Inspired by a fellow blogger, I have come to place where I feel I'm ready to talk about (and write about) what happened the summer of 2005. I did blog about it immediately after it happened, but it was in anger and hurt, and I was more lashing out than calmly recounting events. I've since then deleted that post. Time is a great healer and Christ is a great lover, great enough to cover a multitude of hurts. He doesn't change or erase what happened, though, and I now realize that events in my past have shaped my life and Christ has used even the bad things to grow me and mold me and refine me.
A little over a week ago, a mommy aquaintance of mine emailed me to ask why BJU fired me. I took a deep breath and this is what I wrote. I'm ready to talk about it.
I'll start with my sophomore year of college, since I believe that's when it all truly started.
My room's Assistant Prayer Captain was from Spain and it was really neat, since my younger sister was my other roommate--we were all "foreigners"--she from Spain, my sister Mary from India, and me from Singapore. But our APC, a violin major, injured her elbow and had to drop out for a couple semesters.
So, second semester, we got a new APC. This new girl, after a couple weeks of getting to know me, decided that I wasn't "showing any evidence of spiritual fruit" and therefore was unsaved. She made it her mission to "get me saved" and enlisted the Prayer Captain, the hall leader, and the dorm supervisor to wear me down and "break my pride." She constantly quoted to me, "God resists the proud," and told me that God would continue to ignore my prayers until I humbled myself and let her lead me to Christ. I was friends with a lot of Academy students, and my APC thought that showed I had some social immaturity (to be honest, my Acad friends were a lot more mature that most of the college kids I knew!). Then, once she found out I was Reformed and believed in the Sovereignty of God (I was talking about it one night with my sister), she was sure I didn't truly know God. She was constantly telling me I had to experience God like she had at camp. So there was no real outward (or inward) rebellion that caused her to think me unsaved. I think she just wanted a "project" that semester to prove she was worthy to be an APC.
Of course, since I already knew Christ personally, it was very difficult for me--how do you convince someone that you are saved when they don't want to believe you?? I tried faking it after several weeks because I couldn't take it anymore, but by then it was too late--I was branded as a rebellious girl and someone who had spiritual pride problems.
I was ordered to submit to counseling once a week for the first semester of my junior year. That was pretty awful. Since I was perceived as being so wicked, the counselor (a dorm counselor who was always very busy with her own schoolwork) simply tried to get me to admit that I was a bad person every week. It was tough, because I believe that, once redeemed, we are always redeemed in God's sight, and He views us through the Blood of Christ. Since Christ had redeemed me, I was no longer evil or a slave to sin. We don't need to wallow in guilt!! But no matter how I tried to word it (most times with frustration, which was wrong on my part), the counselor would shake her head and say I needed to humble myself. She never told me or showed me what that looked like, though.
My response to the counseling was just to "shut up and conform!" I was so tired of trying to prove that I was already saved, and didn't actually struggle with spiritual pride, and that I didn't need to "get assurance," since I was confident that Christ saved me the first time I asked Him, as a little girl. How I felt, my ups and downs or occasional doubts, wasn't going to change the fact that Christ had already saved me, so I figured I didn't have to worry about it or try to "get assurance" at camp or anywhere else. I still feel that way. But I tried to be a little "yes-man" for the counselor, and read the material she gave me (I was disappointed that the material wasn't Scripture but was instead a book). I did my homework, answered her questions with as little detail as possible ("How close do you feel to God this week, Hannah? How has He revealed Himself to you? What steps are you taking today to humble yourself?") She wasn't a friend of mine, and I hadn't chosen her to be my spiritual confidant (and I knew that anything I said could and would be held against me), so I didn't share anything too close to my heart. I did have other [non-BJU-appointed] spiritual mentors that year and they helped keep me sane.
After that semester, I pretty much gave up on ever being "someone of consequence" on campus, since you had to be an APC or PC to be in any sort of leadership position. And, of course, even though I completed the counseling and was deemed a good girl by the Dean of Women, I was still branded as someone who had spiritual issues. It was very disappointing.
But then, near the end of my senior year, Dr. Bob preached a message about serving and asked the grads for that year if they would consider staying at BJU for a year or two, working as support staff, to help out the school that gave us so much. Well, I had gotten a good education, and, regardless of the spiritual trials I'd gone through, I did care about the school. So I prayed about it for a long time and finally applied to be staff. I really did buy into the rules and everything by my senior year, so I figured that becoming staff wouldn't be too painful. I even turned one of my friends in for listening to uncheckable music at work. She ended up getting socialled (not being allowed to speak to any males at all for the rest of the semester; and she was dating, so it was horrible for her) and I ended up feeling terrible about turning her in.
I was working part time at Public Safety that year and I asked my boss if I applied, would I be welcome and wanted in his department. He said yes! He was so excited about the prospect of keeping a trained dispatcher! So I knew that applying was the right thing to do.
However, my application was refused on the grounds that I was not a Christian of high repute and reputation--I was not above reproach. I was very shocked at the letter I received, since I had believed Dr. Bob's plea for help to be including me! So I went to HR to find out why exactly I would not suit, in their eyes, to be staff at the very school that trained me. They told me it was because of some objections Dr. Berg and Miss Baker had brought up before the council. So I went to them--I wrote a looonnng letter, including letters of recommendation from my current APC, PC, teachers, and work supervisors, explaining why I thought I would be an asset to the school's staff. I tried to show that I had matured spiritually and would be a good mentor and leader to students.
With reservations, they reviewed their decision again, and finally came back with approval. Miss Baker told me that, because of the "spiritual problems" my sophomore year, she was unsure that I would be an adequate chaperone or if I would turn students in for rule infractions. Those, she stated, were her objections to my serving as staff. I assured her that she had nothing to worry about--I most definitely wouldn't be allowing students to do anything wrong in my presence.
I started work as a Public Safety staff dispatcher shortly after we returned from our honeymoon (we were married one week after graduation in May) in 2005. Training went well--I was enjoying it and praising and thanking God every day for such a wonderful opportunity. Six weeks later, I was summoned to a meeting with the head of Human Resources. It was immediately after an all-night shift--I was very tired. It was definitely inappropriate timing!
I was scolded so harshly at that meeting! The director of HR shook his finger at me and called me names and told me I was a horrible influence on the students. The problem? I had replied to a email where you're supposed to fill out the answers to questions: 1. what's your name? 2. what's your favourite food? 3. what's your favourite movie? and so on. Well, I sent it to a few of my coworker friends, thinking it would be a fun and silly way to break the ice, since I was new to some of them. Miss Baker somehow got a hold of a copy; I still don't know how. She and Dr. Berg decided that it was time for me to be fired. So they told HR to chastise me for the things I'd written and send me home.
I hadn't written anything wrong, and I most definitely hadn't written anything that was in violation of University policy or rules. I answered that I liked the movie The Patriot to the movie question. I answered to other questions that I enjoyed kissing my husband, had gone skinny dipping when I was a child in the West Indies, that I'd never smoked or drank, that my favourite song was "some praise song I'd heard on the radio." I wrote silly answers to other questions. I don't even remember them all. But Hulehan told me the things I wrote were inappropriate. He kept repeating that word, inappropriate, over and over. Hulehan told me that if I encourage or suggest that a student do anything that doesn't meet up with the University's standards, then I'm sinning. That statement from him made me really wonder what the whole issue was really about. Because my email had contained nothing that was against University rules or policies. When I asked him what he was talking about, he told me I was a bad wife because I was putting images of me kissing my husband into students' heads. (I thought to myself that if such an image is wrong, then Song of Solomon needs to be cut out of the Biblical Canon!) He said a lot of other things too, but I don't remember it all--I was hyperventilating and crying too hard. It was a big shock to me, because I had thought everything was fine. I had actually gone to the meeting thinking I was getting a promotion or something, for working so hard to make a smooth transition from student to staff.
I finally stopped him and asked if I would be banned from campus and from seeing my sisters. He told me he couldn't say, but since I hadn't actually broken any rules, I'd probably still be allowed to come on campus and see my sisters and attend their concerts and graduations.
And then I walked home.
I was devastated and very confused about it all, since I really thought I was "one of them:" part of the Bob Jones University family. Less than a week later, I was sent a letter telling me that I was banned from campus for one year and until I wrote a sincere apology to the school for "gross misconduct and violation of university policy." I still have the letter--that's what it says! A week after that, the Alumni Association sent me a letter stating that my membership was revoked because I was not in good standing with the University and my Christian testimony was ruined.
That all started a downward spiral. It seemed like everything sent wrong and all I could do was sit in front of the toilet and throw up, while waiting for the next bad-news-letter.
Even though I was sad and hurt, and even bitter, my confidence in God's goodness wasn't shaken. In fact, He revealed Himself to be good once again a couple months later. I was offered a job at Barnes and Noble. They called me! And I hadn't even begun looking for a new job yet! Turns out, I'd applied while I was still a student, but then I'd forgotten about it. Over a year later, they called me! Isn't that amazing? Isn't that a wonderful blessing? God provided for me, setting the wheels in motion, even before I knew I had a need. God provided even when I had a bad attitude. God loved me and cared for me, even when I sinned in my response to the trials I was going through. That's how He operates. He is constant, even when I am not.
I fought my "banishment," though. I didn't want my job back, even though the reasons for which I'd been fired were clearly a farce. I just wanted my testimony with the school to be a good one, and I wanted to see my sisters! I was allowed to have them over to my home, but I wasn't allowed on campus to see them, drop off their laundry in their rooms, attend their concerts or anything! So I wrote letters and had meetings with Berg and Miss Baker. They made clear to me that they'd never wanted me as staff and they had pushed for my removal. They both pointed to the events of my sophomore year as proof that I was a backslidden Christian, at BEST. Those meetings were not pleasant, and we did not part as friends.
But God is still good. Stephen Jones lifted my restrictions from campus, against Berg's wishes, at the beginning of 2006, after I wrote him, telling him what had happened--so now I can be free to see my sisters, attend their graduations with the rest of my huge family, and even go to their concerts, or drop off groceries or clean laundry in their rooms. I'm even welcome in the Alumni Association, too!
At first, I did struggle with bitterness. After all, the people I'd looked up to as spiritual mentors and leaders turned out to be very poisonous snakes, to put it kindly. But I still love the school as a whole, and [try to] bear it no ill will. I do not agree with and cannot condone some of the theology that is preached in the pulpits and taught in the classrooms and dorms (all so heavily works-righteousness), but I continue to smile with nostalgia whenever I drive by the campus--though I do shudder when I pass the HR and Admin buildings!
I think I've grown up a lot since the summer of '05, spiritually as well as mentally, but I will say this: if I were to do it all over again, I'd still send that email to my friends. It was completly innocent and there was nothing wrong in it. Unfortunately, it provided a [flimsy] excuse for the higher-ups to get me gone. And I'm still sad that they bore me such ill will. Not all my actions and words after that were pure or sinless, of course--I embraced my bitterness, and therefore, my sin, and felt and said some horrible things!--but at the start of the whole thing, I was blameless.
So that's my story. How God got me out of Fundamentalism--He saved me, all over again, it seems. And it wasn't painless or easy, and I wasn't blameless throughout the whole process, but I believe I am the better for it now and He is glorified in me. That is what I desire. After all, my whole purpose in life is glorify and enjoy Him forever.
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What a beautiful wedding photo... bless you both! 
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