Rebekah Wood’s Blog

                                 Ladies, all that you've dreamed of is on the other side of fear.   You fear Hell. You fear demon possession by music, even music with good beats and happy lyrics just because it falls under the category of secular. You fear that you'll betray your family if you leave or that they will betray you, disown you. You fear you'll starve on your own. I did. You fear you'll be lonely. You fear you'll be vulnerable to predators.  How can you survive without knowing who's good or who's bad? It's so easy at Church. The ones in your congregation are safe and everything outside of that is evil. You fear you'll have to break up your family and negatively impact your children. You fear you might even lose your adult children. You fear you'll never find love again. How will you get past the insecurity you might feel in a relationship where women's bodies are accepted? Where a female in clothes revealing her knees or shoulders

     What do you you see ?  I see a flower girl in an 80 dollar dress surrounded by worldly relatives. I see Mom’s face smiling, sitting pretty in that curtain material she picked out for Sister Rita to sew together. I feel pretty too, for the first time in my life and everyone is telling me it. Screw you, Dad . I want to tear off those fancy stockings and run barefoot through the wedding hall, dancing in circles, singing for joy.  I hated leotards almost as much as dresses (this one was the exception) because my feet got so hot and sweaty but I knew what Mom would say. Bare feet on you girls arouses your father. I didn’t know then but I think most ordinary Moms would say something like, You shouldn’t run barefoot in wedding halls in case someone breaks a glass.                                   For one second, my smile faded. Defiance glowered in my eyes. Cold, hard, childish rebellion. Behind me, a forbidden, evil Christmas tree and in front of me, my great Aunt clicking a button.

Unschooling, the term  for self-directed learning.  Mom had an undiagnosed illness but wouldn’t go to doctors, and she was constantly exhausted; she had no education herself, and therefore this was the easiest way. Throwing us back into the Public School System was not an option. Our parents feared outside influences so much they selected friends within their community and most times, no friends at all. Yeah, we’ve heard of Henry Ford and his Grade 9 education, but for most of us, it takes years of academic success to reach our goals. I’ve hardly seen a classroom.  My only memory of a real school was in Kindergarten: an infidel teacher pointing her stick at a row of felt letters on a board and then - whisked away to a Horse Farm in the Middle of Nowhere. I read books out of curiosity. And I had no schedule. I’d often stay up till 4 a.m. writing stories, and Mom supported it.  She encouraged my dream though she wouldn’t dare think then I’d be writing about her. Back then, it was about

Happier times on a night out with my spouse    “Honey, did you hear the zoo is open?” My spouse calls from the kitchen. I look around our two-bedroom condo cluttered with toys and think, Oh, to leave this house! But there’s panic, always panic, even before the onset of this pandemic. Can I manage? I’m groggy. In fact, I’m dizzy. Maybe it’s the strong coffee I gulped upon waking or the common symptom of my autoimmune disorder. I can feel the Synthroid lodge in my throat (a magical pill that kicks my thyroid into gear) and worry that I might have accidentally taken one extra. Pills make me nervous. Overdose is a continuous fear. My short-term memory loss is no joke. I forget what I've done the second I did it. I'm going to pass out! Am I dying? Do I have Covid?  The room spins and the corners of my vision turns black, just like when a loved one strangled me, long ago. This is diagnosed Complex PTSD. Trauma.  Life. I’m going to puke.  Maybe I just need f

    Yes, that girl is me, wearing my Sunday best . I was very different then from the woman I am now, and not just in the ordinary ‘I grew up’ sort of way. I’ve crossed mountains to get here, suffered the darkest of childhoods (don’t let smiles fool you), and almost lost my life countless times in the chaos that followed, and yet somehow, I made it to safety. Here I am, in a simple quiet life with my spouse and young son, spending many valued moments close to the ocean waves. I’m a stay-at-home mom, a memoirist, and well - a blogger. I was hoping to get back into the film industry, one job above all others that I loved, but Covid struck right when this mama was ready. Poor timing, go figure. The beauty of it all is that I’ve instead become laser-focused on what I believe is part of my life’s purpose - to share a story that’s origins go back three decades. My story, The Girl Who Lived To Tell.  I was born into Branhamism. Have you heard of it? No, probably not, unless introdu