Memoir Excerpt: Where You Lead, I Will Follow

CHAPTER 14

WHERE YOU LEAD, I WILL FOLLOW

“How long have you had them?” asked Lane, her hand on my knee as we sat side by side on our hound’s-tooth patterned loveseat. We were sophomores now, and roommates. She and I were known on our floor for our friendship: the friends who had pillow fights, who created scavenger hunts for each other, sang the lesbian love song from the musical RENT together at our dorm’s talent show, and even once brushed each others’ teeth. I viewed living with Lane as practice for the day I’d live with my husband. We made decisions together, and counseled each other through our struggles. 

That fall I struggled my worst with depression, and along with that depression, an increase in the headaches I’d been having since high school.

“Over two years now,” I said to Lane, tugging at my waist-length hair. I’d had a headache nearly every day for two years with no identifiable cause. My parents had sent me to a slew of doctors before the school year started—a neurologist, a gynecologist, a chiropractor. I’d had an MRI scan of my head at the hospital. My parents eliminated different products and foods from our household over the summer to see what might help. My mom changed the laundry detergent and the shampoo, got rid of the peanuts. But nothing made a difference. Some days the headaches were so bad I couldn’t make it to class. Today was one of those days.

Lane put a hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. “I think it’s worth considering that your headaches might be Satan’s influence. He wants you to think God can’t heal you.”

I nodded. I hadn’t considered that Satan might have a role in this. Was this his way of taunting me for my addiction to fantasies and self-pleasure? I imagined him laughing in my face every time I touched myself, laughing in God’s face for losing his grip on my eternal soul.

“I’d like to say a prayer to cast out the pain demon in your head,” said Lane with an earnest look on her face. 

I melted into her nurturing gaze. I felt loved by Lane as though she was Christ herself. She told me daily that I was beautiful and that she was blessed to have a friend like me. She gave me thoughtful gifts out of the blue just because she loved me. My favorite: a necklace she made from one of my earrings when its match went missing. 

Lane was the model for every Christlike trait I wanted to possess. When she said she wanted to cast a demon from my head, I believed that she could. That her prayer would fix what doctors couldn’t. 

She placed her hands on my head and I closed my eyes, centering my focus on God. In that moment, Lane’s tangible touch felt more real than any encounter I’d had with God. I believed this could work. I was ready to be healed—from headaches, from depression, and from masturbation.

I prepared myself for convulsions, for my eyes rolling back in my head and a demon’s voice emerging from my throat. I needn’t be worried if my body twisted away from Lane and seized on the floor as the pain demon was extracted. I felt safe with her. She’d seen the presence of a demon before—behind the eyes of a patient at a mental hospital where she worked. “I’ve never been more certain the Devil was real,” she’d said.

I leaned into the pressure of Lane’s palms. Her fingertips on my scalp tingled like peppermint soap. 

“Repeat after me,” she said. “God, be with us tonight. We invoke your help to banish Satan.” 

When I tried to speak, I found that I couldn’t. I was mute. No sound possible from my throat. I also couldn’t move my eyes. They stared, fixated but not seeing, just past Lane’s face. This wasn’t going to work, I thought. It couldn’t work unless she knew all my sins. She was being so kind to me, believing so hard that I could be better, but her efforts would be in vain if she didn’t have all the information—all the facts to fuel the prayers directed at my head. If my “addiction” was behind the cause of my headaches, I owed it to her to confess.

My cheeks flushed with shame and embarrassment. You can do this, I heard God whisper. I blinked a few times, then forced myself to speak.

“Lane, I need to confess something,” I choked out.

Lane looked deep into my eyes like a loving mother with a penitent child. “Okay,” she prompted.

I took a deep breath. “There’s something I’ve been doing...for a long time...that I shouldn’t.”

Lane held her gaze. 

“It gives me the type of feeling that should be saved for marriage.” I said this slowly, choosing my words carefully. I didn’t want Lane to picture the things I did when I was alone. “I want to stop. But I need help. My prayers don’t make a difference. I need help to battle this weakness.” (It was common to use war metaphors when speaking of sin.)

Lane sat back, just slightly. She frowned, then after a beat, she said, “Sin’s consequences often follow us for the rest of our lives. Sin rips lives and hearts apart, and destroys beauty and joy. Thank you for confessing this struggle. God hears you and he wants to help you. It is a big thing for you to admit, but now the true healing can begin.” Lane squinted, as though deciding what to do, then wrapped me in a hug, her large breasts like a pillow for my head. 

I shook with tears as she held me.

“Now let’s try again,” she said, placing her hands back on my head.

For the next half hour, Lane alternated between invoking the Holy Spirit to help us, and speaking directly to Satan, firmly reminding him that I was a temple of Christ and he wasn’t welcome there. 

I felt sick and scared and unreal and possessed by some evil spirit. My tears turned to weeping, and I curled up in a ball, rocking myself back and forth on the loveseat. 

Lane’s commands to Satan grew louder. Be gone! You are not welcome here! 

Whether I willed it so that I could rest, or God actually did battle with Satan that night to reclaim my soul, I finally felt a lightness open in my chest. My headache, however, was still intact.

“Okay,” I whispered to Lane. “Okay.”

She leaned back against the loveseat and we sat in silence.

“You’ve done good work,” said Lane. “That was very brave of you.”

“Thank you,” I said, dazed and a bit disoriented. “Do you think differently of me now?” I asked, not looking up at her.

“Of course not,” she said. “Did you think differently of me when I confessed my eating disorder?”

“No,” I said, clutching her arm as I snuggled in close.

“I’m proud of you for seeking help. We must constantly die to ourselves, and be born again into God’s love. God is smiling right now because you chose him over yourself. God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, only to try our best.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes and smiled. God must love me a lot to give me Lane as a friend—a friend to show me I could still be loved despite a shameful secret. I felt wholly accepted. I’d been offered hope and accountability to overcome what hurt me and I believed that everything would be okay. 

“We should do some goal setting,” said Lane. “To stay on track.”

I agreed and we took a minute to think of our goals.

“How can I help you with yours?” Lane asked.

I thought about it. I decided to write apology letters (not to send) to all the boys I’d had lustful thoughts about, and an apology letter to my future husband for not being good to him. Then I’d write an apology letter to God. I asked Lane if she’d check in with me in a week to make sure I’d done it.

She smiled at me. “You know what I love about you the most?” she said, throwing a blanket over our laps. “Your persistence when you want something. I’m thankful that your strength to fight has been renewed. I’m proud of you.”

“You know what I love about you?” I said, tugging at the blanket. “Your persistence in holding me accountable.”

Lane tipped her head against mine. “Let’s do something cozy the rest of the night.”

“Gilmore Girls?” I said, eyeing the DVD set of our favorite TV show across the room.

“You read my mind.”

Lane grabbed the remote and I grabbed a box of Oreos as the show’s theme song filled our room, washing away all traces of the demon voice I’d imagined filling it earlier. 

Where you lead, I will follow. Anywhere that you tell me to...

*You can hear me read this chapter on the Low Orbit podcast, with sound editing by Josh Mattison