Framed As Sin: A Future Delegitimized

“There’s no such thing as a Christian Psychologist.”

That was what the campus matriarch told me after I had excitedly raised my hand on the first day of Christian Counseling class and expressed my desire to become just that.

I was 18—one semester away from graduating from Free Gospel Bible Institute—and I fully intended to be enrolled in a psychology program at Houghton College by fall of that year. I was thrilled to be taking this particular class because I thought it was going to give me a chance to dip my toes in the water of a subject I cared deeply about.

When she asked the class for a show of hands for those who were interested in the field, I imagined she was preparing to be supportive. In hindsight I realize this was a bait and switch—elicit enthusiasm for psychology, then deliver the blow. Once psychology is framed as “bad”, introduce “superior” methods.

I was the only one who expressed interest in psychology.

With a sing-song voice and a syrupy-sweet Christian smile, she fixed her eyes on mine—steady, unblinking—long enough for the correction to land, for me to feel myself being put in place, and for the whole classroom to understand.

“You cannot be both a Christian and a psychologist!”

The verdict that day hit like a gut punch.

This was all I wanted to do.

This was where my heart was.

This was a need I was certain of and a vocation that I felt matched who I was as a person.

But suddenly like a freight train out of nowhere—it was fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.

As she carried on with the class, I felt my cheeks flush and hot tears of embarrassment sting my eyes. I felt as though I had committed an egregious blunder, but I wasn’t entirely sure what the “blunder” was. I wrestled with my apparent lack of judgment and a creeping doubt that my own instincts and aspirations could not be trusted. I already knew, at this point, that there was no space for disagreement. If I proceeded to pursue my personal ambitions, it would be considered rebellious. A wave of spiraling anxiety threatened to propel me from the room that day, but I sat there, glued to my chair, until the bell rang.

My hopes of becoming a Christian Psychologist were utterly squashed that day.

When I left that classroom, I left filled with shame—not for recklessness or pride, but for wanting to be properly qualified, credentialed, and equipped to help people.

I left that room believing that the career I felt drawn toward was literal sin.

Looking back, some of the counsel I received from this woman (and several leaders who had been trained by her) should have offered a glimpse of what was happening—but at the time, I was still a child. I was young and naive and had already spent almost 3 years in a culture that trained submission far too rigorously to leave any space for discernment.

Now, standing on the other side of nearly twenty years, I survey that world and all I can see is the carnage. I get the texts and e-mails and the phone calls of people struggling to cope with what they have endured in environments like these and I hear endless stories of trauma, distortions, tragedy, control, manipulation and harm.

I think about the “help” they received.

The sensitive confessions that became blackmail.

The victims that became instant villains.

The predators that were exonerated without investigation.

The flagrant sin that metastasized in the pulpit.

The weak that were crushed.

So many people went to the only place they were allowed to seek help (their leaders) and instead of receiving healing and recovery from healthy feedback, they were plunged into spiraling dysfunction.

Instead of being anchored in God’s Word, His Word was twisted and mangled into further trauma and abuse.

So much hurt and chaos—all in the name of God.

I can’t tell you how many people I have talked to in the last year.

They tell me their story and we cry together.

We look at Scripture together.

We process the lies and anchor in the truth.

My heart beats for that untangling process.

There is nothing more beautiful to me than those precious moments where the Holy Spirit clears away the clutter and Christ is unobscured and the Gospel shines with clarity.

But over and over I realize that I need more training, because when individuals come out of these settings, more often than not, they need more than spiritual encouragement and discipleship. They need someone properly equipped to help them navigate complex trauma—PTSD, moral injury, scrupulosity, debilitating OCD—alongside traumatic exits, displacement, cultural disorientation, loss of education or vocational footing, support system collapse, and the difficult work of starting over. Far too many tend to be the victims of serious crimes which requires the involvement of law enforcement and then guidance through judicial processes.

One of the greatest challenges people face when they leave high-control religious groups, is finding adequate support and I can’t escape the weight of that.

I am painfully cognizant of my limitations in these areas, and I often think back to the moment I was diverted from this path.

I should have been learning how to help people clinically.

Instead, I was enduring the kind of psychological abuse that would take years to recover from. I was being groomed, brainwashed, and controlled in ways I now know were illegal.

By the time I would have held the credentials for that field, I was so beaten down that I believed I belonged to another human being—a pastor—and that I had no earthly right to escape him.

I should have been learning how to lead people out of these things.

Instead, I was living inside them.

But God does not make mistakes. There are years that I will never get back, but I can see His hand in the ones I lived so clearly. Because now I know—more intimately than any textbook could have taught—what it is to live in, and come out of, those environments.

I don’t have any intention anymore of becoming a full-blown psychologist. I’m almost 38. I have babies to raise and a home to care for. My husband has ambitions I want to support. Life looks different now.

But the pull never left.

And I know this: the desire that was shut down at 18 was not the mistake they told me it was. It was wholesome. It was good. It was part of how God shaped me.

All these years later, what was in my heart then is still in my heart now.

God preserved that. His fingerprints are on it—not only in the desire itself, but even in the most painful circumstances—dark places—where not one iota of it has been wasted.

I have grieved for what was lost.

And yet—I wouldn’t undo it.

Because through the suffering, I came to know God in ways I never would have otherwise—His sovereignty, His goodness, His holiness.

If things had gone the way I intended, I might have learned what was necessary to become what I planned—but I would not have seen the deep horrors of pride in the counterfeit, or the beauty of the Gospel as it shattered that world for me.

God orchestrates our steps.

So I walk forward—not by trying to untangle all the whys, but by trusting that God is sovereign over every moment—past, present, and future.

In our home, we have a saying:

If you aren’t sure what God wants you to do, do the thing that is right in front of you.

Because He puts every moment, and every experience, and every circumstance, and every task in front of us.

When I wake up, I take inventory of what’s in front of me and I get to it.

Some days that’s being a mama. Being a wife. Being a friend. Answering an email. Taking a phone call and walking alongside someone as they begin to untangle from harmful teachings.

Some days, it’s taking classes—because I see the need, and I can’t ignore it.

I haven’t said much about it. (I think part of me still tries to protect the girl whose dream was crushed in front of a classroom full of people.)

But the desire is still there.

So here and there, as God and time permit, I’ve been slowly, quietly working toward becoming a licensed therapist—because I want to be adequately equipped to help those coming out of spiritual abuse, cult environments, and coercive control.

I’m not in any hurry.

It will require multiple degrees.

I’m not far along.

It may take years.

I may never finish.

I don’t know.

What I do know is this:

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36)