FARGO – In her pastoral work, the Rev. Laurie Neill had encountered too many faithful whose lives had been hampered by lies they’d been fed and believed.
Having lived it herself, she began confronting these deceptions with a pointed question: “Who told you that?”
The question cuts to the heart of self-defeating falsehoods and graces the cover, as title, of her debut book.
“It’s become a catchphrase for people who’ve read the book,” says Polly Kloster, who works in ministry with Neill at First Lutheran Church.
Kloster says she was reading the book with a couple fellow parish-nurse friends, and one day, in a text thread with them, a self-defeating lie emerged. In the midst of that conversation, one of the friends texted back, “Who told you that?”
“It’s a redirect,” Kloster adds, “a reminder to not be so hard on yourself.”
The lie of ‘You are what you accomplish’
The book hit a particular nerve with Kloster, who came into church ministry after a career in academia.
“Academia is all about accomplishment, about the title and your educational status, and how many initials are behind your name,” Kloster shares. “If you don’t have enough, you’re not good enough.”
Initially, she admits, it was hard to let go of that mindset. “But in some ways, it was very freeing. I didn’t have to be that person anymore.”
When she came to Chapter 16, which addresses the lie, “I am what I accomplish,” she knew she’d landed in a spot meant for her.
“I could reflect on where I am now,” she says. “Nobody’s telling me that now. Nobody cares about my (educational) initials.”
The lies that men commonly confront
Steve Nelson, a fellow parishioner and friend of Neill’s, says that as a man, the book’s leading question has been an important tool.
“Oftentimes, when we’re introduced to one another, the question comes up right away, ‘So, what do you do?’” he says. “And the answer might be, ‘I’m president of such and such, and, now that I’m retired, I vacation in Arizona in my deluxe condo.’”
“I think many men are tied up with what they do,” Nelson continues. “We tell ourselves a lot of stories, and if we could be brought back to the truth, that would be helpful.”
Nelson thinks of the book as an adult version of the bestselling children’s book, “You Are Special,” by Max Lucado.
“One of the things that was jaw-dropping was how candid she is about her life experiences—her difficulties in early childhood, in school, and in later life, with her family and her divorce, which she speaks very frankly about,” Nelson says. “I told her, ‘I think it took you a tremendous amount of courage. You lay it all out there.’”
Her vulnerability, he says, brings a needed authenticity to the work. “Laurie was comfortable describing these things because she believes what she writes; that we’re not how we feel or what we accomplish. We’re God’s beloved.”
How the book came to be
Neill says the impetus for the book emerged from a book study she wrote about six years ago for women on identity.
“It resonated with so many, and showed me that there’s a huge need out there for people to understand who they are,” she says. “There’s so much in the world that tells us who we are that is not at all helpful or true.”
These mistruths, she says, can be both damaging to ourselves, and what we’re able to offer others.
As her study continued to evolve, she realized it might work well in a book format, so she approached the project with that in mind, challenging lies such as, “I am who other people say I am.”
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“There’s a lot of my own story in the book,” Neill says, noting that, for most of her life, she’s struggled with people-pleasing tendencies. “I wanted everyone to like me, and if they didn’t, I was devastated. I took criticism hard.”
But it was an exhausting way to live, she began to realize. “When I believed other people determined my worth, I finally had to ask myself, ‘Who told you that?’” she continues. “It’s God who tells me who I am, and even though I’d love everyone to like me, it’s not possible. Another person’s opinion of me doesn’t determine my worth.”
Additionally, she says, The Enemy, who knows and plays on our weaknesses, will sometimes use the assumptions we make about each other to further confuse. “What assumptions am I imposing on this situation?” she’s begun to ask, “And are they true?”
The Lie Detector
The book includes a section that offers a concrete process for sorting through fact and fiction. She calls it “The Lie Detector,” and it includes three steps to go through “to weed out everything destructive to our core identity.”
“Everyone is lovable and unique,” Neill says. “The Lie Detector runs everything through our indoor psyche. This process can go a long way of improving our emotional and spiritual health.”
Some of these discoveries come simply through maturing. “Who I am at 60 cares less (about these lies) than who I was at 20,” Neill says. “Some of it does come with living life.”
But that can also go the other way. “If you’ve lived a life of hardship, the older you get, you can grow more bitter, and there might be more opportunities for those negative tapes to play.” Those destructive messages, she adds, can become harder to erase as they accumulate over time.
Another chapter addresses the topic of shame. “Everybody experiences shame, but it’s what you do with it that’s really important,” Neill says. “There’s no room for shame in the kingdom of God. And it can be corrosive if you keep those things hidden.”
The objective of the book, she says, is to detect the lies and replace them with the truth. “I’m not saying anything others haven’t said already,” Neill notes, “but hopefully I’ve packaged it in a way that’s helpful.”
The shadow influence
Marianna Malm, editor for the project, and Kloster are among a group of women from Faith Lutheran leaving for Ecuador tomorrow on a mission trip to equip English-speaking missionaries there to better serve. Their bags will be packed with copies of Neill’s book and Bibles.
Voicing a quote she says is “famous for teachers,” Malm says, “We may never know our shadow influence,” or how our work will ultimately influence others. She believe Neill’s work could have an expansive reach.
“People are taking it and absorbing it in their life,” Malm says, noting that Neill “invites readers to explore, as she did for herself, what’s true in their lives. It’s so relevant to today; truth matters more than ever.”
Additionally, she mentions Neill’s blog, “Being Human,” which also reflects some of the stories that were included in the book. “Just like the Trinity, she has three sections,” Malm notes, with 20 chapters. “Pastor Laurie writes so beautifully from her own life. It’s both practical and relatable.”
She takes the risk, Malm says, because she wants others to find the kind of peace-filled life she’s discovered. “But it’s more than that; it’s also about finding a joy in Christ. And don’t we all seek that?”
“Who Told You That?”, published by Deep River Books, can be purchased through Neill’s website, LaurieEtta.com , or online through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on Feb. 10, 2023.]
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