The founder of Auntie Anne’s Pretzel company says the principles of leadership that propelled her business from a single pretzel stand in Pennsylvania in 1988 to an iconic franchise located in airports and malls nationwide emerged from faith and suffering.

Anne Beiler recently published an op-ed in The Christian Post sharing her leadership principles from her 2021 book Overcome and Lead, which she said came in part from her faith-based childhood on a farm with seven siblings in the Amish-Mennonite community of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She told CP in a recent interview, “My mom and dad were great parents,” noting that they provided her a “safe and secure lifestyle.” She said, “They taught us about God, and going to church and sitting around the table three times a day for meals was just our culture.”

Beiler continued, “And so, in that setting, I felt like they gave me a really good foundation to weather the storms of life.” Even so, she said she couldn’t have anticipated the storms that would come her way, which she detailed in her 2019 book The Secret Lies Within. Tragedy struck Beiler’s family in 1975 when her 19-month-old daughter, Angela, was killed in a farming accident, an event she said would lead her through a dark spiritual valley that would ultimately transform her view of God’s grace. Beiler said, “As Angie made her ascent into Heaven that day, I began my slow and gradual descent into a world of emotional pain and spiritual confusion. Because I’d been a good girl, the question became, ‘Why?'”

Beiler said her pain compounded when a pastor she went to for counseling took advantage of her physically and pulled her into a secretive, abusive relationship that lingered for nearly seven years. She said, “That became worse than losing our daughter. Because as I left his office, I didn’t understand anything about abuse, abuse of spiritual power, sexual abuse. I was not familiar with that world at all.”

Beiler continued, “But when I left his office, I made a choice. And I decided I would never tell anyone what he did to me. But that one choice I made kept me in a life of secrets for almost seven years, a life of secrets and abuse during that whole time, without me telling anyone or anyone knowing anything about it.” Beiler said, keeping the abusive relationship a secret led her to feel like she was “dying inside.” It dragged her into a deep spiritual depression and to the brink of suicide.

Beiler said she began to find healing after applying a principle in James 5:16, which encourages believers to “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” Beiler said of the biblical command, “I know it’s so compact. It seems so simple. But I can tell you, it’s the most difficult thing anyone does if they’ve been caught in the dark world and they can hardly find their way out. But it’s really the only way out.”

Even though she still struggles with lingering memories of her past and her shortcomings, she said she no longer feels the guilt or shame she did because she came to realize Jesus took it on Himself. “I was carrying the shame because I could not forgive myself,” she said. “Somebody had to pay, and I was paying through carrying shame.” Although she once felt “dead on the inside” because of her shame, she says, “Today I’m alive.”