Page 3 of Redeemed

That’s how the people at Cornerstone are. Pastor Beckham preached about how the world called us a cult and made fun of us. But according to him, what everyone else didn’t realize was how close we were to God. We had something special—Beckhamhad something special—and he wanted to share his God-given gift with everyone.

We’re supposed to stand out,he’d say.In the world but not of it, remember? What a great way to point to Jesus’s light!

Looking back, it was basically an admission of what Cornerstone is. We just ignored it because… well, because people in the world have been deceived by the devil.Wecouldn’t be the wrong ones, not when we had God on our side.

That line of thinking used to reassure me.

Now it makes me sick.

“You okay, hon?” Julie asks as she drives us down the interstate, moving farther and farther away from home.

She’s the one who helped me leave. Cornerstone’s church services have always been open to visitors, and Julie started coming every month or so back when I was a young teenager. I haven’t asked her, but I think her plan was always to find a way to help people escape.

I’m not sure why Julie chose me specifically. There are plenty of young people at Cornerstone. Maybe because I always talked to her? Or maybe because I didn’t look happy? She tried to hide her shock when she found out I’d gotten married at the age of fifteen, but I saw it. She was concerned.

And it made me wonder if I should be concerned, too.

That’sthe first step to leaving, I think—realizing you’re being harmed.

It’s why I ended up accepting the tiny piece of paper Julie managed to slip me one Sunday after my husband forbid me from talking to her. Maybe I should’ve realized it earlier in life. I suppose I should’ve realizedlotsof things earlier in life. But instead, it took multiple secret phone calls with Julie while Isaiah was at work for me to understand it.

I dedicated my life to worshiping a savior, but I wasn’t safe at all.

“Haven?” Julie asks again. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m just thinking,” I say quietly. “I… I never thought I’d leave home.”

For a while, I actually thought it was a sin to leave. No, not just a sin. It was scary. Tempting. Evil.

The world is run by the devil.That’s what I was taught. But this world… It doesn’t look devilish. It’s all late summer sunlight filtering through Pennsylvanian trees and some type of upbeat music coming from the speakers in Julie’s car.

The devil is a deceiver.That’s what Pastor Beckham would say if he could hear my thoughts.

I shake my head.Beckham. He’s just Beckham now.

“Wanna talk about it?” she asks.

“Everything is so… different.”

“In what way?”

My fingers trace over the rough material of my denim shorts. I’ve never worn anything but skirts and dresses before, and the sensation of having such a thick material in between my thighs is going to take some getting used to.

So much skin.

That’s another thing I’ll have to get used to. I never wore anything that fell above the knees before, and these shorts don’t even cover half my thighs. I thought I’d catch on fire for wearing them, but nothing happened when I slipped them on this morning.

It’s only furthered my doubts.

“Everything is different in every way, I think,” I say eventually. “I thought there’d be more… more…”

But I’m not sure how to finish the sentence. The harder I try to voice my thoughts, the sillier I feel. What, did I really think I’d step out of Cornerstone and immediately find myself surrounded by drugs and God-hating atheists? Or that there would be prostitutes lining the streets?

Instead, we’ve driven past multiple billboards telling people toFind their hope in Christand toRun to Jesus.Julie rolled her eyes at an “Adult Store” advertisement, but I’m not sure what it meant or why she doesn’t like it.

“More sin?” Julie asks.

My eyes snap to her. “How did you know that?”

---