From Fear to Freedom: A Testimony of Grace — Susan Esh

Susan Esch will be sharing her story today. She’s a wife, a mother, and a child of God who left the Amish community in 2021. Since then, she has experienced a deep and transformative journey in her relationship with God, finding freedom and grace in her walk of faith. Alongside her husband Samuel, who is a dairy farmer, she is raising and training their eight children, ranging in age from 14 to 11 months, while embracing a life rooted in God’s love and guidance.

Hope for Wandering Amish came out of a group of brothers who had a burden to help those who are leaving or have left the Amish community. After leaving the moorings of their past, many end up embracing theological errors such as those influenced by Augustine, Martin Luther, and others. While we recognize the lack of a vital Christian experience in many Amish communities, we also recognize there are many good values in the culture. Our desire is to help those that leave to successfully sort through what is worth keeping and what should be let go of in order to align oneself with a true historic faith.

Our vision is to provide sound biblical material and genuine fellowship for our audience, understanding the Bible through the lens of what Jesus lived and taught. As sisters, we are united in our desire to grow together, explore questions of faith and life, and encourage one another in our journey to follow Christ in all things.

Susan, let’s have a word of prayer before we start.

Father God, thank you so much for this opportunity that we have to come before your presence. Lord, I pray that you would be with Susan as she shares the rollercoaster her life has been. Lord, I pray that you would just shine forth as the true hero of her story. Lord, I pray that you would just give her the words to say and be with us as we’re listening, Lord, and please open our hearts for what you might have in what she has to share, Lord. I pray a special blessing on Susan today as she shares. Thank you, Father. In your name we pray. Amen.

Okay, Susan.

Yes, it is great to be on here, and hopefully we can connect even on Zoom if we don’t sit together in a circle, which that is always fun too. Anyway, so I might as well get started. And yeah, blessings to those who are listening, and I’m thankful for everybody’s prayers.

So yes, I did grow up Amish. I would say that as a privilege that I can say that I was honored to be Amish and that I could have the culture behind me, even if we’re not Amish anymore. But yeah, I did grow up in an Amish family on a dairy farm. I had a very carefree childhood. Looking back, I do see I have a lot of memories of growing up. Of course, it was still chaos and stuff going on, but I am truly blessed to be able to honor my parents and to share this with you that it was a privilege of the way I grew up. I would bless everybody that did grow up Amish and not just leave the culture behind anyway.

So coming into my teen years, I ran into a lot of difficulties with my health problems and just faced a lot of trauma in my health problems, sometimes not knowing what’s wrong and sometimes struggling to not be able to do what I felt like I should be able to do as a teenage girl. From 16 to 18, I really dealt with a lot. One thing that I probably didn’t notice at the time or even realize what was going on, I would say it was a dark time in my life. I dealt with a lot of fear. Even if I look back, I see that God was working in my heart, and I did not know why or what was going on. My parents did not know how to help me. I would say that I never really saw my parents read their Bible. We did like the prayer out of the prayer book in German, but that was something I did not understand. So yeah, that was a really hard journey for me.

So I did end up in the hospital. Everything was, I would say I had a cyst on my ovary. I did have a lot of pain, but my mom did choose to go the natural way instead of doing birth control, what they had told me that I should be doing or should take for my pain. But we did go the natural way, and I did get healing for that, and I’m very thankful that my mom did choose the natural way, even if it was a hard road for me. The fear that I dealt with was… yeah, I didn’t really… I did share some with my mom, but a lot I did just keep to myself, because it sometimes felt like mom did not understand what I was going through. So I would say I bottled up a lot of stuff and kept it to myself because it just felt like nobody really understood what I was going through, and if I talked to them, it was like, “You’re okay, it’s nothing, it’s nothing to worry about.” But I do feel, looking back, that God was doing something, and I didn’t have anybody to point me to the right direction.

But I do still feel like my parents did what they knew best in their knowledge of bringing up their family, teaching them what was right and what was wrong, even if it wasn’t Bible-based. But yeah, I do still give them credit for they did what they knew was in their best knowledge.

So then at the age of 18, I got sprinkled into the Amish church, what we would call baptized. I did that because it was an honor to my parents, and it was what you did, even though it was hard for me because I did not understand the German. It was just going through the motions, not understanding. But it did make me look, and I did feel like a good girl because I obeyed my parents, I obeyed what the Amish church does, like you get baptized, and you follow the rules and stuff. So yeah, that was a journey for me. My youth years were, I had good friends. I have a lot of good memories, but I do have some not so good memories.

But yeah, I got married at 20. I married a farmer from Dauphin County, so I moved an hour and a half from my parents, which that was a big adjustment for me, leaving all my family and moving to this very new place that I was not used to. But we got married, and we had a busy, busy life, overwhelmingly busy. I did struggle every time I got pregnant. That was a very stressful, heavy load for both of us because it was drilled into us that you have to make a guy, you have to make it work, and you have to make money, and you work hard.

That was a very stressful time for me and my husband. But God was very good to us. He was sad. Over that time, my health did decline because of my pregnancies. It was not easy. That was always something that was very hard. My pregnancies were always a very hard journey for me. My husband was on a spiritual journey, and he did what he knew.

One thing that I really struggled with him over that time was that he would get up in the morning and sit down and read his Bible for an hour and not make his work top priority, because just for me, the Bible didn’t speak to me. At that point I did not read my Bible, but I did because my husband said that’s what you do, so that’s what I did.

But over that was a journey for me too. My husband was on a spiritual journey, so he was getting words from God and from reading the Bible. So he was searching. Along that search, we did visit other communities. We went to Michigan a couple of times, and that was a really, really big blessing to us. They taught us a lot. They taught us to pray without a prayer book, and that was a huge blessing. It was really, really good to get our children to pray in their own words, which was really huge to us because we did do the prayer book, but it was at the point it did not mean anything. It was just from doing it because that’s what we were taught.

So spending time in Michigan a couple weekends was a huge step in our spiritual journey just to see that they teach the Bible, and you really share. After those couple of experiences in Michigan, seeing their walk with Jesus inspired me to come home and search for my own. So that was a big part for me to start reading my Bible, studying, and just letting the Bible speak to my heart.

So then it would be fast forward to November of 2020. I was 24 weeks pregnant, and as I said earlier, I always struggled with my pregnancy, and having contractions was one of my biggest things that I struggled with. So I did have to take care over every time I was pregnant. So this was number six, and I kind of got used to having these contractions, but if I would sit down, I would rest, they would disappear. But this one was different. They continued to get stronger instead.

So after praying about it and having our midwife check it out, we did find out that I was leaking amniotic fluid. My midwife did say we have to go to the hospital; this is a big risk. But we did choose to stay at home. We knew what was going to happen; they would monitor the baby, and a couple weeks I would have this tiny baby, and it would give a lot of running back and forth to the hospital.

We chose to stay at home in the midst of being busy and having children and stuff. At that point we had five. We had two in school. The community stepped in, so we did end up getting a hospital bed and a wheelchair because getting around was getting very difficult. Every time I’d get up, I would have more contractions, even just going to the bathroom.

So we ended up getting a hospital bed, which was a huge blessing to have that. We did get another midwife, so she was supportive of our decision, which was a big blessing to us. She checked on us every week, and yeah, she walked beside us that long, dark winter of us struggling, a lot of fear. And yeah, it was just really hard.

So in midwinter, it was just a long, hard… I would say I dealt with a lot of fear, depression. Yeah, I just didn’t know what to make of it because it seemed like we prayed every day. We asked God to protect us; He did protect us. We asked for healing, but it just didn’t happen.

It was just hard for me to go through that, praying and not seeing any changes day after day, just being in the same situation week after week and month after month. So yeah, that was really hard. Every morning Samuel would get up, and he would pray over me, and he would put his hand on my belly and just pray for me and protection over the baby, which was a big blessing to me.

So yeah, that continued all winter long. In January, that would be the beginning of 2020. Counting weeks was… it just seemed impossible that we were going to even get close to my due date. We prayed, we tried everything to our wits’ end, just didn’t seem to find any answers to what to do next, I guess was the decision.

So at week 35, that would have been late January, it was just getting harder and harder for me to go to the bathroom. The contractions got stronger. It just looked really, really impossible. We wondered how much longer we were going to be able to do this on our own. We did have family and community rally around us. They did bring in meals; they did our cleaning, they did a lot, and it meant a lot to me and to the rest of the family.

But I do still say that there were just a couple that actually cared deep enough to talk spiritually with me, which was a blessing. I still treasure those moments of having some come in and talk not just the surface level, but went actually deeper.

So then, Monday on the 21st, to get that out at this point anymore, the sunlight club, and some probably are familiar with it, it’s from what Joe Kine put together. I think it was that day or maybe the day before, and I was just laying on the floor, and Samuel picked it up, and it was on repentance. He just kind of started; he just went off on how the Amish do not teach on repentance, even though you get baptized, and if you live a good life and do what you’re supposed to, you’re a good person.

So he kind of went off on that road, and I really pushed back at one point in the beginning. Soon I saw myself as, like I never did before, a very sinful person. I truly saw myself who I am, that it’s nowhere that I’m gonna make it to heaven without surrendering to God. So at that point, I was in tears, and I cried. At that moment I felt… I felt clean. I knew that God forgave me for all my sins in the past.

It was… I just saw myself as a sinner for the first time after just, you know, years after years just thinking I’m a good person and always well. God truly did work in my heart at that point. We went to bed. It was of course in the weary hours of the morning. I did sleep well that night, and it was such a blessing.

So yeah, but Tuesday, January the 21st, I was very tired, weak. I think I was a little bit disappointed that I’m not able to get up and do my stuff. I really came to a point where I feared to go to bed because I knew it’s just gonna be a lot of pain. So by Tuesday evening, it was really hard. I knew it was just gonna be a lot of pain.

So Tuesday, January… did I say January 21st? That night was very painful, tossing and turning, just like many, many other nights that I experienced. It just continued. It just seemed like the pain was at the point that we didn’t know what to do.

So Wednesday, January 22nd, I woke up. I was even weaker. I had more pain. One of my very good friends came. They’re also a minister still in the Amish church. She came. I couldn’t even hold a conversation with her. I was teary-eyed. I was red in the face because I was just crying a lot. She went home. She was really, really worried and concerned about me.

Samuel was saying maybe he wasn’t really praying, but he clearly saw this is a spiritual battle that we’re fighting at this point. He prayed about it. He talked to me about it. He prayed about it fast. Even though at that point I was 36 weeks of pregnancy, I wouldn’t recommend fasting at that point, but I was not able to eat anyway. So that’s just what we did.

We prayed about it, and I gave my okay to have the Amish ministers come anoint me with oil. Samuel’s dad would be the bishop, and they just lived across the yard from us. So he went to talk with Dad, and he gave his okay. He contacted the other ministers. So the rest of the day we fasted. We prayed. I just cried a lot that day. It was a very hard day for me.

So at 6:30, they came. They anointed me. All the time that they were here, I just cried. I couldn’t even control myself. I was blessed. The minister’s wife embraced me and cried with me. But we still were, in a way, disappointed. They did it all in German. I really didn’t understand anything. Samuel did ask Dad if he could put it in English, and he was like, “No, we do it in German. Samuel, you can recite it to me in English after they leave.”

But what I really want to point out in that situation was how much I appreciated that they were willing to step out of their comfort zone and come and anoint me, even if it would have been what they would normally do.

So after that, we had connected with a holiness couple that ministered to us a lot. They were having a Bible study in the area, and we had connected. So they came over around 9 o’clock, and they prayed with us. We held hands. We prayed. We cried. Yeah, it was a really blessed time. It was just a breath of fresh air to have them come and pray over me like that.

So that night… no, maybe I should back up a little bit. After Charles and Elaine, the holiness couple, had left, Samuel had asked if there were ever any demonic forces or occultic practices done over my body or prayed in, and I did say yes. So we prayed about it. When I was three years old, I had scarlet fever, and I was in really bad shape. So we had Mom talk to this doctor that did occultic practices.

We prayed against that, and I felt like I did get freedom after that. So we went to bed, and we slept well.

So Thursday, January 22nd, it didn’t seem possible that I could even be weaker, but I was at the point that we weren’t sure what we would be doing or what the next step was. But Samuel did go; he did milk the cows. It was around noon until he finally came into the house. Yeah, it was just a hard struggle for him to get the chores done and to take care.

So he came in, and I was at the point that I couldn’t even talk to him. I couldn’t communicate to him like talking to him. So that was really scary for him especially. I kind of was in… I didn’t think about it that much.

So he prayed. He asked me to repeat after him. At that point, I wasn’t even able to repeat after him. He just prayed quietly. I don’t remember really if I did or not. But for like 5 or 10 minutes, he just prayed quietly over me. After that, he asked me to repeat; it was a very simple prayer. I don’t have the words for nothing.

But after that stuff changed. I sat up, and we talked, and Cindy was like, “Are you hungry?” I was like, “Yes, I’m hungry.” So he warmed up some soup, and I ate it. For the first time, food actually tasted good after weeks of forcing myself to eat because I had to.

So yeah, that was when I would say the light went off. The evil spirits left. We kind of felt I was being oppressed by him. The devil was seeing what was happening. He was in his very, very best effort. He was still doing everything in his power he could to not leave me until we… until after that prayer, everything changed.

I sat up, and I was… yeah, I was totally a new person. It was amazing. If I look back, I’m just amazed how everything changed after that prayer. So we ate, we talked, and rejoiced for hours afterwards. It was just Sam and I. Yeah, it was just a very special moment for both of us.

Later that evening, Elaine, the holiness couple, stopped in. She couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem to her like I was the same person in this bed anymore. So yeah, we just had a lot of rejoicing to do that day even though it didn’t happen as fast as we thought it would. But God was doing His work.

Then Friday, that would have been January the 23rd, I actually got out of bed, believe it or not. God saved me, and at the same time, He healed me. After that, I was not leaking amniotic fluid anymore, which is amazing. But yeah, God does, at this time and age, He still does healing like that. I am very, very grateful.

So Fridays, I got out of bed, I cleaned my house, I put my wheelchair away. It was amazing. After months of using a wheelchair, I was able to walk back and forth and not have contractions anymore. I was still having some, but not to the intensity that I knew that I had to sit on a chair.

So yeah, I just want to focus on what God in His mercy and His healing He did for me over that time. People came in and were like, “You’re out of bed!” It was just amazing. They just saw me as a different person. I know I had a spark in my eyes; I could smile.

But at that point, I still didn’t really share with other people when they came because it was new to me, and I wasn’t sure. But that Sunday still kind of took us for a rollercoaster ride. I did end up having a lot of contractions. Our son Melvin, he would… I can’t even think what age he would have been then. Yeah, he would have been 10. He came down with his nasty stomach pains. I mean just a lot of pain. He cried, and he just rolled on the floor with pain, and we just couldn’t understand what was going on.

So I started having contractions again a lot. We had Samuel’s dad. We prayed for Melvin. I did end up going to the hospital that evening, later that evening, but it was just another false alarm, which was very, very hard for both of us, spending all night in the hospital and still coming home.

Yeah, just weary. My body was really weary of the pain that I was dealing with. For Melvin to this day, we still really don’t know what was wrong, but we still feel it was probably a spiritual battle that we were still fighting at that point.

So that would have been Thursdays and when I got healed, and then that would have been Sundays. So yeah, we still feel it was a spiritual battle that we were fighting at that point.

So then a year, 15 months later, we had a… well, I guess Ruthann was six months old when I got pregnant again. That was a hard journey for me too. I feel like we did fight a spiritual battle in the beginning of the pregnancy, but we were able to pray over it and into it.

So there were 15 months apart, but those are just truly miracles—two babies that I would say were truly miracles and doing now and how they bond together.

So after June of 2021, we did not go back to the Amish church. After Micah was born in June of 2021, we did not go back to the Amish church. That was a hard step for us, especially with Samuel’s parents right next door. He was the bishop in the Amish church. He had to excommunicate us. They were very nice to us. They did not force us.

At one point, we weren’t sure how should I say it. We knew we were going to be leaving, but they kind of pushed us out. Then in August, late August of 2021, we both got baptized again. Then the bishop or Dad found out, and that kind of kicked us out. They kind of put us out because we thought we baptized again.

So that was a journey for me too, but I would highly recommend anybody getting baptized again if you were just sprinkled into the Amish church, because I did experience freedom and not being bound to all their rules and the way you dress.

So then in September of 2021, I got excommunicated. Samuel did before me. So yeah, that was a hard journey, and it still is, but it’s a blessing to be able to worship freely and to have a brotherhood. So yeah, I think that is about it. But yeah, I just wanted to share and hopefully the people are blessed because if I do look back, I see God was with us even if we sometimes felt like nobody was walking with us. Nobody knows what we’re going through.

So yeah, I’m going to read this Bible verse yet—one that meant a lot to me to this day. I did some journaling over when I was on bed rest, which was a blessing to me, and now still is reading that again.

So I’m going to read this Bible verse that was taped to the end of my bed for months.

Be merciful unto me, O God.

Be merciful unto me,

for my soul trusts in thee.

In the shadow of thy wings,

I will make my refuge

until these calamities be overpassed.

Psalm 71:11

At first, I did not like that verse. I just couldn’t find any comfort in it. But when I did have my new birth experience and I found healing, that Bible verse was everything to me. So yeah, yeah, blessing.

See y’all, and I’ll hand it over to Autumn where you used to be my guest for question and answers.

Well, thank you so much for sharing, Susan. I really appreciate it, and your sharing your testimony and just all your struggles have really hit home and really helped me too.

I have a quick question. I know that you had struggled with health since you were young. Did you have… after your last pregnancy, did you still have some issues, and how were those maybe different from when you were pregnant with your daughter with all those struggles? Did you feel God’s presence more?

Yes, I did. So I should maybe even… I would say instead of my health declining after Ruthann was born, which was a hard struggle for me. It took a little bit more for me to get over, to get my strengths back and stuff, which that’s kind of… I should have thought about it, but I was just like, “You know, I’m healed now. I should be able to get…”

But I feel like with the last two, my body… I just feel like I feel better now than I did for years since my childhood growing up. I always had this health, but I feel amazing, and it’s truly a work of God the way my body is. The last two, especially with Elisha, our 11-month-old, I had a really good pregnancy with him. I still struggled with a lot of contractions to the end where I was very… it really got weary on me, but I had a fast labor, and just after his birth, I just bounced back.

It was truly amazing how God did work and did bring more than just physical, but He did spiritually and mentally heal me as well, so yeah, I’m very grateful for that.

Great! And just a reminder, any ladies that are maybe calling in and don’t have the visual, just the audio, you can send questions through the text message, and then we can get those and ask Susan them as well.

Okay, I’m back, and this is Elisha. Say hi. You were crying, and here’s Ruthann. I wanted her to say hi. This is my miracle baby, the one that I was on bed rest with. It’s truly a miracle. So yeah, she’s almost five.

So yes.

We did have a question come through. Someone asks, “What would be your biggest encouragement for someone going through similar experiences with health?” I can’t read all of it. I guess she’s probably talking about pregnancies or… I believe so. I can’t… it seems like she didn’t quite…

Okay, and other spiritual struggles.

Okay, so that’s a hard one for me. I guess, you know, the healing that I experienced, I would say, was a lot for me. I do feel like after I did get my healing, everything kind of worked itself out. So yeah, that’s a hard question because I did, you know, I dealt with a lot of health issues over the years. So yeah, I’m not exactly sure how to correctly answer or what she’s actually referring to, but I would say for her to keep asking for healing, I guess, because God does heal, and He does care for young mothers that have families.

Yeah, even have sisters pray over her. I would encourage that, yeah.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you so much for sharing, Susan. It was a blessing to hear your testimony again. The first time I heard just a little bit of it, it was just amazing to hear how God can still work and is so powerful.

Yeah, we can trust Him. I really also appreciate how you brought out the good in the Amish whenever you didn’t feel like they had the answers for you, but you appreciated how they still cared and did something that they might have felt uncomfortable with. I think it’s always good to remember that even though someone didn’t maybe do exactly what we wanted them to, to know that they were doing the best they could and to still appreciate it.

I think that’s a lot to find that.

Yeah, I guess that was one point that I really wanted to… that would stand out to people that I don’t or my culture… just because they did not do what we thought they should, but that I can actually value my culture and see the many times that… and appreciate it for what it was. Yeah, I do appreciate the Amish culture, even though I know they’re lacking in some places. But yeah, I still do appreciate that culture, the community, the way they work together when there’s weddings, funerals, like just the whole nine yards, they just work together. They are very good with community. And that’s one thing that I… yeah, that I miss.

But yeah, I say they’re very intentional about community, and that’s a blessing.

Okay, someone did say thank you for sharing your story. Praise God for healing both spiritually and physically.

Yes, amen.

Okay, Mary just commented. She said, “Sorry, I just can’t get it to unmute. I just wanted to say a big thank you to Susan. It was very encouraging to me.” Thank you, Mary.

Okay, well, it doesn’t look like there’s anyone else trying to comment or send a chat. So I will go ahead and close this in prayer. We will keep you ladies updated for future Zoom calls, so please look forward to those.

It will be, I think we want to try for maybe four this year. So this was the first one, so it’ll be a couple months yet. But just look forward to our comments, and you are able to email us on hopeforwanderingamish.com. There is a sisters page, and you can connect with us if you have any questions or comments, or you would just like someone to pray with you, please reach out to us again.

That’s hopeforwanderingamish.com, and there is a sisters page that you can click on for some more information and such.

I will go ahead and close this in prayer.

Yeah, sure.

Father God, thank you so much for this opportunity that we’ve had to come together, Lord, as servants of you, Lord, and just listen to Susan share her testimony of the wonderful work that you’ve done in her life and are continuing to do, Lord. I pray that you would just continue to give her healing both spiritually and physically, Lord. Thank you for the healing you’ve already blessed her with, Lord. I pray that her story and her testimony will reach others, Lord, throughout the years, whomever may come into contact with her or view this, Lord. I pray that you just have your hand on each of them, Lord.

I pray that you just be with us throughout the rest of this day, Lord, and just help those who are struggling, Lord. Just let them know that you are there. You’re just a prayer away. I pray that you would just bless each one of these ladies.

In your name we pray. Amen.

Thank you so much, ladies, and we’ll look forward to the next time.