Flora Jessop had a struggle when she left FLDS, that hopefully no one will have to repeat. She tried many vices and suffered much hurt. After eight years, she came to the realization that it was time to stop running.
A quote from her book.. “After eight brutally hard years in the real world, I’d begun to have a glimmer of hope– maybe I really was worth something. I might be destined to burn for eternity, but I sure as hell was here now. (new paragraph) I’d never give up what those first years on my own taught me. ..I learned that thinking for myself wasn’t such a bad thing after all.” (page 154)
Yes! There was an idea I could identify with. It was “thinking for myself” that had led to my exit from Word of Faith Fellowship. The two thoughts I had in May of 2008- “The people of the church were more afraid of Jane Whaley than God and that is what made us open to being called a cult”. Next, I had been looking up information on “shepherding movement” on the Internet. Though I had heard some about that movement a few years previous, I did not know the particulars. I began to see that much of what went on in that movement was going on at Word of Faith Fellowship. Intentional or not, it was the same in many regards.
Weeks later in June of 2008; I shared my thoughts and doings with one of the church leadership. I knew sparks would fly and the consequences may be severe. So, two hours later I got a call from this person saying “I called Jane and told her about our conversation. She says you are out of the church. You need to get your heart right.” So, there I was kicked out. Turned out to be shakey at first. But, that was the common result for “thinking for myself” and not doing as the church preached- “submit your thoughts to God’s authority”. That was code for only voicing good thoughts about Jane Whaley, her decisions, others in the church. If you had a “stray thought”, you were to come tell someone in leadership so it could be “dealt with”. You were to come “get Truth on the matter”. Critical thinking was not allowed or encouraged. Many times it was insinuated and in some cases voiced- “your own thoughts will take you to hell.. Don’t you know that the natural mind is an enmity against God!” That of course was meant to put fear in everyone for not having their thoughts “checked out”.
Flora Jessop shares in her book the struggles of other children coming out of FLDS and learning to think for themselves. She recounts the struggles of one girl just to decide how to pick up her clothes off the floor in her room. These girls had been told EVERYTHING to do and HOW to do it for years. Simple decisioning was a major struggle. (pages 181 and 213) This is the result of being under mind control and not having any confidence in your decisions without Church leader control.
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