Hi, this is Natalie Hoffman of Flying Free Now, and you're listening to the Flying Free

podcast, a support resource for Women of Faith, looking for hope and healing from hidden

emotional and spiritual abuse.

Welcome to episode 53 of the Flying Free Podcast. I don't know if you remember this but a few

episodes ago I said that we would be doing once a month we'd be doing an

episode where I interview a survivor who has gotten

out of her abusive situation and is flying free.

Well as free as you can fly here on planet Earth. And because I'm just setting this up, I didn't

have someone set up in time to do today's episode, and so I was scrambling to figure

out what to do, and then it hit me.

I'm a survivor.

How about if I share my story?

So that's what I'm going to do today.

I'm going to be the butterfly that I'm going to tell you about today. And I'm going to answer the same

questions that I ask that I'm going to be asking all of the other survivors. So here we go.

Natalie, how did you meet your husband and were there any red flags before you married him?

Well, let me tell you, I met my husband at the church I was part of in my early 20s and we both ended up being on staff of a college

ministry and he worked with the guys and I worked with the college girls.

We did some group planning together and we would pray together for this group of kids.

He was a new Christian with a past.

I had been a devoted believer since I was a small child and I really saw my role as helping to support him in his personal and

professional growth during that time. I really admired what a hard worker he was

...