“Strongholds of Satan” is one of those phrases that carries weight in certain Christian circles. It sounds serious, urgent and spiritually mature. Many of us grew up hearing it used to explain everything from anxiety to doubt to relational conflict. The message was clear: if you were struggling, Satan had gained ground in your life. If you felt tempted, fear, sadness or overwhelm, you were under spiritual attack. If you questioned authority, you were opening a door to the enemy.

It is a compelling framework, especially for communities that value certainty and clear answers. But it doesn’t line up with the context of Paul’s argument, at least not in the way it was often taught.

Nat King Cole’s “Smile” is one of those songs that drifts in like a warm memory. You hear it in an old movie or streaming on a playlist while stirring something familiar on the stove, and it wraps around you with a kind of gentle nostalgia. The lyrics encourage you to smile through ache, fear and sorrow - a message meant to soothe, not aggravate. But when you sit with the words, you notice something else: a quiet pressure to mask pain, hide sadness and push through emotional distress with a pleasant expression. The promise is simple and seductive - if you smile, tomorrow will be better.

This is going to sound opposite of what you’ve likely believed, but in evangelical spaces, children were never centered; the adults were.

Dating someone who survived a high‑demand religious group is its own kind of learning curve. Survivors carry patterns shaped by fear, obedience and years of being told who they should be. Partners often sense something is different but don’t have language for it.

When I wrote The Forgiveness Gothard Taught and the Control It Created, I knew I didn’t want to stop at just naming the harm. Readers deserve more than a mere critique. Survivors, or those hurting, deserve a path forward that doesn’t retraumatize us or place the weight of reconciliation on the people who were harmed.

This is the follow‑up. Not a shout into the void, but a reframing. A different way to understand what healing can look like when we step outside the systems that taught us forgiveness was our responsibility alone.

Forgiveness is supposed to be a meaningful, human practice. In Bill Gothard’s world, it became a rule. A requirement. A tool used to keep people compliant and quiet. For those of us shaped by IBLP and ATI, forgiveness wasn’t an invitation to healing. It was an expectation, and usually aimed at the person with the least power.

One friend broke the news. Another friend told me.

There’s a man in a hospital today. He’s in a coma after a heart attack. The sad thing is, this man is the cause of immeasurable harm done in the name of truth. In the name of Jesus. Some of that harm landed in my own life, rippling into every corner of my family, relationships and personal well-being.

I did not grow up thinking of fear as fear. I grew up thinking of it as wisdom, as seriousness, as spiritual maturity. I thought fear was just being scared of something. In the fundamental, evangelical world of my childhood, graphic martyr stories, rapture warnings and fear-based tracts were not treated as unusual or extreme; they were simply part of the formation process. What I absorbed, long before I had language for it, was that terror could be instructional and that holy people were expected to submit to it.

Some harm in religious life arrives quietly. It can look like being tucked neatly into a pew but never truly seen. It can look like not being chosen for the Christmas pageant, being treated as a prospect for bus ministry rather than a child who belongs, or realizing in Sunday School that your loneliness is normal only because no one has made room for you. These are not always the kinds of memories that seem dramatic from the outside.

When you’ve been through trauma, received life‑altering news or found yourself in a season of crisis, it’s natural to reach for help. It’s one of the most human things we do. When life becomes unsteady, we look for something steady to hold onto. We seek support.

In those moments, calm can feel like safety. Confidence can feel like wisdom. A person or community that speaks the language of healing can feel like an answer to prayer. When someone says, “We’re here to protect you,” or “We understand what you’re going through,” your body may relax before your mind has time to catch up. Finally, you think. Someone understands. Someone sees me. Someone can help.

Christian leaders often talk about spiritual formation, discipleship and character. We talk about calling and gifting. We talk about doctrine and mission. But we rarely talk about the one thing Jesus consistently prioritized in his ministry: healing. Not just physical healing but emotional, relational and communal restoration. Jesus never treated human suffering as a distraction from his message. Healing was the message.

For years, many of us have heard the phrase “church family” used as if it were a biblical mandate. As if belonging to a congregation automatically creates the same obligations, intimacy and authority structures as a literal family. It is familiar language, often well-intended, but it carries weight. And for people who have experienced spiritual abuse, boundary violations or unhealthy church dynamics, that weight can be crushing.

I’m going to start with a statement many people won’t like, but research and lived experience both confirm it.

The majority of the wounds, abuses or violations women experience are at the hands of men.

According to the World Health Organization, about 1 in 3 women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, most often at the hands of a male partner. In the United States, nearly 1 in 2 women report experiencing intimate partner violence at some point, according to Break the Cycle’s Domestic Violence Statistics.

These numbers are staggering, and they show up in the stories women carry in their bodies.

So it’s no wonder that as you begin to heal, deconstruct systems and find your footing again, you may develop a deep aversion to what harmed you.