- Anne Beiler and herhusband bought a food stand

at an Amish market.

There was just one problem.

The pretzels tasted lousy.

So, Anne decided to tweak the recipe,

and Auntie Anne's was born.

- [Narrator] Anne Beiler,creator of the famous

Auntie Anne's pretzel franchise,

is known for her success,

yet what many don'tknow is the devastation

she endured before it,

when her 19-month-olddaughter Angie was killed.

- My sister was driving aBobcat and hauling sand,

and as she was doing that,

she didn't see Angie that morning,

and when she turned theBobcat to go forward,

she saw Angie in front of the Bobcat,

she was killed instantly that morning.

- [Narrator] In her book,"The Secret Lies Within,"

Anne recounts her story of loss.

The years of sexual abuse she endured

at the hands of her pastor,

and how the power ofconfession saved her life.

- Anne Beiler is here with us now,

and we welcome you back to The 700 Club,

it's great to see you again.

- Thank you Terry, it's myhonor to be here with you.

- Go back to the verybeginning with us if you will,

how did you know how to make pretzels?

- Oh, I never knew how to make pretzels

until I was 40!

- So where did that--- It was at a farmer's market,

in Downingtown, Pennsylvania,

and I went to work tobasically support my husband

who was passionate about doingcounseling for marriages,

and he was doing it as a free service,

and obviously no money in the bank.

- To undergirt it, yeah. (laughs)

- (laughs) And so I wentto work basically to,

just to make a living.

- So pretzels seemed(laughs) like a good idea?

- Well, the market standthat we bought had,

we were selling pretzels.

- You were sorta carrying on the--

- Yes.

So I carried on what we bought,

and that's how it happened.

- You never really advertised, and yet,

this just took off like wildfire,

how did that happen?

- Well it happened because I knew

what we had was a great product,

and I didn't let anyonewalk past our store

without giving them a sampleof our Auntie Anne's pretzels.

And that was reallyour form of advertising

for many, many, many years.

Just taste it and you'll love it.

- The pretzel sticks in the bag,

with the, yeah, wonderful.

You and your husband both came out of

an Amish Mennonite background,

and one of the things that is an aspect

of that faith group isnot sharing emotions,

not letting emotions be freely shown,

how did that impact you?

- Well, you know mom and dad,

there were eight of us kids,

and they were loving parents,

took us to church every Sunday,

we sat around the dinner table,

breakfast, lunch, anddinner back in the days.

So our family life was very secure,

I felt very happy as a kid.

One line that my mom always said to us

throughout the years was, "littlechildren, love each other,

"do not give each other pain,

"when one speaks to you in anger,

"do not answer them again."

So, even though it's a sweet little line

that she would say to us,

I never realized untilmany, many years later,

what do you do when you can't talk?

You stuff.

And that really became my way of life.

- So a few years after youand your husband were married,

and you mentioned it,or we mentioned it a bit

in that initial video, a tragedy struck.

I mean a tragedy thatdestroys some people.

Tell us about that.

- The only thing that really was kind of

a setup for me was that Ibelieved that life is good,

and that God is harsh.

And I believed that if I was a good girl,

that God would bless me,he'd be pleased with me,

and I would just forever be, I don't know,

I guess I thought I was immune,

- Unscathed maybe.- Somewhat, you know.

But years later now, Iunderstand the truth is

life is hard, God is good, Idon't confuse the two anymore.

So I really wasn't prepared for tragedy,

and when our sweet little Angela Joy

at 19 months and 12 days,

when she was killedinstantly on our little farm,

she made her ascent into heaven,

I began my gradual descent into a world

of spiritual confusion and emotional pain,

because I thought, I didn't understand,

I was a good girl, I thoughtI was pleasing to God,

and that he would bless me,and I just didn't understand.

But, I understand today.

Life is hard, and He is good.

- So how did you, here you are,

kind of trapped in thisway that you've grown up,

feeling like you can't share your feelings

or be open about your emotions,

to lose a child like thatis a devastating scenario,

how did you walk through that

without being able to share those things?

- Well, initially we had lots of support,

in the Amish Mennonite communitythere's lots of support

initially when someone finds themselves

in this kind of a tragic place,

so initially I felt great support,

but to be able to then, as time went on,

to feel the grief and thesadness and the loneliness,

and at one point, I reallyfelt terribly defeated

because I wasn't livingand overcoming life,

I wasn't more than a conqueror,

and so Satan was always whispering to me,

"You know if you reallywere a very good Christian,

"you would be overcoming,you'd get over this."

And so nobody really saidwe can't talk about it,

but you know, honestly Terry,

I didn't have the vocabularyto describe the grief

that I was feeling and myhusband and I just drifted apart.

Stayed together, but drifted apart.

- Well, many marriages don't survive that.

So you went to your pastorto get some counsel,

to help you work through all the things

that you were feeling atthat time, and what happened?

- Five months after Angie was killed,

he came to me and said,

"just come see me at the office

"and we will talk aboutthis," and I was overjoyed.

When I finally went to talk to him,

I felt this relief,

like "Wow, I do know how totalk about how I'm feeling,

"if somebody helps me or listens to me."

So I was feeling relieved that day,

and before I left his office,he took advantage of me.

And I knew nothing about sexual abuse,

I knew nothing about abuse

of spiritual power,- What did you think?

- Well, I felt like it was my fault,

like, what did I do wrong?

And leaving his office, I decided that day

that I would never tell anyone what he did

because I knew they wouldn't believe me,

because he was the belovedpastor in our church,

had a very exciting, charismatic church.

It took my voice away.

I didn't have the right to speak.

Which, many times in abuse,we do feel like we're trapped,

we don't have, ourvoice is stolen from us.

- Most of the time.- Yes, yes.

- So this went on for a window of time,

what made you finallysay this has to stop?

- Well after about sevenyears, I was skin and bones,

I was falling apart from the inside out,

you know, I love the linethat Dr. Richard Dobbins says,

"Alone we die, connected we live."

And I was alone, and I was dying.

We had two daughters at that time,

and during that time I prayed every day,

by my bedside, asking Jesus to help me,

to forgive me, I criedout to him all the time.

And the good news, Terry,is that he always heard me.

And he always listensto us in our despair,

and every time we come tohim he's there listening.

And I knew that.

But the three things that Ilearned during that experience

was the three types of confession.

It was the bedside prayer,and it's the journaling,

which, we all love David,he wrote how many psalms,

journaling, talking about how we feel,

so I was able to do that,

but the one to another confession

is really what put me into the light,

and what really set me free, James 5:16.

- There's something about that,

especially where there's something

where the enemy comes in andputs shame in your heart,

or in your mind,

there's something about speaking it

that makes that flee.

- Mm-hmm, you know the powerof a secret can destroy us,

but the power of confessionwill give us life.

And after all those years,it's like God said to me,

"Get up off your knees,and go tell your husband

"what's going on in your life." (laughs)

Well, I would rather stay on my knees,

or keep journaling, I didnot wanna tell my husband.

- Next option.

- So, I did, and as I wentto confess to my husband,

I was in my little blueToyota pickup truck,

and all the way to his body shop,

my palms were sweating,my heart was racing,

I just kept crying, I said,Lord I can't tell him,

I don't want to putthis on him, but I did,

and it took courage for me,

and it will take courage foranyone to uncover secrets

that just really keep you bound,

but that day, as I told Jonaswhat was going on in my life,

it was a very short confession,

but it was the beginning of a new life.

It was the beginning of redemption for us.

The one confession thatI made to him that day

changed the trajectory of my entire life,

and it began the journey of redemption,

it's when Jesus began redeeming me

from all of my past, all of my darkness,

all of my pain, my blame, and my shame,

my guilt was more than I could bear.

But in that one little two-linedconfession that I made,

my husband looked at me,

and the look was all I could take.

So all I did was say what I had to say,

and turned around and walked away.

And that night, whenhe came back, he said,

"Hon we need to talk about

"what you talked to me about today."

I said, "I don't wanna talk about it."

I just didn't know how I wasgonna be able to talk about it.

He said, "Well I knowthat you're not happy,

"and I've known it for many years,

"but I thought it wasbecause of Angie's death.

"I want you to be happyand so don't leave me

"in the middle of the night."

And during all this time,I really believed the lies,

Satan tells us so many lies in our pain,

and in our darkness, andin this place of secrets,

we believe the lies.

And I truly believedthat he would divorce me.

And so, we began totalk, and he just said,

"Hon I know that you've been unhappy,

"and if you'll just tellme that you need to go

"find someplace, livesomewhere else, let me know,

"and I'll help you, I'llhelp you pack your bags,

"and we'll do this together.

"But if you go, you haveto take the girls with you,

"because they need their mother."

You can't even imaginewhat that meant to me

because I felt unforgivable,unlovable, unchangeable,

unworthy of anything good in my life,

I felt like a horrible mom, a bad wife,

and my husband is telling memy girls need their mother.

It was the beginning ofthe spark of hope in me

that changed everythingfor me in that moment,

but it started with thepower of confession.

- You know, Anne said a moment ago

that secrets can destroy us,

and "The Secret Lies Within"

is the name of her book,and it is an amazing book.

If you are struggling withsomething in your life,

some shame, some self-loathing,some need for healing,

this is a wonderful beginning for you.

Get the book and read it,it's available nationwide.

Thank you for being so vulnerable.

- It's my great pleasure Terry, thank you.