, at our homeschool “cooking club” I had been seen “dancing sensually” in the yard while all of us kids were outside playing. Mind you, I was still young enough to want to go run and play outside with my friends and play games like “red rover” and freeze tag. I didn’t know what it meant to dance in that way and had no real idea what they were talking about. I started crying because I didn’t know much about the topic, but I had been told so much to be modest and good, that this accusation felt like the worst thing I could have been accused of doing. I said I didn’t do it and defended myself, and one of the pastor’s wives said, “You can’t know the depths of the wickedness of your own heart.” No one, but my mom, would listen to me or believe me and I was just distraught and in tears. Even though my mom believed me, it didn’t matter. Leadership had spoken.
The next night, at girls’ youth group, I was forced to confess my sin to everyone. There was a moment I remember feeling a little fire inside, something that briefly considered, just for a moment, saying, “No, you can’t make me tell something I didn’t do.” But I did it anyway, and I can still remember the feeling so well, of just succumbing and giving up to the narrative of the cult and the leaders in it because I felt helpless and trapped. I confessed my “sin” and I lost even more of my ability to think and stand up for myself that night.
I remember once having to ask permission from the pastor’s wives if I could wear my new Easter outfit one year. It was when it was popular to have skirts at just below the knee, which was a departure from our usual ankle length dresses. I was allowed, but I spent the entire day wondering if I was going to get in trouble for dressing immodestly.
As I wrote this part out, it seems like a weird dream, and I kind of wonder, did this really happen? Was that really my life, and was that the level of scrutiny I was under from childhood? It was. It actually makes me really sad to see the level of anxiety I developed because of these rules, but what is even sadder is that as I grew up and my anxiety began to be more noticeable, the leaders would condemn me and tell me that I was sinning, and to, “be anxious for nothing…” Just stop being anxious. My anxiety was a sin, even though I now see that my pastor, John, with his PhD is psychology, knew exactly the effect this all was having on me.
I’ve run out of time for this installment, and will continue telling the story of the “youth” of the cult next time! Thanks for coming along as I attempt to write everything down. I already know I need to go back and write more about elementary school years, so this is definitely weaving in and out of time.
Keep it coming, my friend. And take care of yourself in the meantime 🫶🏻