“And on the third day she rose from the dead.”  Today I feel alive and born anew into my True Self!

It has been three days since I emptied out my anger at “the church” and forgave myself for the past. If you remember, I challenged myself to a retreat with the goal of letting go of all the anger I had stored up over the last twenty years since my encounter with Rev. Barry Baily. It’s about time I let go –right?

Some surprises have come from the retreat.  First, I died to my False Self.  Today right now I am clear of it! In this retreat I chose to let my False Self dissolve so that my True Self can stand forth in all its bright glory.

Now that I am out in the light I feel peaceful, relieved and –this is one of the surprises—more confident.  I had planned to get to peace but confidence caught me from behind and settled in me like an old friend- creating a strength that now drives me and writes me. I am out in the open. Free.

Over the next blogs, I will certainly share my thoughts about “the chart” but first I am excited to tell you something wonderful that happened on my first day back at work after the retreat.

OUT OF THE BLUE, a woman contacted me and let me know she had been reading my blog and had something to share with me. I returned her phone call.  She told me that I was her “Rosa Parks”!! I asked her to explain.  She said that she had followed my law suit against the church during the early nineties.  She had been impacted by my braveness.  But better yet, she had benefitted from my stand!  She told me her story.  Several years after my stand against the church, she had been approached in a sexual way by a minister with whom she worked.  Upon remembering my courage, she had the strength to confront him and express her dislike for his sexual harassment! My life had made a difference to her!  She had learned from my experience.

You may think I should have known this; however, you must remember when I stood up against the church, we were not hailed as heroines but were brutally accosted by the church members as doing something wrong.  We were met with hate letters, threatened car bombings, and public displays of ugliness.  So this woman’s call was such a lovely way to validate my retreat and the letting go of my anger.  My anger is gone!

A new confidence currently emerging from within me will write much more soon. I have rolled back the stones and I am out of the tomb of darkness I had been living in for so long.  Hooray!