The Pain of a Shining Light

When I began this blog, I really had no idea how much rain could—and would—come down. 

My experiences with the gospel seem to be different than most. I took the leap of faith and tumbled down the ravine. The things are taught in Church to solve problems didn't work for me. In fact, they made things worse in some cases.

It's been a rough few years. My kids have been suffering from the burden of emotional and physical abuse from their father. The damage is pernicious and possibly permanent. I've lost my heart to post, preach, or much of anything beyond survival. But I think I'm finally reaching a tipping point.

Trowels and Muskets

I was 17 years old when I first walked into my dorm room at BYU. The last two years had been a struggle. When I was 15 years old, my previous best friend spread rumors about me and her boyfriend to explain why I didn't hang around her any more. Her family didn't often attend church, and I was often the one who drove her to and from youth activities. The last couple of times, she and her boyfriend made out in the back of the car while I played chauffeur. It made me uncomfortable, so I had gradually pulled away from our friendship.

The rumors were vicious. At school, everyone pretty much just rolled their eyes and didn't believe her. It was different at church. I had to sit in the pews, hearing people whisper about me. Grown women called "Jezebel" at the back of my head. My bishop called me in, heard the whole story, and believed me. That was the only support from the adults in the church that I got. My young women's leaders would give lesson after lesson about chastity, calling on me pointedly. It got so bad that my own (very faithful) parents told me I didn't have to go to church any more if I didn't want to.

But I refused to let them drive me away.

When it came to applying for universities, I ignored the many recruitment brochures from very good schools. I could have applied and been accepted to MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Columbia, or Yale. But I knew that the entirety of the church couldn't be what I'd experienced up to that point. I knew there was only one way to know the truth.

In the end, I only applied to BYU.

Why you can't fast your way into getting what you want....

On the 7th of April, 2020, President Russell M. Nelson joined the Catholics on Good Friday by asking for a worldwide fast to "prayerfully plead for relief from this global pandemic." He also invited anyone not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to join.

Since then, people have been going to Facebook to declare "I will follow the prophet!" and with memes like this one, suggesting that fasting will bring the outcome we all want.

Unfortunately, this meme is a perfect example of why 256 character soundbytes can't effectively communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This particular meme was something said in a very specific circumstance regarding a very specific situation. It does not follow that it applies to something like fasting away a pandemic.

Child Abuse and the New Training Module

The new training for leadership of youth isn't great, but it's not terrible. A few thoughts I had while taking it:

This is really good:

"Coercion can occur when a leader compels a child using religious language or authority to imply a spiritual obligation or duty, permission, sanction, punishment, justification, intimidation, or threat. This is contrary to the Savior’s teaching that individuals should lead “only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:41)."

However, I think we need to be more explicit about when someone invokes someone else's authority to justify what they say. Judging someone as not following the prophet because they make choices that don't align with whatever trendy program or catch phrase is most recent is abhorrent, and falls solidly under this category. 

I, the Samaritan

In many ways, I have been richly blessed in my life.

The Spirit led me to a career that has made it possible to support my children. I have been raised in a faith that has sustained me and given me joy when life has often given me little reason for it.

But I am a Samaritan.

I am divorced and remain unmarried. For a host of reasons, I do not anticipate marrying in the temple again, and so I will not marry. To make things worse, I do not easily fit into the typical category of the divorcées and widows, available when the youth need a service project and otherwise silent.

My sins are branded on my face. I could not hide them if I wanted to. They have beaten me, wounded me, left me for dead on the side of the road. They are made plain to me every time I go to church, every time I think longingly of peace I once felt in the temple. There is no escape from being repeatedly reminded of my failures if I want to remain faithful in the Church.

Is "Violence" Really the Right Word?

He sat across from me, behind a desk. He was soft-spoken, the quintessential shy guy in the corner. When he asked me that question, "Is 'violence' really the right word? Doesn't that water down the word 'violence'?" I had been trying to explain to him why I—why people like me—so often felt that the church was not for us.

He knew from a previous discussion I had with him that I had been struggling with the changes in the Church. The efforts to pull back from the burden the church places on people have left many of us at the edges feeling even more adrift and on our own than we already did. 

I had stumbled over trying to explain how the things we teach at church conflict with our lived experience, when the pinnacle of church attendance—being sealed to a spouse for all eternity—was one of the sharpest tools in our abusers' box, and the promise of trying again brings feelings of fear and inadequacy rather than peace and hope. 

When Charity Causes Death

Have you ever felt that you fail at doing the right thing? Maybe you have tried to be a good spouse, but find yourself always falling short. Maybe you have a coworker who doesn't seem to like you, no matter what you do to mend fences. Maybe you have a child who has chosen to reject your beliefs, and you feel like you have failed them. Or maybe you find yourself battling a destructive habit, only to find yourself succumbing again and again.

This is a feeling with which I have become very well acquainted. The pang of failure has become an old friend at this point in my life. The Lord is working with me differently than He ever has before, to the point that I sometimes wonder if it really is Him.

Today, as I sat during sacrament thinking over these things and trying not to cry, I remembered something that happened to me when I was six years old.

Changes in the Church: Separating the Wheat from the Tares

Sistas in Zion posted this to their Facebook page not long ago. It is a sentiment that I am finding expressed more and more often in the whirlwind of changes in the Church. This idea that the changes in the church will prove those who are truly the Church of God and those who are not.

Those who follow the prophet, do what he says, are those who will be proved faithful, and those who do not are simply not strong enough. The wheat and the tares will finally be separated.

I admit, I've had a very hard time with one of the changes. The manner in which church was shortened and this "Come Follow Me" program was rolled out has been a huge hit to my faith. Because of the 2nd and 4th/1st and 3rd alternate between Sunday School and "the Quorums" as I think of them, my kids will go months without one type of instruction or the other. This policy seems to have sprung from the mind of the privileged, those who have had the luxury of making their kids go to church every week, those who are firmly and safely in the center of the flock.

Living with both fear and faith....

I lived in an almost constant state of fear for years. October is a hard month for me, not only because it was one of the incidents that I experienced, (I am reminded every time I see a fog machine,) but because it is National Domestic Violence month.

Every year, I consider wearing purple on the day of the month that he left me. I only did it once. A tiny, purple ribbon. The truth is, I don't want to dwell on what happened in the past. I don't want to be reminded. It's not really a part of my life any more. And I certainly don't want to talk about it.

But I don't have much choice about being reminded, so I choose to talk so that other people can feel a little less alone. And still more can catch a glimpse of a world I hope they never have to truly understand, no matter how much I long for understanding.

Getting out of my relationship didn't help the fear. It honed it. As with most abusive people, the loss of control made him truly rage. And that rage echoes through the years. He simply can't let it go completely, and focus on his new wife and his kids. But it's okay. Every time he tries something new, he loses a little more power. So rather than focusing on that, I want to talk about hope and faith in the midst of fear.

We all have had cause to fear. Fear not being good enough. Fear judgment. Fear loss of blessings if people knew what we were really like. Fear being alone. Fear loss of children, spiritually or physically. Fear the loss of our spouse, of being looked down on by our neighbors. Fear of not being right. Fear of sickness or death.

And often, you hear that fear cannot exist where there is faith. But it can.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ brings joy, but it is not always the type of joy that led the sons of God to shout and all the morning stars to sing. Sometimes it's a quiet joy, the joy that comes from knowing that there is someone out there, an omniscient being, an omni-benevolent God, who knows you, knows your sorrows, and is willing to sorrow with you, even if that sorrow is temporary. He doesn't tell us to buck up and get over it. He weeps along with us.

I often picture that, when I mourn with no one to hear, knowing that my mourning is really kind of stupid, after all. My kids will be fine. They are learning, in spades, to distinguish between truth and error. That's exactly what we're here for.

To me, faith is not dressed in white, holding a candle, with softly flowing hair. Faith is battle-scarred, dressed in filthy fatigues, mustering just one more smile, one more act of charity, one more attempt to drag our fellow soldiers out of harm's way. Faith makes mistakes, but keeps trying because she knows in whom she has trusted.

I can't see even the next step in front of me, and I've lived that way for years. But I keep walking, because I'd rather fall while trying to serve my God than stand still and wait for a rescue that may never come.

So for me, as hard as it is, October is a time of faith. I don't know what eternity holds. There isn't much hope in what we know so far, for me. But I know God. I know my Savior. And I choose to keep walking, whether or not I wear a purple ribbon.

Where Culture and Doctrine Collide—The Cult of Positivity

"There is a truth deep down inside of you that has been waiting for you to discover it, and that truth is this: you deserve all good things life has to offer."

—The Secret

"Yea, blessed are they whose feet stand upon the land of Zion, who have obeyed my gospel; for they shall receive for their reward the good things of the earth,...And they shall also be crowned with blessings from above...."

—D&C 59:3-4

I have often heard it said that the best lies are 99% truth. It has been said of Satan that he leads us "carefully" down to hell. One of the things that culture teaches us is that we deserve. Advertisers make millions, maybe billions of dollars per year on teaching us that we deserve good things.

Ministry and Suffering Alone

There is a rising trend of people talking about reaching out to those who are struggling. I'm not sure how I feel about that. While I don't think that reaching out is wrong, there's something about this effort that doesn't sit well with me.

It started with the new ministering program. I absolutely love the idea of ministering. I've struggled with the visiting teaching program for years. At the time of ministering, I had asked to not be visit taught any more. Unfortunately, it was misinterpreted to mean that I didn't want to visit teach any more, and I'd been entirely cut off from the whole program, but that is another issue. When they announced ministering, my heart sang. This is what I'd wanted to do and be, and never really knew how.

But then reality struck. Up until very recently, I've been pretty overwhelmed with my life. I've just barely gotten to the point where I'm strong enough again to try to reach outside of my own little circle. And I have found that by simplifying my life in order to manage it, I've created a habit of only dealing with my life.

Ministering requires not only serving, but also being able to be served. And I can't do that very well. I am fiercely independent, and the few times I've managed to admit to needing help, it has only been by compartmentalizing how I feel about being helped away from my mind. One of my greatest fears is being a burden. To the point where I'd rather suffer than risk being a burden to someone.

Because I feel this way, I also have an unrighteous habit of looking the other way when people are hurting. I don't want someone to take advantage of my weakness, so I don't serve unless expressly asked. Ministering to God's children doesn't work that way, though, as evidenced by my own life, where I've needed help desperately and not been able to ask for it.

So I guess that's why I have a hard time with this concept of reaching out to those who are struggling. I don't want anyone and everyone seeing my pain and weakness and trying to fix me. If I'm struggling, I don't want it to be visible enough for people to notice and help. But at the same time, I know I need it. Desperately.

I don't know what the answer is. But I know I don't want to be a project. I really would rather suffer than that. Even though I know that, technically, not being open enough to be helped is antithetical to Zion and God's Kingdom.

A Hunger and a Thirst

This is a difficult topic to discuss, because it's offensive. I guarantee that someone is going to claim that what I'm saying is Pharisaical, that I'm saying I'm more righteous than they are. But I'm not. I have some very definite sins that I'm struggling with which keep me separated from God.

But despite this, an observation has been weighing on my mind. This is my attempt to explore what I'm feeling by intuition and try to ferret out the logical reasons why I'm so bothered.

I've been participating in various online LDS communities on and off for over 15 years. When I first started, I noticed that many people online resented the various rules we were given. Whether it was a rule as silly and simple as wearing white shirts to pass the sacrament, or as serious and grounded in doctrine as eternal marriage being only between a husband and wife, nothing has escaped the criticism of the self-selected Mormon intelligentsia.

For many years, I thought it was a bias. Those who struggle with feeling that the church is restrictive, and that the leadership are closed to change naturally look for a safe space to air their grievances, which the internet naturally provides in vast and varied venues.

But over the past several years, I've seen these paradigms spread and grow in the average Mormon community. This drive to fight against rules is a natural one. And sometimes those rules should be opposed. That's what makes this so difficult to discuss. It's 90% good mixed with 10% danger, and speaking against the 10% offends people, who then deflect your concerns to the 90% and claim thereby that you are wrong.

And my thoughts on this topic are by no means complete or fully formed. So let's start with what I know.

This, Not That (Or, what to say to people who are grieving.)

Just some thoughts to help people who don't know how to help or what to do:

Not That	Say This
Variations:"It will be okay in the end/the next life."	"I know that, despite what you're going through, God really loves you and is pleased that you are still fighting even though things aren't ideal right now." Why: The next life is utterly irrelevant to current grief. We were sent here to this life to live in this life, even the bad parts. Encouragement and acknowledgment of the battle the griever is fighting can help give them the strength to keep trying.
"You can be happy despite your circumstances."	"What you are going through right now is really horrible. It's okay to be angry, or sad, or disappointed." Why: Grieving people are trying desperately to put a smile on it, to fake it 'til they make it. But they need to know that what they are feeling is okay, and it's okay to show it.
"You are so strong. I don't know how you do it." Variations:"How do you get it all done?"	"Come here and let me give you a hug, and we can cry together." Why: People who are grieving have put on a mask of strength, but it is a lie. They are simply bundling up their weakness and hiding it from everyone. They need permission to be genuine, to act as they really feel.
"Maybe you need to simplify, and cut back."	"What is frustrating you the most right now? Let me see if I (or someone I know) can help." Why: Most of the time, people who are overwhelmed by grief have already cut back as much as they think they can. It only feels like one more failure to be told to cut something else that is vital.
"I know we haven't talked in forever. I'm just so busy."	"I am so glad I got to talk to you again. I've missed you." Why: Layers of guilt mixed with feeling like you're a burden isn't helpful. But feeling appreciated and valuable is desperately needed when you're grieving.
"I'm worried about you. Are you okay?"	"I know exactly what it is like to be so overwhelmed. Don't be so hard on yourself. What you're feeling is something you need to get through. I am here." Why:When you tell someone you're worried, you are putting one more layer of guilt on someone who is already feeling like simple life tasks are too hard. Be a shoulder to lean on, rather than one more person they have to take care of.

Any others?

"That they might have joy."

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of "forced joy," or (much like Elder Uchtdorf's talk in fall 2017) the idea that we can be joyful in spite of circumstances.

It's something I'm really struggling with. I can pretend to be happy. It's not hard. I can spare everyone around me the struggles that I'm facing. But the more I try to pretend I'm not facing them, the more they weigh on me. The more "joyful" (read "of positive affect") I become, the more sorrowful I truly am.

When I accept that it's okay to have a hard time, that the things I'm going through really do suck, and really are hard, and really do hurt, the more I can separate them from me and find joy in spite of the hardships. But other people often don't see the joy I feel, especially since few of them are around me to see it.

The Pride of My Heart: Doing it Myself

And so great were their afflictions that every soul had cause to mourn; and they believed that it was the judgments of God sent upon them because of their wickedness and their abominations; therefore they were awakened to a remembrance of their duty. —Alma 4

There are so many things about recovering from a divorce you once swore you would never allow to happen, and subsequently coparenting with someone who likely has serious mental issues that gives a person "cause to mourn." I have been mourning the loss of my marriage and the loss of peace and freedom for years now. Until recently, I haven't been able to truly look at the cause of my afflictions and (hopefully) see them for what they are.

Tale as Old as Time

This isn't exactly a review. I wasn't terribly impressed with the live-action Beauty and the Beast. It was okay. A little more backstory, sure, but nothing like the Cinderella remake.

Beauty and the Beast used to be my very favorite movie. A heroine who loved to read and had her own horse? I was hooked. I loved idea of learning to love, rather than falling in love.

But I saw Belle's and the Prince's relationship differently after I married. I realized that happily-ever-afters are really just in stories. That people who are abusive stay abusive, people don't really change. So I was hoping that the new movie would revitalize the story for me, and help me see the beauty again.

I didn't learn what I wanted to. As I was watching Emma Watson's Belle and the Beast develop their relationship, the sudden realization came to me that I identified much more with the Beast than with Belle.

At that point, the story completely changed for me. It was no longer about falling in love. It was about forgiving myself. Forgiving myself for never being enough. For always falling short. For being imperfect. For being ugly. For making huge, earth-shattering mistakes, the consequences of which are also bourne by innocent people.

My seven-year-old poignantly summed it up two nights ago. "Mommy, it's okay to make mistakes. That is why we are here. God wants us to make mistakes so we can grow and be better."

Beauty and the Beast wasn't about Belle overcoming all odds to fall in love. It was about the Beast learning to forgive himself. Sometimes beauty is not only found within, it is found in imperfection and ugliness. Our struggle to learn and become like God is ugly and messy, and not at all heroic. At least not the way we think of heroism.

In reality, repentance is much more about the Beast's story, than about Belle's. I doubt that was the message the writers intended. But it is the one I needed.

"You have no power over me!"

When I was in kindergarten, I used to go to the principal’s office to read TIME magazine to him. Occasionally, he would ask me what a specific word meant. I remember being worried I wouldn’t explain it correctly, that I would be wrong. That summer, I spent weeks wrestling with math, sometimes literally banging my head on the desk in order to catch up enough to enter 2nd grade.

My mom was an early childhood educator, and my dad was a social worker. It was the early 80s, a time for child psychology. I was born with some natural intelligence, but my parents trained and honed it. I was in the Gifted classes. I was told how unique and special I was. How I was smart. I was raised to believe I could solve any problem, accomplish anything if I put my mind to it.

As I got older, I went to college, graduated in veterinary science, became a web designer, served a mission for my church, came home, and met a man.

He was not of my faith, and I was only interested in dating people who believed as I did. He said that something had been missing from his life. He wanted the family life, the life of faith. He wanted to have the relationship with God I had. He listened to the missionaries in my home, and was eventually baptized into my church.

Everyone in my ward said how cute we were together. When, the night before I moved away, he floundered over asking me to marry him, I said yes before he finished his sentence. I had prayed about it. I thought it was right.

The Non-prodigal One

I have not written in some time, since I have been under considerable stress in my personal life. I don't write much when I'm in the middle of my own crises. I have no energy for it, nor do I feel I have anything to offer. But recently, a thought did occur to me which I felt I ought to share.

One of the many things which has troubled me lately was the cry of the non-prodigal son, the one who said, "these many years do I serve thee...yet thou never gavest me a kid." It is not that I feel I have never transgressed, because I know I have. Nor that I deserve blessings, because I know I don't. But it is hard to see how far off the tracks my life has gone. Tracks that I followed only because the Lord asked it of me, and not because I wanted those tracks at the time.

I am surrounded with people who have the life I was taught to accept (and even desire.) But it is a life I'm forever barred from, all because someone I trusted decided to exploit that trust to its fullest extent. I have fought, not only to become strong, but to keep that strength from making me hard. It is a daily battle, sometimes harder than others, but something I have to fight every day. And sometimes I lose.

I do not understand why I can't seem to catch a break. I just need a year or so of equilibrium, of rest, a time when I know that my kids are safe, that I am safe, and that I can heal a little.

But I was looking up a scriptural reference, and ran into something that I think applies.

That Which is of Most Value

"Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.
Matthew 10:30

I have been thinking long and hard about the war of ideologies we are in. On both sides, people are fighting so hard to prove themselves right, especially on the internet. We talk about principles and doctrines, but we rarely talk about individuals.

In his talk, "The Worth of Souls is Great!" Elder Paul H. Dunn makes an important point, in a time before internet really existed. In talking about a schoolhouse, he said:

"...Along with the wonderful new discoveries in education, the emphasis must still be placed upon the individual and upon his needs and relationships with others....I understand from what the Lord has revealed to us through the prophets that people are his greatest concern. We are his children. We are somebody, as Elder Ashton so wonderfully stated this morning. We are his children, and he continually reveals himself through the prophets so that one day we can be like him.

Programs, then, wonderfully inspired programs, like the Sabbath, exist to help people. If we are not careful, it is very easy to put the mechanics of the program ahead of the person."

So Simple a Call

"Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise."

Luke 10:36-37

If there is anything at the core of the Gospel, it is this commandment: to go and show mercy on our brothers and sisters. The Atonement itself was necessary, not only to redeem us, but to show that redemption comes through submission without compulsion. Our submission to the Savior, yes, but more importantly, it comes because a God with all power submitted Himself into our hands.

The more I learn about the Gospel and about God, the more amazed I am at how all the secrets to life, all the keys of the Gospel and exaltation are found in scripture. It's not in the complicated attempt to figure out which part of geography the Nephites occupied, nor is it expounding difficult-to-understand concepts of how the Atonement works, why only men are ordained to the Priesthood, or determining how, exactly, we should follow the prophets. All of those things are mere window dressing.

True religion, the core of spirituality, is ministry. It is extending ourselves, opening our arms, inviting vulnerability by becoming vulnerable. There is nothing that can compare to knowing that you have served in the name and stead of God.

"The only joy that is comparable with the joy of the one receiving the help is the glow that seems to emanate from the one who has given so unselfishly of his time and strength to quietly help someone in need."

"Go and Do Thou Likewise" Robert L. Simpson

Living in the Mormon Belt means I witness many people hungry for position in the Church, wanting to serve more and more prominent callings, to make a difference in the Church by being included in councils, wanting to be heard by protesting or being the squeaky wheels. But the key to eternal life and all the power the Father has is not found in callings, nor in effecting change.

"There are those who associate high calling in the Church with guaranteed rights to the blessings of heaven, but I wish to declare without reservation that the ultimate judgment for every man will be on the simplest terms, and most certainly on what each has done to bless other people in a quiet, unassuming way."

I think we will be very surprised to find that those closest to God's throne are the ones we have never heard of here in this life. I hope and pray that I may serve God by serving His people. This isn't just part of the Gospel. It is everything.