(RNS) — Eileen Taylor’s 20-year-old self could never have imagined her life today.
At age 20, Eileen — known to many by her previous, married name of Eileen Gray — knew nothing about Christianity, and she was on the fast track to a successful career in banking and finance.
Then she met Jesus.
Not long after, she met a man in church who also claimed to have a newfound faith. They married and later headed to seminary, where her husband enrolled as a student and Eileen took advantage of the opportunity the school offered wives of seminarians to attend classes.
Those were the happiest years of the marriage, Eileen told me recently, as she shared about the circumstances that led to her becoming headline news throughout the past year, after she reluctantly came forward to share how her former church dealt with her family after the church elders learned of her husband’s abuse of their children. (Eileen’s then-husband, who eventually divorced her, was convicted of aggravated child molestation, corporal injury to a child and child abuse. He is serving a prison sentence of 21 years to life.)
Eileen never planned to come forward about her experience with Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. On the contrary, she moved away and worked for many years to build a quiet life for herself and her children.
Then, in 2017, another woman from Eileen’s former church reached out to her, asking Eileen to share her story in order to help other women who had experienced similar treatment from the church.
Eileen’s children were young adults, and she was battling cancer for a second time. She wasn’t ready. But she continued to hear of more cases of abused women receiving spiritually abusive counseling. Some of these cases were detailed last week in a report from Christianity Today.
Now Eileen can’t help but think, “If only I had spoken up sooner.”
These days, Eileen hangs out with cops and criminals.
As a certified law enforcement chaplain with the Tehama County Sheriff’s
Office in California, Eileen serves inmates and law enforcement in countless ways: from serving as a community call-out chaplain, to teaching regular Bible studies in the jail, to running a 24-hour hotline out of her home, to placing releasees in rehabilitation out-programs, to mentoring women charged with or convicted of drug crimes, assault, embezzlement, murder and a host of other charges. She maintains these relationships with these women whether they are behind bars or back outside.
