A Separate God
Journal of an Amish Girl
by
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It was my twelfth summer, a time of questioning. My mother, sisters, and I were dressing chickens that had been on the range all spring. While the stench of burnt feathers wafted on the still air, my curiosity concerning our peculiar lifestyle, the Old Order Amish way, resurfaced. Looking around at my sibling’s complacent faces, homespun dresses, and bare feet, I wondered about our differences from the Great Society. Thoughtfully, I fingered the dark chambray dress that hung to my ankles. I tried to imagine it being made of red gingham, like the one I had seen an “outside” girl wear at the country store the week before. My mother’s ethereal face, so intent upon the toils at hand, reflected her tranquility. I longed for some of her quiet to still the confusion in my ever-listening heart. “Mother, do people on the outside have a separate God?” Her answer was always the same, "Rachel, you think too much."
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About the Book
2nd EDITION, UPDATED WITH A REVISED ENDING
Raised in an Old Order Amish family, Rachel dreamed of living a life of joy and freedom. But her stringent upbringing prevented her from living the life she imagined.
In A Separate God, follow Rachel as she grows up Amish and begins a pilgrimage from beneath the shackles of oppression, abuse, and dissatisfaction into the liberty of self-discovery. Though she embraces the beauty of the Amish and the love of her mother and father, she also exposes the darkness her community hides from the outside—the disturbed, twisted transgressions that are swept under the carpet. After years of reluctantly submitting to their rigid principles, Rachel will finally find the courage to resist the Amish structure and discover healing from a new culture that would alter much more than just her appearance.
Amish society is more complex than the somber garb and horse-drawn carriages. Rather, it is a society and culture as riddled with hypocrisy as the so-called Great Society around them—a world that Rachel struggles unendingly to adapt to, an outsider even there as she looks back to the nostalgic simplicity of her past.
About the Author
Elizabeth Kaiser resides in a Midwestern town and maintains close relationships with her family, treasuring time spent with them and with her friends, both secular and Amish. A Separate God is based on Elizabeth’s own journal entries, which she began recording when she was only ten years old. Elizabeth lives in South Bend, Indiana.