My first memory is of my mother cursing under her breath, angry and irrational as she changed my diaper while we were, of course, at church. She told me later that the frustration was due to the fact that she had to teach too many kids at Sunday school. That glimpse of anger was a precursor of unimaginable things to come.

From that time on, she became extremely physically abusive, as did my father. By ages four and five, I was forced to sit in church as the pastor spewed fire and brimstone. If I giggled or made a noise, I'd get "the strap" when we got home. The strap was a razor strap, a 3 inch wide piece of very thick leather. When my mother did the striking, she'd hit me with the buckle end... but things got worse. She would, upon occasion, drag me through the house by yanking my hair, screaming in a rage that she HATED me. "If I could murder you and not get caught I would." I've never seen anyone express the rage she had. Ever. I know she truly wanted to kill me. Even as a 36 year old this still causes emotional upset.

The clincher was when she stabbed me in my calf with the scissors. I remember that we went to church that night and she and all her churchy lady friends laughed at it! She told them that she meant to slap me and that she forgot she had the scissors. This is a blatant lie! How could anyone NOT know they have scissors in their hands when they go to slap their own child??? And how could the Baptist church ladies have laughed at the whole thing??? It hurt so badly. I was limping and in pain and listening to them basically chastise me for causing my (insane) mother to need to punish me. No matter what happened to me at home, my mother never showed anger or rebellion to anyone at church or to my father.

By the time I was nine, my parents had started going to Alethia Bible church (Bob Thieme Jr, an ex marine corporal started this church in Houston). The deal here was that NO OTHER CHURCH OR RELIGION was the truth and that everyone was going to hell. Women were to wear their skirts below the knee, and you had to listen to bible doctorine tapes every day. You could tell dirty jokes, however, and abortion was OK. I hated that church. Combined with nearly constant abuse from my mother, I tried to commit suicide at age nine by taking four asprin (I thought that was enough to do the job:))I told my parents that I'd rather die than go to church. It didn't work. My soul needed saving and they still forced me to go to church.

By sixth grade she had hit me with baseboard moulding so hard it left bruises, she had slapped my face, and called me every name in the book. I was awakened by her cursing at my father as she banged pots and pans around the kitchen. She hated him nearly as much as she hated me, but being a good christian woman, she never ONCE raised her voice at him. All her rage was directed at me. Violence was a never ending part of my life, and church was still there, telling me to confess every sin. It never, ever made any sense.

By high school I rebelled. I slapped my mother back, told her I hated HER, and started doing drugs. Finally, I didn't have to go to church anymore. I was so relieved.

By the time I went to college, I had given up the drugs and was a straight A student. I took a course in middle eastern history and learned of the Epic of Gilgamesh for the first time. I got really upset that nobody had ever taught it to me before.

I met a jewish man and we got married and eventually divorced, but the important things is that I almost converted to Judiasm. The rabbi was so great. He was the first one that showed me some of the inconsistencies in the Bible and said that it was a very sexist document. I couldn't believe it! Someone talking rationally about the bible! And thus my deconversion began. Another thing that happened was that when my best friend died, I was talking to my sister in law and said "I'll bet her biggest regret is that she misses her son." My sister in law replied, rather snottily, "I'll bet her biggest regret is that she didn't accept Jesus." How's that for compassion?

My parents hold on to the hope that because I believed in Jesus once upon a time that I'm saved from the fiery pit of hell. However, I've confronted them about the fact that my son, their grandson, is not and never will be a christian so he's going to burn in hell, as is my new husband, etc. They just get kind of a blank stare. What can they say?

I am reading a fabulous book called Mythology's Last Gods. It has totally clinched my disbelief in Christianity. It's so hard to talk to my parents and my brother and my sister in law after finding out how inconsistent the bible is and how truly evil Yaweh was.

However, I've realized that for my mother, she has no choice. She has to believe in God or her life would fall apart. How else could she come to grips with the fact that she treated me so terribly. I would probably kill anyone who even attempted to abuse my son. How hard life must be for her to know the pain she's caused me. My life has been a long attempt at getting over the physical and emotional abuse she heaped on me while being the perfect church lady. She can have her God, but she will never have the one thing she wants most in the world, which is for me to be come a Christian.

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