How personal tragedy shaped her destiny & made her the woman of faith she is today.
Anne Beiler got her start in a farmer’s market stand selling pizza and Stromboli in Downingtown , Penn. Her humble business quickly grew from one stand to two in 1988, and is now selling pretzels from 1,000 “Auntie Anne’s” stores in 21 countries. She sold the company in 2005 to retire and spend time with her family.
For Beiler, now 61, the defining moment in her life came in 1975 when her 19-month-old daughter was killed in a farming accident. It was “the experience that changed my life forever in good and bad ways. Without that experience, I really can’t imagine the person I would be today.”
In “Rising Faith,” an article by Melissa Simpson in this summer’s issue of Hope for Women magazine, Beiler reveals how the pastor she sought for counseling following her daughter’s death took advantage of her vulnerability to sexually abuse her. Years later, she would learn that her other daughter suffered the same fate, a revelation that “put the lid on the coffin.”
“I went into intense counseling because I realized that the hurricane hit me so hard that only now was I starting to put the pieces back together,” says Beiler. “It took me a good five or six years to make sense of all of it.
“So the healing came about over a period of time, but let me tell you: It took a lot of hard work on my part. It took a lot of deep inner soul-searching. It took the love of my husband, the love of my kids, and the forgiveness of all the people I loved dearly.
“But at the end of the day, it still boiled down to one thing: I hated myself.”
Learn more about how Beiler overcame this hatred, learned to feel God’s forgiveness, and where she stands today as author of Twist of Faith (2008) by ordering your own copy here.
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