Christmas Day, 2024.

Today is the culmination of many events, memories, experiences. It is Christmas Day and I sit here and feel like I have gotten beaten up, but it is my own body that is under stress. I have a fat lip, swollen gums, dental pain, sinus pain. I feel like my whole face is on fire. It is the cumulative stress of the last 24 hours. My body is releasing the memory of the terror in the only way that it knows how to do.

Likewise, I’m doing the best that I can now to help my physical body eliminate the stress. I know that it wants to… every cell wants to… but there are also parts who want to hold on and retaliate.

Even though I am here in the room alone, I still feel like others are watching and I can’t fully express. But I want to. Eventually I cry and it is beautiful. It is excruciating at the same time. In the midst of the sobs, I see the vision of the memory. I call out.

True Jesus Christ, do you have me? Can you protect me?

I am vulnerable and crying about what happened in the past. New experiences recently sparked old ones and the trauma and pain that came with them.

Sometimes I believe that I actually went through the things that my memories are showing me and sometimes I don’t. Yet, here I am… wailing internally, whimpering on the outside.

Lord, do you have me? Will you protect me as I start down this journey?

I hear the True Family say a resounding Yes!

So I go deeper into the crying. I feel like I am mourning, really grieving for things that happened long ago…
– – – – – – – – –

What is bringing all this up was what happened at a public gathering I was at recently. It was a prayer meeting. I suddenly became very uncomfortable. I felt like I was gonna crawl out of my skin when the memory came. But I didn’t want others to know that there was anything going on.

I heard a collective voice inside (that was not the True Family) say:

We must save face. We must maintain the illusion that we have it “all together.” We must maintain the impression that we’re having a good time and that what is occurring in the moment is nothing, nothing at all. It will go away soon if we simply forget it.

But the memory didn’t go away. It only got stronger.

Everyone else seemed to be getting a lot out of the guided prayer that the stylish young lady at the front of the large living room was walking us through. Smiles on faces, eyes closed, heads tilted back– all seemed to be enjoying the silence and the comradery. Meanwhile, I thought I was going to die. The leader was encouraging us to go into childhood memories, into infancy, and even into our DNA.

No, I don’t want to go there! Not here. Not now!

I looked up just then at a large fan on the high ceiling overhead, hoping that a change of perspective would calm the storm clouds that were accumulating inside of me. Instead, the image of the whirling fan catapulted me straight into a vortex that was a memory long suppressed.

That’s when things got complicated…
— — — — — —

It is 1989 and I am 19 years old. I am in a facility underneath a California mission. It is not completely underground because there are small slat windows with thick dark wood around them high above me where I can see sunlight peeking through.

In the memory, I am in a large shallow pool that extends almost the whole length and width of the rather large room. There is a long raised area between a door that leads to another area and the pool. There are clear windows on either side of the door, deliberately positioned so that others can look in to the pool area without going inside the room. The raised area is tiled in large square patterns of burnt brown.

Someone I know very well is there behind me standing on the raised platform with others. I cannot see him because I am facing the wall but I know he is there. This man has been watching me for a while, in other situations and in other facilities. He may have possibly even been responsible for me coming to this facility.

I am soaking wet. I am being lifted up on a hard board of some kind, face up, after being submerged in water for a while. It is a baptismal pool.

The pool is shallow, maybe 4-5 feet deep. I’m strapped to the board so I don’t have use of my arms and legs. I don’t have any control over my body at all, and I’m being submerged and re-emerged over and over again.

Each time I come up, my blurry vision fixates on the stucco walls, which are off-white and showing signs of mold. There are no pictures on the walls, just the light coming from the window and a ceiling fan spinning around and around.

I don’t know where I am exactly. Maybe it’s somewhere in southern California, possibly LA or San Diego. I know, though, that I am being “baptized and cleansed”. My skin has been scrubbed to the point where there is heavy rashing and bleeding in some parts of my body. They did something to stop the bleeding, thougn, even before I was submerged. I know that they gave me some kind of drug. It was an “energy drug” for “healing,” this I know, although I do not know exactly what that means.

I’m wearing a very thin, bluish-white gown that is sticking to my skin. I might as well be naked. There’s no bleeding now, as the water has also cleansed away what was left. But I still must be cleansed some more. All the “dirt” of where I have been and all the “filth” of what I have done– all must be wiped clean, purified. I must be “made ready” for “what is to come.”

As I lay flat on the board, the spit that emanates from my mouth mixes with the baptismal pool water and runs down my neck in a trickle. I am aware that some in the room think that no amount of cleansing will ever make me fully clean to do the “task.” My heart sinks at the thought of this.

Then, looking up at the thin slat of the window, I feel hope emanating from the blurry outline of sunlight. I’m barely conscious yet I feel a sense of peace and hope that is familiar. All pain is gone and I know that the Lord is here, all around. I am with Him and He is with me.

I close my eyes. In the midst of whatever is going on, I do not care. I am with Him. I feel His hope, care, love.

I feel the Holy Spirit around me. I feel like I’m protected. I am at peace and the only disturbance is the frequency of the thoughts coming from others behind me, especially from that man and from that woman.

There are other people there too– maybe 6 of them? They watch. The thoughts coming from the woman say:

(I know because I hear their thoughts, even in the state that I am in)

“She must be stripped clean, she must be scrubbed clean, she must be cleansed of all unrighteousness.”

There is also resentment in her and in the others that I am there at all. Some feel that I should not be there, defiling this sacred place and this sacred act. They feel that there is no amount of scrubbing, cleaning, dunking, or purifying that would make me “clean enough.” I will always be less than dirt.

I know that some deal was struck or something very valuable was traded prior for me to be there. Something was also wanted bad enough by someone and others may have been threatened enough beforehand so that there was, eventually, acquiescence.

There is something that I’m being prepared to do. Still, I will always be filth to them.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – 

The images of the memory fade away as quickly as they came, but not the visceral reactions to them.

Back at the prayer meeting, the audio that had been playing of a man speaking the words of Psalm 34 to soft music eventually came to an end too and people in the prayer meeting began to discuss. I saw women talking, smiling, laughing but I could not really hear what they said. I guess I was still in a state of suspension between realities where the peace of the Lord and the terror of the torture existed at the same exact time.

Then a panic set in. I recognized its particular flavor. It was the kinetic frenzy that could potentially lead to running.
I knew right then that if I dissociated completely, there would be a part that would take over who would cause me to walk out the door of the event, walk down the street to the main highway, hitchhike out of there. Or find a vacant field and get lost in it.

This is something that I’ve done before so I knew that I was capable of it. I heard the collective voice say again:

Don’t create a stir. Just stay put. Do not move until it’s time to escape…

Every cell was vibrating, calling out, reaching out for escape, escape, escape!

Then the grace of the Lord and His perfect timing intervened. It was time to form breakout groups of two or three to talk about the experiences everybody had had during the payer meditation. In an instant, everyone in the room was in motion. People gathered as instructed. Some meandered over to the snack area. Others formed a line for the bathroom.

I was left alone, wanting to flee, not wanting to flee. Wanting to “do the right thing” and also not giving a flying fuck about doing the right thing, but just wanting to run, run, run. My mind was spinning and I was having a hard time breathing.

Lord, please help me. I do not know what to do. Please show me…

Just then I saw a familiar face across the room. It was a woman I knew from before who was gentle and kind. The Lord outlined her form in a halo of bluish white light.

This one.

I knew the voice was the Lord’s. The soft cadence, the gentle nudging, the kindness, and love as vast as it is deep. All for me and only me in that moment right then, right there.

And I knew, as I was reassured by the tender voice of the True Family of God (Abba, Ruak, Yeshua), that this one would not shrink back if I dared to share the story of what just occurred.

This one will not persecute me.

This one will not lie to my face, give me a fake smile, and wish she had never invited me to talk.

This one, even though she was small in frame and had a gentleness that was almost frail, would be strong enough to endure the telling of the torture I endured.

Go to this one and break the pattern to flee.

Cut the ties to the cunning one who plans and schemes and always finds a way to get you to run.

Run away from what? And run away to whom? I never know…

In the dozen or so times that I remember actually running, it was always a fuzzy, frenzied affair. Later, I just remember the general circumstances, never the specifics:

-I had an interaction with someone, usually a boyfriend or lover, and something had set me off.

-I perceived it all as the most horrific kind of threat and I have no choice.

-I must get out of there! I must run! Within 24 hours, I was gone.

Run! Something always says inside.

And so I have, over and over throughout my life, each time with the strength and stamina of a thousand lions. Each time with no plan, no destination, just propelled by the frenetic energy of flight or flight.

But not that night. That night, despite the shaking I felt inside and the cold that was penetrating me to the bone, I managed to smile back at the kind woman .

I gave her a little nod. Then I got up and, with wobbly knees, I walked acrossed that large room to take her warm hand.

(c) 2025 written by JT