Snicklefritz Chronicles

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  • Why I Finally Left the Church
    I chose to speak rather than silently submit to the misogynistic nonsense.
  • Lesson From the Lake
    My experiences in Girl Scouts are some of the best memories of my childhood. And Girl Scout Camp was one of my favorite times of the year. Our camp was primitive for anyone older than the Brownies. We had canvas tents, pit toilets and a cold-water communal sink as a bathhouse, and we cooked over… Read more: Lesson From the Lake
  • Lunch with Two Men
    The day I went to lunch with two men – neither my significant other and one of them married – felt to me like a day that warranted a gold medal. That may sound a bit hyperbolic to some but hear me out. As a former evangelical, I spent most of my life in very… Read more: Lunch with Two Men
  • In Name Only
    Had I been raised to be nominal, I would likely still be in the church.
  • Pro-life Apostate
    Though I was once ardently anti-abortion, my views have shifted. As I dared to step outside of evangelical dogma, I allowed myself to study things I would have never studied while still under the gaze of authoritarian preachers. When a person does that, they quickly learn that their preachers and teachers are not always completely… Read more: Pro-life Apostate
  • Reflecting
    I used to view this as some sort of fatal flaw – as proof that I wasn’t a good enough helpmeet in that godly, Christian marriage type of way.
  • Caleb’s Story: How I Learned to Be
    (Part 1) “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” – Christof, The Truman Show I think the foundational doctrine of Christian parenting is what most evangelical and fundamentalist churches refer to as original sin. Parents are taught that every child is born sinful by virtue of being descended from Adam.… Read more: Caleb’s Story: How I Learned to Be
  • Caleb’s Story: The Light Faded From His Eyes
    (Part 2. New readers can click here to start at the beginning of the story.) Since I was a serious kid, I held tightly to the church and, as someone riddled with anxieties, held tightly to the assurances the church gave me. It is funny to me now that I recognize just how many of… Read more: Caleb’s Story: The Light Faded From His Eyes
  • Caleb’s Story: My Mind’s Dissonance
    Our family made an unspoken pact that day for my sake. For years we continued to pretend that the obvious wasn’t the obvious. And my son carried the weight of his burden alone until it wore away at his soul.
  • A Tale of Two Cover-ups: The Girl
    I imagine that there are as many ways for churches to cover up their corruption as there are churches. Though shame and intimidation are primary, pastors and church boards and denominational leadership can be quite creative with their methods. I have a handful of church cover-up experiences that I could share. But there are two… Read more: A Tale of Two Cover-ups: The Girl
  • A Tale of Two Cover-ups: The Pastor’s Wife
    Originally posted September 2022 This seems an appropriate time to share the tale of this church cover-up because eighteen years ago my world was turned upside down. And, as it is prone to do, the church prioritized its own reputation and protected and coddled the man responsible. In 2001 my husband (now ex) was in… Read more: A Tale of Two Cover-ups: The Pastor’s Wife
  • Caleb’s Story: Eyes Opening
    (Part 4. New readers can click here to start at the beginning of the story.) During Caleb’s high school years, I kept busy with homeschooling, Caleb’s vocal training, and my kids’ local theater involvement on top of my church volunteer work. But my mind was still churning because a bumper crop of national church and… Read more: Caleb’s Story: Eyes Opening
  • Caleb’s Story: Healing
    (Part 5. New readers can click here to start at the beginning of the story.) Caleb was gesturing and speaking with an urgency that made me immediately regret making him wait to tell me. As I reached out to hug and reassure him, I wished that there was someone there to hug and reassure me.… Read more: Caleb’s Story: Healing
  • Caleb’s Story: Resolution and Resources
    (Part 6. New readers can click here to start at the beginning of the story.) Caleb gave me permission to share this story back in 2020. Obviously, I thought about it for quite some time. I wanted to handle it honestly and faithfully. There is so much more that I could share and perhaps will,… Read more: Caleb’s Story: Resolution and Resources
  • Beaches Bodies and Elisabeth Elliot
    As the equatorial sun toasted their skin, they walked, not schlepped: some with canes or strollers, others with toddlers on their hips or lovers on their arms.
  • Twenty-three and Me
    My partner knows of my love for studying history and culture and looking into my family lineage, so for Christmas he bought me a 23andMe membership. I was already fairly certain of the geographical roots of my ancestors and had only one small surprise. What I wasn’t prepared for were some of the physical and… Read more: Twenty-three and Me
  • Weigh Down Before There Was Weigh Down
    In retrospect, it really isn’t surprising that I fell for Gwen Shamblin’s Weigh Down Workshop diet. In my family of origin, thinness was next to godliness. The only thing my mother wanted to see more than a thin kid walking in the door of the church on Sunday morning was a kid who outperformed the… Read more: Weigh Down Before There Was Weigh Down
  • A Hornworm Kind of Love
    Humans are admittedly a bit complicated. The same person can be hateful with some and the most loving individual with others. Some people have what could be called toxic traits: harmful behaviors that drive their personality and sometimes worsen over their lifetimes causing irreparable rifts with those around them. Others can be problematic to those… Read more: A Hornworm Kind of Love
  • Why I Write
    Last fall a reader asked me, “Why do you write? I mean, what is your purpose?” And I had a couple of answers ready for them. Because I have always wanted to. Because, I have a story to tell and maybe one day it can be published, if I can just discipline myself to write… Read more: Why I Write
  • The Girl in the Plane
    I have many vivid memories of my early years. Images of my dad’s banjo and how tan his arms looked against his white tee shirt when he played. The Datsun and laying down in the back seat as we went down the road with the 8-track playing the Bee Gees. I remember the garden out… Read more: The Girl in the Plane
● About Me

Hi. I’m Stephanie, the author behind this blog. At one time, my highest goal was to serve the Lord. That Lord was the god I had been trained to believe was the god of the universe. The god that Christians say was presented in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. There was no greater goal in my denomination’s worldview than to be a missionary, and I felt that I was called from age fifteen. In obedience to that call, I was educated, trained, and became a missionary, pastor’s wife, and homeschool mom. Through the decades, I have come to some very different understandings of theology, humanity, and myself than those that idealistic and easily led teenage girl believed. Here, I write my thoughts about the impact my past beliefs had on me and my family and my observations of how those beliefs influence the world in which we all live.

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