Actress Calls Relationship With God Her ‘Safe Space’ After Cult Escape
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ONE TREE HILL star Bethany Joy Lenz is discovering a new relationship with faith after escaping a cult. “I got involved in something that seemed very rote,” she explained in an interview with Variety. “I grew up in a Christian home where Wednesday night Bible studies were very common. I think that there’s a lot of people that can resonate with that. And I just went to another one. I moved to a new state, moved to a new city, and I went to another Wednesday night Bible study and that’s all it was to me.”The cult, called the Big House Family, began controlling every component of Lenz’s life, from what roles she could take to how her money was being spent. She eventually escaped the group, a process she details in her new book, Dinner For Vampires.
“In my personal life, I made a lot of mistakes and I became okay with making mistakes — and really not just okay with it, but I really embraced the mess,” she explained. “What is grace worth if I’m not willing to show up in my full, authentic mess and let God guide me, heal me, grow me in that place?”
Lenz said that she made a “deal” with God as she started to navigate life and faith after the cult: “If you speak to me, then I will listen. I don’t know how to trust myself, but I know you care about me, I know you’re there.”
“I couldn’t walk away from God,” she said. “God’s grace is there in multiple different ways, but it’s a long process,” Lenz concluded. “It just doesn’t happen overnight, and so I think we really have to become okay with making mistakes and living in the mess and just expecting that we need the gospel, because what else is it for?”
Content retrieved from: https://www.movieguide.org/news-articles/bethany-joy-lenz-calls-relationship-with-god-her-safe-space.html.
