Spiritual Abuse Isn’t God’s Plan
“What if your plan doesn’t work?”
I was asked this question when I was around eighteen, and it haunted me for years. My plans were supposed to work because—I thought—they were based on truth. But the asker of the question knew something I didn’t yet: sometimes our plans don’t work out the way we think they will.
The woman who asked me this question was a stranger I was sitting next to on an airplane. She seemed friendly, the type of woman who likes to make small talk and who perhaps wanted to hear what younger people were up to these days. She was very nice, and she probably thought her initial question about what I wanted to do with my life after graduating from high school would be a polite way to show interest in me.
But I was annoyed. I had tried to look deeply engaged in my Complete Works of Shakespeare so no one would talk to me (I was both introverted and a homeschooler), and it hadn’t worked. This woman was determined to start up a conversation, and I had no way of escaping.
At the time, I was immersed in what I might now term a cult-like group, even though outwardly it looked like a traditional Protestant church. My behavior and beliefs were tightly controlled, and I knew my purpose in life: to live under my father’s oversight until I got married, and then to have as many children as God would give me.
I told the woman on the plane this plan like it was all sketched out in God’s planner. “I’m going to be a wife and mother, so I don’t need a job or a college degree.” This is the way I should go, and if I follow it, then God will bless me.
That’s when she asked me what I would do if the plan didn’t work out. What would I do if I didn’t get married, or if I got married and then got divorced, she asked. What would I do then?
This line of questioning threw me off, though I didn’t show it. I wasn’t supposed to think about the “what if”—I was supposed to trust God’s plan. It would work out because I was following the plan. I didn’t need to think about the alternatives.
Years later, I now laugh a little at my naive, sanctimonious eighteen-year-old self. I was so earnest about following the rules that I failed to question whether the rules were even good ones. It took me a long time to realize that what I was told was God’s plan wasn’t divine at all.
I’ve found life to be a lot more complicated and messy than I once believed. A lot of the time, there isn’t a clear path forward. Daily, I’m faced with many choices that could have various consequences, and they don’t always fall into “bad choice” or “good choice” categories.
It’s probably obvious, but my plan (or rather, the plan that was given to me) to get married as soon as possible and immediately start having children didn’t work out. No God-sent knight-in-shining-armor showed up at my doorstep. I waited a long time for the plan to work, but over time, I realized that my passivity was keeping me from making any plans for myself. I was so busy waiting for someone else’s plan for my life to happen that nothing was happening at all.
There’s that joke about making plans and God laughing, but I don’t think it’s all that funny. Our plans can represent the best of ourselves, our truest ideals and dreams. I have compassion on those who told me this narrative of God’s plan for my life because I can imagine they thought it would be for the best.
After making new plans for myself, I’ve come to value our capacity for change and adaptation. We are beings who can make conscious decisions based on evidence, and then change our thinking when we get more feedback or when we realize our previous plan wasn’t working. When I realized that following a man-made idea of God’s plan for my life was leading to harm and depression, I decided to change my idea of my future.
At first, it felt like I was going against God, but that is how spiritual abuse works—it keeps you under control because you want to be on the right path and the abusers are telling you which path that is, as if they’ve heard directly from God. Eventually, though, I realized the human underpinnings of this control. And I could finally think, This isn’t God’s plan for me at all.
I’ve evolved a lot in how I think about God and whether or not our lives follow a certain predetermined path, but regardless of what you believe about this, I think we can all agree that it’s wise to be critical and question our assumptions about what God wants from us, to be aware that some people like to play God or act like they can hear God better than we can.
It’s always good to assess our decisions and plans, and to be flexible enough to change them when they aren’t working out for good. It’s healthy to be open to possibilities and to be willing to change our plans.
I think the reason I still remember that conversation with the stranger on the plane is because what she said stirred up something deep within me. She called up my intuition, which was telling me that something wasn’t right with the plan I was given, that perhaps the world is more complex than I had been told. It just took me a long time (and plans gone awry) to really listen.
is a writer, reader, and publishing professional who lives with her husband in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After leaving the stay-at-home-daughter movement, she started over by studying creative writing at Michigan State University, working in education and literacy, and eventually finding her way to an editorial position in book publishing. Find her at caitwest.com and on Instagram and Twitter at @caitwestwrites.
Photograph © Clay Banks, used with permission
