Letter to My Children (June 23, 2017)
I love you all so much. You know that. I call and leave messages on your phones that you do not answer even once. I text (or try to if I am unblocked in a random display of control I guess). I come down and knock on your doors, every other month or so. Leaving messages in chalk on your sidewalks, or written in the dew on your car windows. Sometimes I leave little presents there for you. You are my children. I raised you, loved you, cried over you, laughed with you, read Calvin & Hobbs with you, quoted poems together, memorized Psalm 23 together, decorated your rooms, taught you to make a good pie, debated hot topics with you, talked dad into hunting lessons and a 4wheeler and Nintendo games, insisted on music lessons, paid for your schooling, paid for your upbringing, took you on vacations, invited all your various friends to come stay with us, took you skiing, took you to swimming and flight classes, taught you to drive, taught you how to treat others with kindness, respect authority, honor your father and honor pastors, love one another and care for your family first, work hard, study, dress nicely, have fun adventures, make lifelong friends and keep them close, and on and on....
Jonathan, you told me when you and your dad carried out Pastor's orders to put me away on Christmas Day, that I was a 'great mom.' Your words. Ok. So listen now to your great mom. You are doing a bad thing. You are believing lies and committing wicked deeds against your mother and father and extended family members. Please stop son. You have been hoodwinked. By men who look good, smell good and sound good. But they are not good. Their words sound fine. Christian sermons that other pastors would even nod their heads yes to, but this separation of parents and children, and husbands and wives and even more heinous things being done to people is ungodly. It is a reproach to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I know it's hard to accept that you have been tricked and lied to by the pastors. But no matter what, pursue the truth. Come and spend a whole day and let me tell you everything that's happened in the past five years. You have no idea what is going on. Just like I did not. Back then, people were afraid to talk. But they are not afraid to talk anymore. People are speaking up about what was done to them. Through these letters to you children, many more have found comfort and courage to share their own story of abuse at the hands of the pastors of Calvary Temple.
We will be together soon, all of us. I think, by now, Pastor Scott must be getting pretty tired of being a despised bad guy, down there. I hope he and Greer will repent and do what is right, and send my children home to me so I can hold them in my arms again. Laugh again. Stop writing letters for the whole world to read, and just say all that's in my heart to my children face to face. The way we used to. It's time to come home.
Love you so very much.
God bless you children,
Mom
