If I'm honest, the church's teaching on abstinence and self-control felt like liberation to me.

With my background of sexual assault, experiences with abuse, and the disconnection between my body and my heart, I appreciated the freedom I found in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul encouraged monogamy and instructed men how to serve, love and revere women. In my heart, I hoped to discover there were men in the world who wanted to live this way. (I found some, and married one!) Paul often speaks to the connections between us, the importance of relationships, the power of honoring each other. Paul mentions, empowers and encourages women with vigor. To this day, when I picture Phoebe carrying the letter to the Christian church in Rome, reading and discussing it with new believers, and church leaders, it makes me feel the Holy Spirit's wind on my back. God is for me, I'd think. I didn't feel like God, or Paul, or clergy leaders telling me to shut up in church. In fact, I felt freedom to push past the silence of my shame to use my voice, little by little.

What I didn't realize, is the size of the boulders on the backs of those who grew up in a religion that used God to control bodies, decisions and desire.

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