My First Love Was Forbidden
And that really messed me up.
When I graduated high school in the year 2000, I wasn’t ready to go to college. Instead, I spent my gap year in a ministry internship that wound up being a cult.
The dubious internship was run by the now defunct Teen Mania Ministries, and they had a lot of rules for the interns to live by. Some of the more infamous rules included a prohibition on dating during your first year, no secular music, and no R-rated movies.
The reasoning behind their rules was that we should devote a year of our lives to God. No dating or distractions. We were supposed to focus on "eternal things."
It’s hard to explain what exactly made me think, “Sign me up for that!” I decided I wanted to go to the internship back when I was fourteen because their marketing strategy worked on me. Interns traveled to Acquire the Fire Christian youth conventions to tell us how much the internship had changed their lives and how much they were changing the world.
Back then, I had undiagnosed BPD. I wanted to change the world too. I wanted the direction those interns all seemed to share. It felt like the internship was my destiny.
Before the internship began, I became convinced that I would meet my future husband during the program. Although we weren’t allowed to…
