Anne Beiler is the founder of Auntie Anne’s Pretzel company, which she founded in 1988 as a single Pennsylvania pretzel stand and eventually turned into a nationwide franchise best known for its mall and airport stalls. According to Beiler, the values and leadership principles with which she built the business emerged from her trying to live out her Christian faith as she overcame a life of suffering.
Beiler did so in an interview for The Christian Post in which she explained how her faith was first built when she was brought up on a farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. There, her parents taught her about the faith while raising her well and imbuing many aspects of her daily life with Biblical lessons and Christian practices.
Explaining that, she told The Christian Post, “My mom and dad were great parents.” She added, “They taught us about God, and going to church and sitting around the table three times a day for meals was just our culture. And so, in that setting, I felt like they gave me a really good foundation to weather the storms of life.”
But then Beiler’s life was turned upside down in 1975 when a tornado killed her 19-month-old daughter. Explaining that, she 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?'” Yet worse, as she went to the pastor for help, he took sexual advantage of her.
But then, after finally making it out of that dark pit seven years later, her views on faith had strengthened and changed. She said, “And what I know today, through over seven decades of life’s experiences, is that life is hard, and God is good. And I’m not confused about that anymore.” According to Beiler, what really helped her heal was James 5:16, which exhorts Christians to “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
Explaining why that verse helped her, she said, “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.”
That helped her find her way out of a pit of self-hate and despair. She said, “I had never heard of self-forgiveness. I didn’t even know I needed to forgive myself. But it was so powerful and so strong that all I could do was respond and say yes.” She added, “I was carrying the shame because I could not forgive myself. Somebody had to pay, and I was paying through carrying shame.”
Then, explaining how that changed her for the better, she said, “I love my life. I love my Savior. I love the redemption. I love my family. I’m walking in the light. Is life easy? No, you still live life, but you’re in a whole other world. And it’s amazing to me how Jesus has redeemed every part of me.”
Featured image credit: By Dough4872 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85874336