Behind the Curtain: Finding resurrection in the real.
by Stephanie Henderson
Healing from a lifetime of shame-soaked religious fundamentalism has transformed how I experience holidays. Once about control, they now offer freedom. Last week, I flew west—not for a special service or a brunch dripping with pretense, but to celebrate endings and the beginnings they birth.
Easter, once the season of performance and exhaustion, is now truly about renewal. This year, resurrection didn’t show up in a church pew or an over-sung hymn, but in quiet distance, and sky. I found it in a most unexpected place: the story of a misunderstood witch reclaiming her power. Rising doesn’t always look like whatever story someone decides it should.
During my flight, I stopped trying to earn the air I breathe. Headphones on, I let Wicked sing me into stillness. Chaos un-spiraled itself into calm, like a tightly wound spring finally releasing. For the first time in years, I existed. Not for anyone else, not for a purpose, but simply for me.
We all carry scripts written for us by others, about who we should be, what we should believe, and how we should fit into a world that rarely makes room for our full selves. The weight of those expectations is something so many of us know, even if the stories are different. Letting them go doesn’t mean forgetting them; it means caring for the parts of us they couldn’t erase.
In that bubble of borrowed space, surrounded by strangers who didn’t need me to be anything, I exhaled the burden of my past. It was a breath of renewal, one that carried me back to a decade ago when I accepted a call to ministry. I dove into years of education and endless “discerning,” all to figure out how to live authentically in that call. About halfway through, I realized survival meant ripping up the script. I was a shadow of myself, my feet heavy with the weight of expectations, moving through life as if I were already buried. Every choice was about trying to save the world while convinced I was beyond redemption.
Now, less than a month after being granted ordination outside the church that tried to bury me, I feel like I’m living a rewritten version of my old story.
As a kid, The Wizard of Oz terrified me. The characters felt too big, too loud, too cruel. I watched in fear, hoping for redemption that never came. I prayed for the resurrection of a girl who melted away while the world cheered her destruction.
We’ve all faced towering illusions of power—those voices telling us we’re too messy, too broken, or too much. And we’ve all wondered if maybe they’re right, even when every fiber of our being rebels against it.
Now, I see how warped those redemption arcs always were, crammed into boxes too small to hold the holy mess of reality. They were stories designed to shame and control, not heal and empower.
I’ve cried over both the original movie and its retelling. But I didn’t cry this time. Not because I’m healed or whole, or because there’s nothing left to mourn. But because now I know I don’t have to cram my pain into a praise song to make it allowable.
My life has been shaped by those who stood behind curtains, pulling levers and pretending to have power they never deserved. They pointed to the different ones, the messy ones, the ones who wouldn’t fit, and called them dangerous. They taught me to fear myself.
For so long, I let that story shape me. My whole body rebelled, but I was desperate to find a home, even if it killed me.
Somewhere around the time I got married, a new narrative started to take shape. The same story, mostly—the same players, same stages, same exhausting drama... but now told from the perspective of the ones who’d been othered.
In my life, the curtain always concealed more than one manipulator, and more than one scapegoat sacrificed for their illusion. The binary was always a lie: good vs. evil, saved vs. lost, chosen vs. cast out. All designed to control, not connect. I just had to get beyond the black and white to see it.
At the end of Wicked (a retelling of The Wizard of Oz from the perspective of the so-called Wicked Witch) when the witch is falling; hunted, haunted, blamed; the angry chorus of her past rises on the wind. In the mirror of a glass tower, she sees herself as a child also falling, reaching out.
The woman reaches back.
And then she flies.
When she rose, reclaiming what was stolen, I saw a truth many of us share: the power to rise is within us, even when the world insists it isn’t. Easter isn’t just a holiday anymore. It’s a reminder that resurrection isn’t about avoiding death but about reclaiming life. It’s about shedding all that was never meant to be ours, so we can rise with the fullness of who we truly are. This is the truth that lives in each of us—the power to embrace who we are becoming. It’s not just my story. It’s yours too.
It’s a power that doesn’t ask for permission, a rise that doesn’t seek approval. And in that rise, we challenge the very systems that sought to keep us small. It’s a resurrection that says the cross of erasure was never holy; it was a scaffold for silencing. And the hands holding the hammer never offered salvation—only a distorted picture of it.
The song that is sung at that point of the movie is my anthem, the one I sing loudly when I’m driving alone: So, if you dare to find me, look to the western sky. As someone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to fly. And if I’m flying solo, at least I’m flying free.
It’s not about renown. It’s about reclaiming what’s mine.
The faith I once knew turned empowerment into pride, self-worth into rebellion, and grace into shame. They insist I’m flying too high. But they’ve always been terrified of people whose perspective allows them to see through the smoke and mirrors.
When I saw Wicked in theaters last fall, my son grabbed my arm as the wizard was introduced. His small fingers squeezing my arm, he whispered his fear in a trembling voice. I held his hand, he snuggled close, and I told him when it was over. It wasn’t the misunderstood witch that frightened him—it was the booming, hollow projection of power, the false face towering above, pretending to be real.
In that moment, I saw the importance of rewriting my story, not just for me but for my son. Where I once clung to survival, he knows he can thrive. Where I feared the shadows behind the curtain, he can see them for what they are: empty projections.
This is Easter now: messy, real, powerful. A sky of freedom, not an altar of shame.
If you’ve ever been told that you’re too much, or too little, or that you don’t belong, this is your moment to rewrite your story. This is a season of resurrection.
Stephanie is a trauma-informed mental health and spirituality professional, coach, and writer specializing in the intersection of religious recovery and self-compassion. With a background in ministry and a Master of Science in Mental Health and Wellness, she supports individuals navigating deconstruction, spiritual abuse, and the long road home to themselves. Her work centers survivors' stories and invites reclamation of identity, voice, and worth beyond shame-based systems. Stephanie is also a parent of neurodivergent children and brings lived experience and fierce compassion to every space she enters. She believes healing is holy—and that everyone deserves to fly.