Deliver Me From Them: Jesus, I Need Help!

"Well of course, Daddy, I’m all settled in just fine," I say into the Trimline telephone, counting the eon-long seconds like I’m sitting through one of his drawn-out July sermons, bless him. "No, everything’s been alright, thank the Lord. The staff are... helpful. Nothin’ over the top, just a sweet spirit all around. No need to worry."

I trail off as I notice her.

The girl with the flowers in her hair.

The counselors say we’ve got to look each other in the eye when we talk. I try my very best to not look at her at all. But today, she looks Edenic.

My stomach jumps at the thought that she could catch my gaze. She smelled like honey and citrus when I sat next to her for breakfast this morning. I didn't dare come closer, but oh, how I wanted to. Now, her eyes shimmer a joy I've long left behind. Pulling me deeper, in the lazy afternoon light, her hair glows auburn, a defiant flame with brushed gold.

I wish I could braid it for her.

My lip bleeds from my biting into it too hard. Snap out of it, I think. I try to use Jesus' name to come deliver me from these demons. Daddy says his name is mighty to save. But nothing comes. No deliverance. No saving. Just an ache in my chest and the cold shower of burning shame.

Maybe I'm too far gone, and He can't listen to my pleas anymore. Maybe the devil really did crawl inside me, like Pastor Myers said. Thanks to him, I came here to walk in God's truth. Pastor Myers had caught whiff of my sin miles away. He's the only adult who paid enough attention to notice my lingering gaze that never landed on boys. Maybe my kind of rottenness must be abandoned by the King of the universe.

But shouldn't He be mightier than my sin?

A gust of wind spins my ankle-length skirt for a seductive tango. I know it's the Holy Spirit warning me. I'm grateful I wasn't struck by lightning. Before I can reassure myself that lightning couldn’t strike me indoors, I push that sinful thought away.

He can do all things.

Like bring this conversation to an end.

"Yes, I'm right here. But wouldn’t you know it, Dr. Bailey’s signaling for me to start my session. I’ve gotta go now. Please pray for me. I love you with all my heart.”

The clattering phone muddles my thoughts. Dr. Bailey means to help, with his lab coat and thin glasses. But my palms sweat worse than ever when he’s near.

“This kind of noncompliance will not stand. I expect you to be punctual, Sarah Grace.”

My stomach knots. I apologize, biting my lips again. This time, it’s to stop myself from saying Miss Whitaker insisted I call my daddy to address our “emotional strain.” My lip bled real hard when I avoided telling her I love my daddy more than anything, and I’m at this camp to prove it.

If it only weren't for her.

"Stop that," Dr. Bailey says, now in his pillowed-up couch chair.

My teeth unclench and my lips spring free. My eyes dart between the clock and his eyes, willing either of them to move along.

"As I was saying, I need you to tell me about... your slip up today."

I shrink even further into the cushions. Of course he knew I was looking. I don't know how, but he always knows.

I want to object. But I nod and analyze the tissue box in front of me.

He leans forward.

"Do you remember what we talked about last time? About disordered affections?"

I swallow. He presses.

"Do you remember what God says about the heart?"

I recite what Daddy, Pastor Myers, and Dr. Bailey always say: "The heart is deceitful above all things."

"That's right. The world wants you to think your feelings are good and true. But we know better. Only God is perfect, and He knows of your perversions."

Shame hits again. But my mind wanders. I find her in the afternoon meadow where she still stands with the flowers in her hair.

In my world, I dance with her. Hold her tight. Introduce her proudly to my daddy.

But my daddy would fall to his knees and sob. God would turn His face away. Wouldn’t He?

Dr. Bailey sits beside me. No projector. I’m grateful he won't be showing videos of couples having sex this time.

"You're not broken beyond repair. But you are at war. Not only with your sinful desires, but with the Enemy."

The room sways. Deep terror guts my core.

"Desire is a choice, Sarah Grace. And we must choose Christ."

A single tear shakes its way from my eye.

"I am not my feelings. I belong to Christ," I chant, shivering.

He smiles. "Again, louder."

"I am not my feelings. I belong to Christ."

"Good girl," he says. "Now, I need you to write your confession letter. I expect you to do it with Pastor Myers and be an obedient Christ follower. May you be blessed."

On my way, I think about her.

By the time I arrived at camp, the girl with the flowers had already been assigned a silence accountability partner. They called it a "non-verbal fast." 48 hours. Only speaking to her counselors.

But still, she spoke in glances. Swaying lashes that stared at me for a second too long. She would leave daisies pressed into my devotional, or slide notes into my hymnbook.

I've never been around someone who shared my feelings.

The camp counsellors should've known she'd bring more trouble. I’ve heard she’s done nothing but that since she got here. So the night of her group session, we sat in a circle. She stood and opened pandora's box from her paper.

"I dreamt of her lips. I imagined the feel of her wrist against mine. I didn't want God to stop me."

She spoke of her sexual sin with defiance, like she wasn't demon-possesed. No one breathed, waiting for her repentance, but asking for forgiveness was not her style. To drag the point home, she ripped the page of Leviticus 18:22 into as many pieces as she could, before she was dragged away like a criminal.

Was she confessing about me?

Sunshine filled my soul that rainy afternoon.

The next morning, her name was wiped from the prayer board. I was new and never had the chance to learn it.

When I make it to Pastor Myers' office, she is sitting across from him. The room is choking with a darkness so thick that I'm afraid of the demonic energy that lies in there. Praying hard, I hold steady, and listen closely from behind the doorframe.

"Ha! I would never!"

"This is not optional. Your parents—"

"Think I'm already dead! There is no purpose to this exercise, Caleb."

Thick silence, then, "Behave," Pastor Myers growls at her disrespect.

Her bitter laugh.

"If I could, I wouldn't be here, would I?"

"We will hold your mock funeral for your sinful self, and this will symbolize the death of your past, deranged identity. There will be no discussion."

"Will the dress-code require me to dress as dreadfully domestic as your wife, or will I have the option to keep any sense of self?"

That lit the fuse.

"YOUR SELF BELONGS TO THE LORD!"

"HE DOESN'T WANT ME!"

Her arms brush my side as she flies out the door. My heart skips a beat. A warm shiver floods me.

Her eyes are green.

I step into the office, hoping I'm perceived as innocent as a lamb.

Soon enough, Pastor Myers watches me write the words he wanted:

My body deceives me.

My feelings are not real.

I choose holy heterosexuality.

But my spine locks up. The pen stops. His hand is over mine, and the warmth feels like hellfire. I don’t move. I can’t. This is the man baptized me.

"You are so pure, Sarah Grace. You were chosen for this."

His words feel like a slap, so I flinch, but he continues.

“Don’t be afraid of love redeemed in righteousness. You were made to reflect His light. Don't fear His plan. This is how He wishes to use you.”

This cannot be from God, I say to myself. This isn't right. This is my Daddy's oldest friend but he is wrong.

Before he could touch me further, the door opens.

Counselor Faith. Not my Savior, but a savior nonetheless. I wait for safety, but she just smiles.

Throughout the days, I ponder why she didn't scream. She didn't report. Why she said “God told me it would be you.”

She finds me after Chapel and informs me of evil itself.

“You’re going to begin your Heterosexual Alignment Trial soon. It’s a sacred, ongoing ritual to practice holy matrimony. With Pastor Myers. I know it feels strange at first, but... it’s the only way he could heal me. He’s anointed to do this work.”

Counselor Faith's eyes glaze over, like a child's in my daddy's congregation during a tear-soaked sermon.

For the first time, I know for certain that this is not the Holy Spirit.

In my heart, I forgive her.

I'm late to go back to my dorms. The moonlight illuminates this dark day.

I find her.

The girl with the flowers.

She is kneeling by the dorm steps. Moonlight glows around her. I see her praying, crying.

We don’t speak for a long time. I kneel too. Our knees touch.

She presses a folded piece of paper into my hand.

My name is Ruth.

"I love God," I whisper. "And I love my daddy. I want to be good. I want to be holy."

"So do I," she says.

I think of the way everyone here has made me feel. The dread, the cold, the electric fear, the knots in my stomach. And I think of her, of Ruth, and I know whatever this warmth means, I must follow it.

"But I also want you."

Her breath catches. Her hand covers mine and it feels the kind of holy Pastor Myers thought he was giving me. Ruth echoes my thoughts.

"This isn't working. I feel like a slave or an object. I am certain this isn't right. They keep trying to cleanse us, but every attept makes me feel dirtier than the next!"

Her forehead presses to mine. I sob softly.

"I have to run away. I'm leaving. But I can't ask you to come with me. Just know that I'll be thinking of you," she says.

I think to the time my Daddy said that I was named after God's grace... how that gives me a personal wisdom on its power. And I think of this desire to love and cherish another, and I feel sure in my heart that if being gay was a sin, it wouldn't feel like grace. How can the heart be deceitful, if from it, we pour out our love?

A tug at my heart brings forth a Bible verse.

"Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from following you," I quote. "Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God."

Stars dance in her eyes. "Ruth 1:16."

She kisses my lips once. I taste honey and hope.

Finally, I do not pray to be changed.

I pray to be delivered from them.

The next morning, we run, hand in hand, through the meadow.

We slip through the trees at dawn, certain that anywhere is better, as long as we're together.

And I feel free.

Even if they chase us.

Even if the world burns.

We chose each other. And that makes us holy.

Not broken.

And we'll never be.

Ever again.

If holiness means truth, then we’re more sacred now than we’ve ever been.

Author's Note: let's not forget what our community had to endure, and still do, in toxic religious settings. This is dedicated to all the queer people out there who are struggling reconciling their religion and their faith. While I decided to let go of mine, that doesn't mean you must too.

You can choose both 🌈