It’s hard enough having a painful secret that you are terrified of sharing.
It’s even harder when you find yourself in the international limelight as the advocate wife of a Christian hero imprisoned for his faith.
The worst part is fearing that, if you did share this secret, it might devastate the lives of your family and close friends, alienate tens of thousands of active supporters, and cause persecuted people around the world to become even more vulnerable.

Our guest lived in constant tension from the irreconcilable realities playing out in her own life, in her family life, in the conduct of others, and on the worldwide stage as she interacted with power brokers and well-known religious leaders. Tension involving:

· Steadfastly honoring God versus being carried away by the tide of circumstances

· Personal reality versus public persona

· Genuine faith versus hypocritical religion

· Truth and caring versus the end justifying the means

· Obedience to God versus loyalty to others

For our guest, it all came to a breaking point, and the only way through it was to die. Not physically, but in experiencing a death and rebirth in her understanding of God, her faith, and her identity as a woman. "I can't tell you how I was able to make it through, because I didn’t," she writes. "Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, the new me emerged from the catastrophe of my marriage."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.