Anonymous wrote:Two kids meet at a small Baptist college in Oklahoma and fall in love. He’s a quiet, sensitive, somewhat shy slightly older kid who spent some time in the Army. She’s sort of a princess, someone who knows she’s prettier and smarter than most of the other girls in her small town and small college. She knows, even then, that she’s Meant For More. She has a bit of talent too. She’s good with “the words” and has a natural, easy sarcastic sense of humor. He adores her and she adores being adored.



They graduate, get married. He gets a job in ministry. She gets repeatedly pregnant. She, at first, plays the dutiful Ministry Wife and grade school teacher. Life is hard, though. Small kids. Runny noses. Tight budgets. She is bored and restless. He gets a bigger job in a bigger town but that’s not enough. She starts to write. Hustles. Finds a small publisher and has modest success. They need it too. Bills are piling up. She smells an opportunity. She gets her husband to go along with a plan to cause a bit of drama at their large mega-church. The church is false and phony, you see? Everything that’s wrong with American Christianity. A hollow church that only cares about the glitz and the surface. They, though - they REALLY CARE. They are the heroes, you see, the ones who REALLY get it.



So they leave with considerable drama and start a New Church. It’s finely designed to flatter their own self-built Origin Story. They are the heroes at the center doing church they way it’s meant to be. Well-meaning followers follow suit. At the same time her career really takes off and her books explode in popularity. She becomes for one moment the darling of the evangelical mom world.



But even then, they feels like she is Meant for More.



Running a church is exhausting though and media opportunities beckon. Her ‘ministry’ is increasingly secular, though. She sense an opportunity for a broader audience. More fame, more money, more opportunities. They get a TV show. She pivots to a strident social justice activism. Comes out as LGTBQ affirming. A huge uproar ensues. The church splits in chaos. Total confusion and a sense of betrayal among many followers.



She knows this will happen but she thinks it’s what it takes to get a bigger platform and success. It’s all calculated. But unfortunately, this is not what happens. Her subsequent books and media deals are less successful. Her efforts at becoming another HGTV mega star ala-Joanna Gaines fizzle out. She lashes out, mostly privately, and resents her husband’s seeming lack of contributions. Meanwhile, he spends a lot of money on toys and distractions. She assumes finances are okay. They grow apart and attempt counseling.



Meanwhile he languishes and flounders. He feels like a fraud and experiences a spiritual crises. Stops preaching. Eventually steps down from church leadership. Gets more involved in activities that serve to try to give him a sense of identity and self-worth as he’s always been someone who struggled with a sense of himself and has always needed the approval of others. A close friend passes away tragically. He’s not involved in this accident directly but this sends him into a deeper spiral of depression.



Meanwhile, COVID hits. Her stardom is waning. His depression and sadness is deepening. Being alone and together constantly grates and irritates.



Fissures once easily covered over become deep and obvious fractures.



Then something happens and they suddenly separate.



He moves one. So does she.



He finds happiness with a simple, sweet woman. She seethes.



With him it’s a story of an insecure man who battled with self-inflicted wounds and depression and lost a lot as a result.



With her it’s a story of a calculating, narcissistic chameleon who used Christianity as a stepping stone to gets bigger and brighter things. She grabbed at whatever, or anyone, she could find to promote herself. Her husband included.

It was always only about herself.



And now the world has largely moved on. She desperately needs a new act. The Snarky Suburban Wine Mom, Messy Bun Get ‘Er Done is so 2012. Hey, there’s always going back to teaching?

Anonymous wrote:Yeah. I guess it’s not as much as caring who her friends are as much as it is a vibe of we are the popular ones and we live this charmed life because we deserve it. It baffles me that she has the level of sisterhood followers she does, but I guess social media masters have to be narcs to have the audacity to make half their posts. Humble folks who just do simply good things in secret… no one follows them because no one knows to. I guess I’m just bitter because I know some of the friends in her friend group, went to church with them for years…always got an us versus them vibe in this sad cult of Christian celebrity. :/ If you’re not one of them, you’re just not exciting.

Anonymous wrote:Just saw her latest, her trip to Broadway…. So happy for the reopening but her selfies in a theatre where masks are required and what not on top of her already maskless reckless behavior through much of this pandemic. I just don’t understand her. And then the way she writes about hugging random people all the time, the boys in front of her at the theatre, the brides. I think she wants the whole world to think she’s precious. Goodness, a lot of showing out — probably the pain of divorce and her trying to make herself still feel relevant when the one person she thought would go through the long haul dropped her like a sack of potatoes. But so good for her that her friends swoop in and lavishly help whenever, especially as others have said, when she’s the receiver. Just so performative, like she’s the Broadway show or the main attraction. Look at me. I’m friends with Broadway now. Look at me- a chef messaged me and asks if she can cook for ME. I can’t deal with my kids, have raised too many and I’m done. She’s too much. I really liked her when she first began, but this performative, acting like a celebrity thing when your claim to fame was being a Christian is such nonsence. But I guess she’s broken away from much of that, that was just a stepping stone to reach a wider audience and a gal has to live? Eye roll.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pandemic stuff (her travel and masklessness)actually doesn’t bother me, because at least she’s not being a hypocrite about it like so many other “celebrities”. (i.e. telling everyone else to mask up, but not doing it themselves)

What does bother me is the 10,000+ people waiting under a bridge in Texas, the BABIES being left alone beside the Rio Grande, and the women being whipped and/or beheaded in Afghanistan. For someone who loves to preach about justice…… she’s pretty silent now.

Are you doing anything about those issues?

Anonymous wrote:The pandemic stuff (her travel and masklessness)actually doesn’t bother me, because at least she’s not being a hypocrite about it like so many other “celebrities”. (i.e. telling everyone else to mask up, but not doing it themselves)

What does bother me is the 10,000+ people waiting under a bridge in Texas, the BABIES being left alone beside the Rio Grande, and the women being whipped and/or beheaded in Afghanistan. For someone who loves to preach about justice…… she’s pretty silent now.