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For me, it was an incorrect strong answer to a prayer, that I received in the temple. I had some shelf items at the time, I was starting to empathize with lgbt people and disagreeing with the church’s stance on lgbt issues. I also had the realization that prophets can be completely wrong, but I’d always kind of known that in a way, but felt safe in my own prayer answers to figure out if they were wrong. But when I got a clearly incorrect prayer answer, everything fell instantly. Suddenly I felt like, if I can’t trust my prayer answers, or the prophets, how do I know what’s true? It made me question everything I’d ever believed and I basically had to start from scratch to figure out what I did and didn’t believe in. I actually stopped wearing garments as well. Completely, even. I never wear them now. However, I don’t plan to ever go back to the temple and I am going to be telling my family soon about my struggles. I have, however, still been wearing garment-covering-length clothing still, so the only way they’d know I’m not wearing them is if they were looking for the outlines through my clothing. Once I come out to them though, I’ll be wearing less ‘modest’ clothes around them So I guess it depends if family gossip or being comfortable is more important to you right now
I don’t really know if he was the son of God but I don’t really need him to be. Even if he was just a man, or even if he didn’t exist, I see him as a generally good example of what true charity is. That’s awesome! Last month my sunday school teacher mentioned Joseph Smith’s hobby of treasure digging. It was very quick, she mentioned it as one of the reasons that Emma’s parents may have not wanted her to marry Joseph, but I was shocked and really happy to hear something from the essays in class! I’m glad that it’s happening in other wards! Thanks for all of your input, everyone! That really helps! I did look it up and found out that it is considered apostasy if I ‘join’ another church or if I start teaching their beliefs at our church. So my husband and I have figured out what we’ll do about that and we feel okay about it now. I think it will be okay, even though it will be awkward for a while when I start becoming less active at church I think it’s a good start that you two agree on several things and have only disagreed on this one thing. I do know that it’s possible to parent with differing views. My inlaws are in opposite political parties and they make it work. They sometimes get in debates over things but they respect each other’s views. I know because my husband grew up with a republican dad and a democrat mom, he grew up with both points of view and seemed a lot more rounded politically than I was (I was raised in a super republican family who thought democrats were idiots). So I know things can still be okay if you two have differing views. I also know many people can be married and raise kids when they have different religions. It will be hard though if one of you doesn’t respect the others views. I think respect is huge in any relationship, really, but it seems especially necessary in situations like this. Does your husband expect you to keep your views from your kids? I think that could cause resentment later down the line. You wouldn’t want to watch him teach your kids that there is only one type of marriage and you keep quiet about it, just like he wouldn’t want to watch you teach your kids that lgbt families are okay and keep quiet about it. I think a good balance would be if both of you are able to teach your kids what your viewpoints are, and not talk down about the other’s views. Eta: I would point out to your husband that it wouldn’t be fair for you to tell him ‘we’re going to teach the kids that lgbt families are okay’, and then walk out of the discussion. It’s not fair for one of you to have the final say and dismiss the other’s viewpoint. Hopefully you can both sit down again and objectively decide a good plan for what you will tell your kids. It’s got to be a cooperative effort.
@GBS does your ward know? If they do, does it affect the way they treat you? Also, I added a second question at the bottom of my post if you have any input on that? Thanks! I agree with LH, I can’t imagine a loving God keeping families apart because they don’t want a temple sealing or they have become unworthy to go in the temple. I think like LH said, as long as we live good lives and try our best, God knows our hearts. The plan of ‘eternal families’ purpose is to create a comfort that we’ll all be together in the eternities. However, this isn’t the case if we aren’t all perfectly righteous? That doesn’t create much comfort since no one has control over their family members’ righteousness. Also, here’s a scenario, let’s say a family who isn’t lds were all the same amount of righteous and all entered the terrestrial kingdom. Doesn’t that mean they’ll still be together forever? They’d all be on the same heavenly level so technically there wouldn’t be a need for a sealing if everyone in the family is the same level of righteousness. Idk why God would keep a family who’s on the same level away from each other. That’d be messed up. Idk how heaven works, but I’m using the lds’s version of it to theorize a bit. I know that I personally feel like God completely understands why I’m struggling with the church right now. I think He knows I’m trying my best and I don’t think a loving God would keep me from my family if I wasn’t temple worthy when I died. Just going off of the idea of God as a parental figure, I wouldn’t keep my son from seeing his kids in the eternities if he didn’t do a specific temple ordinance. Or let’s say he went through a similar thing to what I did, getting a prayer answer wrong and losing my trust in prayer answers. I would completely understand why he lost trust in things. I can’t imagine myself being like ‘sorry, you were supposed to blindly believe even if things were incorrect so now you can’t be with your family.’ Doesn’t work for me ETA: I would also be understanding if my son had some of the reasons you all have for struggling with the church. Most people I’ve talked to have reasonable reasons for struggling with the church and I think God understands
Thanks for all the GC comments. I enjoyed reading through them and since we never have attempted to watch it all in one go since having a toddler, I was able to just listen to the talks you all recommended and wow! The Uchtdorf talk did so much for me! @nibbler I find it ironic in that screen grab you quoted that the woman is talking about feeling as if she shouldn’t complain because these other women (in conference stories) have it worse than her, even though at the very beginning of her statement, she’s telling the men that women have it worse. Basically doing the same thing to the men that she’s complaining about the women’s conference doing to women, telling them to not complain because someone else has it worse. I totally agree though, that sometimes inspiring stories can make people feel like they should compare themselves to others.
I’m not sure but during the recent Relief Society broadcast one of the sisters talked about a lady who served as Relief Society president in her ward while dealing with cancer. Can’t remember if she chose to serve, but your question reminded me of that recent talk That is insane. I personally would let your bishop know that you have way too much on your plate to have time to properly be there for that many families and see if he can lower the number to a reasonable amount. If that doesn’t work, I’d probably just focus on whoever seems to have the most needs like maybe the disabled member so they have someone to help them if they need it, but I wouldn’t even attempt to do all of them. Or maybe only see one of them each month. That is way too much to put on anyone. Especially if you’re currently combatting depression, you don’t need to be running yourself ragged trying to see 18 people a month. I don’t think I spend time with 18 people a month even in my spare time. That number just seems impossible and irresponsible of them to expect that much from one person. I’m shocked and annoyed with you that they just assigned you them without asking you or discussing it whatsoever Scripture about listening: James 1:19
I don’t think there’s any way to completely help prevent a faith crisis, I think it’s important that members remember everyone has their agency. Sometimes people are going to leave and that’s their decision. The main thing that I think helps is having people who will listen and empathize with us. Also having people who truly can be okay with our decisions without an air about them seeming like they are quietly judging us and we are their project. Another thing that never makes for a good tactic of getting people back is guilt or fear. Even if it does work, it most likely won’t be lasting. People have to come to their own decisions on their own. Like you said, it helps having people who listen and don’t judge us. That was kind of all over but hopefully something was helpful. That would be a tough lesson to give while in the middle of a faith crisis. It seems like it’d be difficult to not give yourself away. I wish you luck!
Sounds like your new relationship is more like a realistic close father-daughter (or maybe even friend to friend) relationship than the king-servant relationship it used it be. When I think about it, sometimes the old way of praying felt like I was going through a drive-thru, requesting what I want and saying thanks for the meal I received. I know I definitely feel closer to God when I just talk out loud to Him about things that have been on my mind lately, like he’s a normal person. I know part of it is being able to process my thoughts when I say them out loud while I’m alone, but it is also comforting for whatever other reason.
Eta: that sure is a beautiful drawing, though!
I used to use Tapatalk but in the last couple days it hasn’t worked at all, and now I’m assuming it’s from the upgrade. It just says that StayLDS is unavailable so I can’t even log in. It’s quite frustrating because that was my main way of going on staylds.com. I have an android. I’m on my laptop now, but I sure preferred the setup on tapatalk.
