For the next few nights, after everyone else has gone to bed, I pray, seated at the plastic-covered kitchen table. I bow my head. “Please dear God, speak to me. I need to know Your will. Forgive me for being unyielded. Make me a better vessel of Your love. I’m here to listen. Speak to me. What do You want me to do?”
My thoughts chase each other, and I remember Grandpa’s words: “Be sure what you are hearing is from God. If it doesn’t sound like the Mo Letters or the Bible, it may be an evil spirit trying to deceive you.” I try to clear my head until all I hear are words from the Bible. I take my pen and begin writing them in my little prophecy notebook: “Whom the Lord loves, He rebukes and chastens. This crushing and breaking is only to make you stronger, like a piece of coal pressed and crushed into a beautiful Jewel. You will become a beautiful Jewel for Me as you yield to My will.”
The Shepherds had given me a copy of the prophecy that they had received for me and read at Devotions. The last line reads, “I have called you Jewel.” I take these two prophecies as confirmation that God wants me to change my name to Jewel. I hate the name. It’s so embarrassing and it seems presumptuous, but I want to please God more than anything. My shoulders slump as I give in, my last bit of resistance fading. I will call myself Jewel.
At Devotions the next day, I speak up. “I prayed last night, and God told me that I should call myself Jewel to symbolize becoming a new, more yielded vessel.” I cringe with embarrassment.
“Praise the Lord!” Abigail and Philip say in unison. “Thank you for being yielded to His will.”
In the days that follow, Abigail and Philip continue their campaign to have us share more in the Home. They read various letters on the Law of Love, including one of Mama Maria’s latest prophecies, Go for the Gold. It reiterates the Family’s views on birth control: the gold medal means having sex without a condom; the silver is pulling out; and bronze is using condoms. “Any form of taking things into our own hands to prevent pregnancy is contrary to God’s Word. It is saying to the Lord that you know better than He does; that you want control of your life, instead of yielding and trusting that He knows what’s best for you.”
As we finish reading the letter, I feel my throat closing and I can’t find air to breathe. In the past I would have been happy to go for the silver or the bronze. But now, after committing to yield to God in every area of my life, I know that’s not an option. I grab my coat and race outside, my boots crunching in the crusty, blackened snow. I sink down next to a crumbling wall behind our massive apartment block, a deserted spot where I bite my hand to try to hold back a keening wail, but I can’t keep in the tears. I’m afraid.
In Japan, Chris and I, like a lot of the teens, had always been incredibly careful, pulling out or using condoms (if we could get them). But now, anyone I shared with would see me as unyielded for doing so. More than that, I want to please God and follow His Word, to not live outside the bubble of His protection. My entire existence revolves around God, serving Him and loving Him, but I’m terrified of being a single mother or being forced to marry someone I can’t stand because I got pregnant sharing with them.
I think back to the Farm, when the older girls, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen years old at the time, talked about how to induce a miscarriage. I remember how I’d lay awake at night, terrified, planning what I might do if it came to that. I’m good at jumping rope. I could jump rope for hours to lose a baby. Now, all those thoughts come rushing back to me as I contemplate what I would do if I get pregnant here.
When I can no longer feel my hands, or my feet, or my heart, I stand up and walk back inside. I’d just promised God that I will do what He wanted. I can’t back out now. I can’t turn my back on His will as shared by His representative.
A few days have passed when I hear Abigail’s voice. “Jewel . . .”
After a moment I realize she’s speaking to me. I hurry to hide my hesitation and follow her into her room.
“Are you ready to be yielded to God?” she asks.
I nod.
“Benji confessed to us that he really likes you.”
I blink.
“This is how you can show God that you are yielded to His will. Friday night should be good. What do you think?”
I nod again.
“I know it’s hard to share with someone you’re not attracted to. I’ve had to do it many times. I share with Tom and my husband now, because there are no other FGA women in the home.”
It’s not the same, I think. You’re the Shepherd, you choose to do this, you’ve been doing it for years, you’re already married with kids! You won’t be a single mother. But I say nothing.
“You’re going to need to ask Benji. He is too shy to ask you himself, and we don’t want him to know that we told you. Make him feel this is something you want. He is very sensitive.”
Yes, I thought, he’d be horrified if he knew I’d been told to have sex with him and how much I hated the idea of it.
“That’s the loving thing to do,” Abigail imparts before dismissing me.
My first instinct is to run to Benji and tell him everything. Sensitive and generous, he’d give me the shirt off his back. But I know if I put my faith in Benji, the Shepherds will find out and I might get put back on probation. Benji, puppy that he is, can’t keep a secret.
Perhaps in some tiny way I had hoped that changing my name, being more enthusiastic and sacrificial, and helping around the home would be enough. But it’s not. I know how tenuous a person’s position can be in a Home. I could easily be sent away. And if I get a reputation of being unyielded, I could wind up without a Home and kicked out of the Family once again.
As I lie in my bed, I can’t stop shaking. This is silly, says a small voice in my head. Just do it. Grit your teeth and do it. You’re making too big a deal over this. I’m disgusted with myself. What is wrong with me? Why is this so hard? In Japan, I’d had sex with a few guys, including Chris. I was more careful now, because I was told if I got a guy excited by making out with him, it was my duty to “take care” of him and give him an orgasm. If a girl refused, she was worse than a tease: she was rebelling against Jesus and the Family. But if I got stuck with some guy I didn’t like, I could revert to a hand job or blow job. Even those times when I hated myself for going further than I wanted, the interactions began with some small attraction, a spark of interest. Here, I was being directed to have sex with someone I felt a physical revulsion toward, to allow them inside my body, and I couldn’t use a condom.