The Inspirational Journey of Carrie Sheffield
Carrie Sheffield is a Washington, DC-based columnist, broadcaster and author of the newly-released memoir, Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness.
It’s impossible to relay the sheer scope and impressive detail of Carrie’s life journey-to-date, better than she does herself in her book and on her website. Having met Carrie and listened to her tell the journey of writing the book, I was deeply touched by her intelligence and persistence.
Carrie’s achievements are all the more impressive considering the extreme poverty and psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse she faced when young. But despite this, she earned a full-tuition Harvard scholarship and eventually found the peace and anchoring she needed in her Christian faith.
You may have seen Carrie in appearances on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS News, CNBC, BBC, and more and noticed the brave, clear, and intelligent way she takes on issues. However, I wanted to ask her to share more about her book, as I was touched and inspired by her candor and how her journey can serve as a lesson in faith and resilience.
My Interview With Carrie
DSE: You have lived such a unique and difficult childhood. I was struck by how brave you were to escape your family circumstances at 18 years old, the first of your eight siblings to leave. Where did you find the courage to take such a huge step, and can you now look back and marvel at what you were able to do?
CS: Yes, I've often thought the bravest thing I've done was at age 18. In terms of the initial departure, here's a passage from the book, it was actually my schizophrenic brother's sexual assault and attempted rape that spurred me to start the process of leaving:
“It would prove a long winding path, but Peter’s assault eventually became a catalyst for me to scrutinize my faith, to pray for God’s protection and guidance, and, eventually, to reject Ralph’s false prophecies and run away from home. I’m the fifth oldest sibling, but I was the first to escape the clutches of The Mission. That harrowing night back in 2000 taught me a lesson that would be reinforced time and again:life’s most wrenching crucibles can propel us to our greatest moments of growth and freedom.”
Necessity is the mother of invention. I knew that if I wanted a better life than the dark, dangerous one around me that I needed to be resourceful, pragmatic and humble enough to ask for help.
Another reason I left was that I'd undertaken a long-term investigation into my dad and found his handwritten prophecies that were in direct opposition to the official LDS Church's hierarchy. I chose the LDS Church over my dad's prophetic heresy.
DSE: My impression reading the book was that leaving the Mormon religion was even harder for you than leaving your family. You then spend 12 years as an agnostic until converting to Christianity. What is your main message to those who want to have a relationship with God but might not have found the right religious community?
I left the LDS Church intellectually at age 21 after investigating more about its origins and theology. After I left organized religion in around 2006, I threw myself into my career because it was all I had, since I had no faith and limited healthy family ties.
Suffering career setbacks helped me put my personal life into a healthier perspective, and it's part of what led me back to faith and my Christian baptism. My Christian faith helped me overcome my anger and eventually forgive my father. I knew I wasn't living Jesus' teachings if I didn't forgive.
In terms of searching for faith, if you haven't found the right fit, I would say don't give up. I'm a big believer in congregation shopping (I've done it myself) until you find the right place. It's scientifically proven that religious participation is good for your mental health and for strong family formation —when done in a healthy setting.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late last year released provisional data showing 49,449 people committed suicide in the United States in 2022. This nearly 3% increase from 2021 is the highest number ever recorded and the highest rate since 1941—the aftershocks of the Great Depression. It’s nearly 17 times the number of people killed in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Yet women who attend religious services at least weekly are 68% less likely to die “deaths of despair”— suicide, drug overdose, or alcohol poisoning. Men are 33% less likely to sucumb too, according to 2020 research from Harvard University’s School of Public Health. The National Bureau of Economic Research reported that states with declining religious attendance correlated with increased deaths of despair, and vice versa.
A literature review appearing in Psychiatric Times reported: “Of 93 observational studies, two-thirds found lower rates of depressive disorder with fewer depressive symptoms in persons who were more religious. … a review of 134 studies that examined the relationships between religious involvement and substance abuse [concluded that] 90% found less substance abuse among the more religious.”
It's worth finding your best community that you feel relaxed in — an extended family. Keep searching for the right place!
DSE: You work with politics and public policy, but the book doesn’t have any specific policy recommendations — with a big exception regarding school choice. Was that intentional? Why did you decide to include your support for school choice in a memoir?
Yes, it was intentional to keep partisan policy debates out of the book because it's focused on universal themes of faith, mental health and family that transcend partisan ideology.
To me, school choice is one of those policies that should (and is largely trending in this direction) transcends partisan lines. As I write in the book, during my middle school years, I attended two very well-funded, predominantly black inner-city schools in Kansas City, Missouri. I was bullied for being white, and my black friends were bullied for befriending the white girl.
Worst of all, I saw firsthand the perpetual violence, drug abuse, and shoddy education many black students endure. Students waited in long lines to walk through metal detectors each morning, suffered regular bomb scares, and were forbidden from wearing certain color schemes (blue pants/blue shirt for the “Crips” gang or red pants/red shirt for the “Bloods” gang) since they could trigger violence.
In sixth grade, I remember science classwork I’d seen in maybe second or third grade. We spent almost as much time dealing with students yelling at teachers or getting in fights as we did actually learning. Classmates threw chairs at teachers, who kept security officers on speed dial. After nearly two years, our family returned to suburban schools, which were safer and more academically rigorous.
My harrowing KCPS experience taught me that accountability is essential in the education system. And from a racial justice standpoint, it showed me how children in majority-black environments suffer neglect in systems created and maintained primarily by bureaucrats and politicians who claim the needs of black children top their priority list. Fueled by campaign donations from teachers unions, politicians pay lip service to racial justice while trapping black children in failing public schools. This is a vital civil rights issue of our day —we must let children thrive in healthy educational environments.
