Why Bethany Joy Lenz returned to religion after the cult

It wasn't easy, though Bethany Joy Lenz has managed to reestablish her connection to faith after a decade in a religious cult.

“I was done. I left that group and questioned everything – my entire upbringing, all religions,” said 43-year-old Lenz Us weekly in an exclusive interview ahead of the release of her memoir on Tuesday, October 22nd. Dinner for Vampires: Life in a cult TV show (and a real cult at the same time!). “I’m a really deep thinker. I spend a lot of time using reason to understand behavior patterns and belief systems. And I was done with God.”

In the book, Lenz, who was raised a Christian, described what she calls a “supernatural” moment that cemented her connection to God. She was 19 years old and in a Union City cafe in New York City, she had been quietly wondering if this “Jesus stuff” was real.

“In the empty café, in my empty booth, someone was sitting next to me. There was no meat. No body to touch. There was just the deep and intimate presence of someone leaning in and speaking tenderly in my ear,” she wrote. “The voice was soft and masculine, joyful, heavy and…did I feel the breath? 'Never doubt that I'm real,' I heard.”

She claims that the moment cannot be explained and attributed to the feeling she felt after escaping the cult.

“I absolutely couldn’t explain it with any rationality,” she said Usnoting that she returned to the event after leaving the high-demand group. “It was almost as if God was saying, 'Are you going to trust your instincts for the first time or are you going to continue to deny it?' Are you going to deny what you know is true again?' So instead of letting God down, I became extremely angry with God, at least to be honest. And I think from that point on I was able to grow in a really authentic faith that I'm still growing in.”

Lenz wrote about her anger at God while waging a three-year custody battle with her ex (one of the cult leader's sons) after she left the group around 2013.

“Every day of these three years was emotionally exhausting. Every day I felt like I was sinking deeper and deeper into a tar pit of fatigue. “At my lowest point one night, I stood on the balcony after smoking a cigarette, stuck two middle fingers in the air and screamed at God, screaming, 'F-YOU!' Tears flowed from my eyes,” she wrote. “I couldn’t contain my anger any longer. … “I did everything right.” I did everything you asked of me. And this is what I get!? Well, f— that. And f— Jesus and f— church.'”

Lenz experienced emotional and financial abuse during her decade in the Big House Family, but she believes the spiritual abuse was the worst.

“When you disregard someone’s ability to trust God — to trust that there is a greater force out there that loves you and can hold you back and hold you — then you falter in your humanity,” she said Us. “I've never been an atheist, so I don't know how someone who doesn't believe in God thinks. But for me, the idea that I have to rely on my flawed humanity to be what I trust is overall really esoterically unsatisfying. To me this is flawed logic. I don’t know how to go through life and say, ‘Oh yeah, my gut and my instinct.’ I know how flawed I am.”

Lenz explained that she is still “unlearning” a lot of what she was taught in the group, but the first thing she needed to do was “rebuild my trust in God.”

“It took years and I’m still working on it,” she said. “I still find areas in my life where I hold onto control so tightly, and I realize that it's because I don't trust that God actually has me (and that I can let go). And if I make a mistake, it’s a mistake and there’s a plan B. And if I don’t make a mistake, great, I made the right choice.”

Dinner for vampires is available now.