We now lived in another military area. I was less gloomy, but still convinced I would go to hell if I died. I started dating my future husband at the age of sixteen. He was a member of the CoC and a nice guy. My mother had told me there was no way my parents could support me going to college. She encouraged me to be serious about my future with (my husband). I had no goals or aspirations other than becoming a wife and mother, even though I was an accelerated student. I wouldn't have known how to go about doing anything else. My father later told me he never realized that.
At the age of 17.5, I married. At that time I was in Community college. My husband went over seas with the military soon after, and I followed a month later. We worshipped with a small church of Christ group on the military base. Now I was an adult in the church and began to be aware of conflicts, disagreements, and hypocrisies among the other adults in the church. Almost nobody was without issues. I began my policy of staying out of these kinds of discussions and being neutral, for the most part. I tend to have a little social anxiety, and a fear of confrontation. My husband followed the neutral policy as well, but mostly because he loves people and just wants to get along with everyone. I don't know if he even noticed some of the problems. In the meantime, I kept watching, listening, and studying. I still believed the main tenets of the CoC, even if there were obvious problems among members with what I saw as negotiable points of doctrine.While we were there, I had myself rebaptized (in a bathtub) and experienced a great feeling of relief. Now I was safe.
We moved back to the US and became involved with a loving congregation with few problems, that I knew of. My first child was born. When the preacher retired and we got a new younger preacher, issues began to crop up, questions about divorce, alcohol consumption, and salvation of others who called themselves christians. The atmosphere became tense, but we left for another duty station soon after.
At the next church, I began to teach children's bible classes. There, I heard about homeschooling for the first time. Plus, I was publicly berated in front of the whole congregation on a Sunday morning, for having called the church office to tell someone I couldn't teach my Wednesday night bible class that week. When I called, the preacher answered the phone. I gave him my message. He took it without remark. Then, without mentioning my name, he blasted me from the pulpit, saying his PHD self was too busy and important to take messages. There were proper channels for that kind of thing. I cried during the whole service.
We moved soon after, to a location with a congregation full of young military families with children. There was a disfellowshipping over a divorce soon after we got there. That was barely a blip on my radar. I had another child and my husband was deployed in Desert Storm. The young mothers in this congregation were very supportive of each other. They got together often for bible studies and socializing. I got to know one who was homeschooling her kids and became curious. She loaned me a bunch of literature, which I read hungrily. I was always a reader, curious, and interested in learning. Not only that, I had an obsession with doing the right thing and living in a godly way. That material convinced me I needed to homeschool my children to save their souls from the influence of the wicked world. I also became convinced birth control was a sin. I had a miscarriage and then another child.
I now had three children and was very involved in homeschooling and church. Various issues continued to crop up at church. We had an adulterous preacher who left in a hurry, and a traveling fundraiser for a bible printer ran away with money the congregation donated. There were disagreements over new song books, new preachers, overhead projectors, Promise Keeper involvement, building renovations, use of musical instruments in weddings, Max Lucado, small groups, and many other topics. My husband and I continued our practice of remaining neutral. I don't even know how many of the conflicts my husband was aware of. Nevertheless, that church became like family to us, or so we thought.
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