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.

"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.

Divorce, Pornography, Turner, Persky, and Being a Mormon Woman

First a disclaimer. In light of the last post and this one, one might think I'm struggling deeply right now. Strangely, I'm not. I could never write these posts if I were. These are not fresh wounds, they are old scars, which means I can poke at them a little, feel the pain just enough to describe it. Sure, things that happened recently have pulled at the scars, but I'm fine.

I promise, dear friends who read this blog and have reached out to me: I'm more than okay. These battles have been won already.

A friend of mine came to visit from out of state this last weekend. He is not Mormon, and I thought I'd give him the Temple Square tour. We wandered temple grounds for a moment, then went to the Church History Museum. As we walked in, a presentation on "the first Mormon presidential candidate" was announced in two minutes.

We headed over and sat down. Soon after us, came a group of Polynesian men in their early twenties. They had been doing a service project for their ward. A couple who were obviously not LDS came and sat down on the first row. An older male missionary was standing at the front, obviously the one who would give the presentation. He asked us all where we were from, and since the couple was from Florida, he said "you are the interesting ones," and made a few jokes about that.

They got up and left. I'm not sure there was a connection.

But then he started asking questions of the YSA men. They mentioned which ward they were from, and the missionary started joking about attending only when they weren't visiting other wards, amiright? wink, wink. Then he said that he used to visit singles' wards not his own, and then "if there wasn't anyone there he liked," he'd move on to the next one, "know what I mean?" Haha.

Rejected and Despised

Another single man I knew and liked just got engaged. He is responsible, attractive in both personality and looks. He takes the Church seriously, and truly cares about God. And he wasn’t interested in me, even a little. He is only the latest in a long line of engaged people I've seen marry over the years since I divorced. At this point, every LDS male I’ve ever dated or been interested in is married or engaged to be married. There are no more for me.

I’m sure you might ask yourself how I can be so sure. Things happen, right? Well, in order for things to happen, you have to be in a place for them to happen. And I don’t have time for that. Because, while I am a single LDS woman whose faith has been tempered in the furnaces of mortality and who wants to be a good wife, I am first and foremost a mother, with everything that symbolizes and everything that means. I don't have time for singles' activities. My calling in the ward I can actually belong to makes it impossible to even go to singles ward.

And I am a mother, which means I have a past. I am not the dewy-eyed girl that good men of the priesthood have been promised as their prize for a well-spent mission. I am not innocent. I have scars, and many of them still hurt. My wounds are too deep. I am too jaded. Too overweight, too tall, too much, or too little. And as long as I do what the Church spent eighteen years teaching me to do, marrying only a return missionary in the temple, I will be alone. I am quickly getting too old to be the stay-at-home mom He commanded me to be with the large family He commanded me to have.

In the words of Taylor Swift, I’m not a princess, and this ain’t a fairytale. Or, as the great wizard Schmendrick said, there are no happy endings, because nothing ends.

"Thy Will On Earth"

In my personal life, I have had opportunities to ponder what it means to be a member of this Church. As I watch people with experiences like mine churn against the practices and doctrines of the Church, I wonder if it is only a matter of time before I, too, fall away. Insight into why I can't seem to give up has come slowly and piecemeal. I'm not sure there is one large answer. All I know, is that I cannot turn my back on this Church any more than Joseph Smith could deny that he had seen a vision. It is not a perfect Church, and I do not understand it all. But I know it is Christ's church, and I can't deny it.

Not long before I graduated with a 4-year degree in veterinary medicine, I looked into vet schools. In the two years of my study, I had not truly realized how difficult it was to get into vet school, nor how expensive it was once you got there. I had spent two years carrying nearly the maximum credit load while working the full 20 hours/week I was allowed to work. I pulled a high B average, which is not bad but was less than I was capable of. I had gone year-round, and I was exhausted.

Why the CES Letter is Utterly Irrelevant

Conscience, Judas, by Nikolai Ge

This morning as we were getting ready for work, I brought up the recent CES Letter excommunication of Jeremy Runnells with my kids. As I was talking to them in under-10-years-old terms about some of the biggest big-ticket items, the reaction of the antiMormon world, and the reaction of the Mormon Apologetics world, my mind started thinking about a friend of mine who is thinking about investigating the Church.

I've not been the best representative of the Church to him. My testimony is more of the "lots of things are really hard about this Church, but God wants me here, it is led by Him, and I believe it," type, less of the "It's true! Everything is awesome!!!" type.

Despite allegations from disaffected and ex-Mormons, I think most of the Church is along those lines. I've not met many people who are of the "believe at all costs" types. Most of us, especially converts, believe because we have received personal confirmation from God. It's people who have been raised in a heavily Mormon world who seem to struggle more with it.

But, as I am a failure in the Gospel on so many levels, I often see myself examining my beliefs and actions from a third-party point of view. Especially as I watch my children begin to form their own testimonies. What, exactly, is the difference between someone who believes and someone who doesn't? It's not knowledge, as most ex-Mormons would have you believe. Nor is it insulation from opposing points of view. Nor is it buying into the lies.

A Testimony of Jesus

Not one talk from this session of the April 1972 General Conference impacted me as much as this one by Bruce R. McConkie.

Bruce R. McConkie is an interesting character. The author of the controversial "Mormon Doctrine," I have not often heard his name spoken of with much other than contempt. I've never listened to him speak, nor read much of his writings but excerpts from that book. I knew that he was one of those most outspoken in favor of the doctrine of the curse of Cain and the policy which withheld priesthood blessing from African blacks. I had formed in my mind an image of a rigid, unbending, maybe even stubbornly argumentative man, confident in his own opinion, and determined to convince everyone else around him.

Even knowing that he flipped around completely when the Priesthood was extended to all worthy males, saying that the new light and knowledge that had been received completely erased his previous understanding and opinions, I still assumed that was largely because of his testimony of authority, and that he had to go through extensive self-humbling to accept the point.

Despised and Rejected

Like Hugh B. Brown, I'm going to be brief in this post.

The world may not be any worse than it was when this Conference was held. I don't know. But I do know that people don't like religion much these days. It's well enough if you believe in a tame religion, something that means little more than trying to be a good person and never, ever foisting those beliefs onto someone else. But if you truly feel that your religion is something worth admitting, sharing, and even suggesting to another person, you are the vilest of people.

I've seen that opinion of the religious shared in multiple venues by multiple people. I daresay it would be a majority of Americans who feel that way.

Not Belief: I Know It

I do not remember the first time I knew that God was real. It seems to me that knowing Him is something I've come to over a life of fighting to reach out to Him, an infinite series of small miracles and preponderance of evidence. I know He has spoken to me, typically, through thoughts and feelings, sometimes through the actions of others, sometimes in still and mighty words.

Debate over the authenticity of the Book of Mormon has been rampant since before it was even removed from the stone-covered box in the side of a hill. I've read and heard it all, how it "cannot be true" because of ABC, and how it "cannot be explained as a lie" because of XYZ.

Despite many people saying "no one can know," I assert that their declarations are useless, for under their definition, no one knows anything. I know that it is true because after extensive testing, after seeking knowledge and pitting that knowledge against the hard rock of experience, I have heard the "song of redeeming love," and tasted God's power.

Elder James A. Cullimore spoke about "The Importance of a Personal Testimony" in each of our lives. One quote caught my attention more than any other.

"The Twelve Apostles are special witnesses of the Savior. I don’t know how many of them have actually seen a personage. They don’t talk about it. But they don’t have to, to receive their special witness that can come by the Holy Ghost."

No Success Can Compensate

"...Whatever you do for the Lord, you do the very best that you know how." —H. Burke Peterson

A very good friend and I discussed recently what it meant that no other success can compensate for failure in the home. Like me, she is a survivor, divorced, and a single mother, experiencing the intensely personal frustration that is the lot of single LDS parents.

She said that she suddenly realized this meant that no matter who you are in the Church: a bishop, stake president, or even one of the Apostles, it means nothing if you abuse or neglect the souls in your family. It doesn't matter what people in the Church think of you, it makes no difference what privileges in the priesthood you are awarded. If you do not repent and make amends for how you have treated spouse or children, your successes are ash to the Lord.

Living by Power—A Woman of God

My last post got twice as many readers as a typical post of mine. It is not hard to imagine why. In that post, I say things that everyone else is saying, about how it is hard to be a woman in the Church. That refrain is echoed across the blogs, though often with a different tone. People read it because it said what they wanted to hear. That isn't true of this post. It is easy to identify problems. And problems get to people’s emotions, especially when they’re struggling with the same problem. But solutions are hard. They are uncomfortable. They often seem to cause problems. No one wants that.

But, while I know that far fewer people will read and like this post, I want to follow up my last with what lies beyond the pain of being a woman in the Church. There is another side of that valley of sorrow. On the other side lies a chance to build a great, tall mountain of discipleship that completely swamps all the things that make membership hard in the Church. It doesn't make them go away, of course. I still mourn sometimes. But it takes that pain and frustration and makes something great of it.

This session of Conference, the last of 1971, was a symphony. The talks all addressed slightly different things, but together they wove a great tapestry of discipleship. I couldn't pick just one without robbing some of the harmony. Obviously, going and reading them yourself is the best thing, but I'm going to play you only a small sample.

Living by Implication—A Woman of God

Believe it or not, I am a faithful Latter-day Saint. Usually, faithful Latter-day Saint women don't talk about what I'm going to talk about, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. I am also a single mother with no real prospects of becoming anything else, which is a confusing thing to be in the Church and in the Gospel.

First, my credentials. I attend the temple more or less monthly. I go to Church every week. Until recently (more on that later,) I encouraged my children to attend their activities. I hold a calling which I fulfill every week. I have had multiple opportunities to be offended and leave the Church, but I haven't. I have struggled with different doctrines of the Church and found my way through them all. I am not a scholar, nor an intellectual, but I have a very active curiosity and I gather knowledge the way a raven gathers interesting objects. I don't shy away from difficult circumstances. I have also come to know my Savior through experiencing my own weaknesses and the weaknesses of others. I have fought hard to learn forgiveness both of myself and others, to learn charity and patience. I have had some success in finding all three, but have a long way to go.

Recently, I've had the opportunity to find out more than I ever knew about the workings of the Church. There is nothing shocking or surprising. I have no horror stories. It's all about what you would expect from an organization filled with very imperfect people who mostly wish to serve God in an organization that is entirely dedicated to doing His work on this earth. It is beautiful in its organic messiness.

But with that opportunity has come many chances to hear how people—particularly men— think about the Church, what they understand of it. I have come to realize how very different my experiences as a woman have been in the Church and as a disciple. I have also come to realize that men, for the most part, truly have no idea how the Gospel as presently taught makes female discipleship so very, very different from male discipleship.

Maybe not all women experience it this way. Many have found ways of coping, or working around the challenges. Most just grow—and flourish—where they are planted. Despite my thinking over these things, I fully intend to do the same thing. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It does. And while I've shelved the frustration of what it means to be a woman in the Church, things that happen with my daughters tend to resurface the old resentment. This is one of the ways I haven't yet learned to forgive. It still hurts too much.

Love and Lies

"Without [honesty], there can be no salvation."
—Honesty, a Principle of Salvation by Mark E. Petersen

"Everyone lies sometimes. I never understood why liars were treated the same in scriptures as murderers and adulterers until I met [one]. Now I understand."
—Unattributed

What is the difference between someone who tells a lie and a liar? Neither are good, but until I spent many sleepless nights trying to come to terms with the truth of my marriage, I had no idea there even was a difference.

But since my education in the school of hard knocks, I've learned to see the threads of deception which weave themselves through the fabric of our culture, our lives, and our very identities. We lie to ourselves constantly. Sometimes, we try to avoid hurting someone, and sometimes we are simply trying to cover our own weaknesses.

But there are people who have willingly and earnestly immersed themselves in lies to the point where they are nothing else. All their relationships are false, because they are built on lies. They live in a constant state of brazen insecurity, as they layer one lie upon another until they convince themselves that they are good people. And the hardest part to understand is that these people are everywhere. To an extent, they are even us.

Sustaining Failure

"But as for me and my house...."

This is a refrain I've read often recently, mostly from people who support the Brethren of the Church to those who are struggling with recent policy changes and the claim that those policy changes are revelation from God.

While I resonate with that sentiment: to "claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of [my] own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege..." I can't help but feel that it is a way to shut down discussion, to draw a line in the sand, and to condemn those who are wrestling with this concept. In that I have no interest.

It is with this in the back of my mind that I read again the words of Brethren from over forty years ago, and prayerfully ponder what I should write. I am very grateful to be invited to participate in the General Conference Odyssey, but I admit to feeling a little out of water. I do not write the great analyses that others write. I don't tend to place things in historical, doctrinal, or philosophical context. My blog is very personal, just as the name suggests. It is about two things which are really one thing: publicly sharing parts of my struggles with God in the hopes that seeing me try to shore up my house against the storms of mortality will encourage others to do the same, to build their house on the rock of my Redeemer. My relationship with God is not all that I am, but it is the part of me that I most want to share. It is the best thing I have to offer the world...or the tiny part of it I can reach. I know that I am nothing, but I will write of the miracles of God in me as best I can.

Unborrowed Light

In some ways, my testimony has come easily. I was taught from childhood to question and to turn to scriptures and the Lord for my answers. Ever since I first read the Joseph Smith story, one thing became very clear to me: that if Joseph could see God and talk with angels, so could I. At that moment, my testimony became something influenced almost entirely by my observations and by my relationship with God.

While I have not seen angels nor spoken with God face-to-face, and despite there being no evidence in scripture (outside of Mary) that a woman could even do such a thing, I still believe that God could speak to me that way, should He choose. And should He not choose to send me angels, I know He has spoken with me—at times quite strongly—in other ways.

But I have had deep discussions with many people for whom it hasn't been so easy. They don't feel what I have felt, or they don't put the same significance on their feelings as I do. For them, testimony is more academic, more reasoned. It is something to be understood more than it is felt. For others, testimony lacks both logic and feeling, and is rather something that they do, living their lives in God's service without the emotional or mental assurances of His literal existence.

With such varied experiences with Diety, the question remains: what is a testimony?

Liminality And Shaded Areas

In Elder William H. Bennett's 1971 Conference talk, "Help Needed in the Shaded Areas," he compares color blindness to a person who is seeking truth, but will not humble himself, exercise faith, or live the gospel. You might expect that a conference held that long ago would be largely irrelevant, but of all the talks that day in Conference, this was one of two which I needed to read.

Because in many ways, I am in my very own "shaded area." The magic numbers hidden in the shaded area are the promised blessings we get for being righteous and doing the right thing.

Religion and faith to me has largely meant fighting to hear and understand the Lord's will for me. It's been a struggle to learn submission, to understand my place in God's plan, if any. I have placed that struggle, that fight to submit, at the center of my life. I'm not any better at it than anyone else, but I thought I knew what it meant to be in tune, to hear the voice of the Lord, and to be His disciple. It was a feeling of warmth for me, a brief sense of belonging...of sudden balance. Like the sparkle of sunlight through storm clouds, or the thrill of sliding on a sled after tugging it up the steep hill.

The Fire of Faith

This post addresses my thoughts regarding, not only the recent policy clarifications in Handbook 1, but the overall nature of the doctrine of Christ, our place within it, and what we can expect as disciples of the Sacrificed God.

It is not meant to be kind, or empathetic, or consoling. It is an exploration of Christ's doctrine as I understand it. I hope it can help someone, even though I expect it will be harsh in places.

In watching (mostly) the discussions going on about the policy changes, one thing is clear. So very, very few of us understand doctrine. I'm not claiming to any special understanding, but I have studied the scriptures long and hard, pondered them, and applied them to times in my life that nearly broke me. So I do know a few things about struggling to reconcile my life with God's word and the policies of the Church. I'm going to get a bit personal here, in the hopes that my experiences can inspire someone to seek understanding, rather than justice.

A Version of Testimony

I wrote this testimony for a very close friend. I expected it to hit on several points of study and inspiration. But soon after the first three or four paragraphs, my words took an unexpected turn. I wrote it, asking myself, "When did I truly know?" The truth is that the answer is messy. There have been dozens, if not hundreds of times I "truly knew," where I felt God's presence unmistakably. My testimony is not one earth-shattering moment, it is many. It is a testimony of the Lord's patience as he has held the hand of a willful, rebellious, lonely child as she struggles through a life that has never been what she wanted it to be.

To me, testimony has not been a plant or a light as much as it has been a struggle to stand against the waves of the sea. My life has never been truly bad. I have been richly blessed, and kept safe by the hand of God. But to me, it has been difficult to stay true to what I have known to be true, and to learn that elusive charity for others...and for myself.

I have long acted on belief. I have not often been disappointed in the rewards for that trust in God. But I am learning that some rewards are long in coming, and some blessings look an awful lot like curses. Trust does not come easily for me, but I have learned to trust God and rely on Him for my salvation. I only hope that I can be an instrument for good in His hands.