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I stayed LDS much longer because of this small corner of the Internet. This site and the kind and wise souls who frequent this area helped me in ways that I don’t think they will ever fully know. The LDS church wasn’t working for me when I found STAYLDS. Being involved in STAYLDS allowed me to process my thoughts and feelings and start to figure out some of the underlying reasons. Family and church and culture was so wadded up in one big tangled mess in my life. I blamed the church for things in my life that had nothing to do with the church. I gave the church a free pass in areas that my culture blinded me to their culpability. As I have slowly unwound the tangled mass, my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and relationship with God have fallen out of the tangle. I’ve been able to look at each a little better and really see details. I have been able to untangle the LDS church from so much.
I do not consider myself LDS any longer; but, I do not have animosity towards the church. There is no anger or need to diminish the LDS church. I feel this site helped me find that perspective.
As I have taken a further step away from the LDS church, I have looked at other sites online in an attempt to find one that better reflects where I am in my faith journey. So many sites are full of people who are blaming every wrong in their life on the LDS church. They went from ALL in to ALL OUT. I cannot relate to their mindset.
So .. is this a gateway to leaving? No. This is a wonderful place to come explore our own individual ideas about faith, spirituality, beliefs and religion. Is this site going to change a person’s ultimate choice of path? Probably not. This site might not change the path, but it does help a person prepare and pack appropriately for their personal faith journey.
I assume that he got baptized at the age of 8. Therefore, in the eyes of the church, he is seen as old enough to make religious choices. Support his choices. Love him.
The arguement has been made that early JS polygamy was all about sealing people together. Families were sealed, couples were sealed, friends were sealed. Sealing became almost like a fraternity.. There is recorded arguing over who got to be the patriarchal figure in sealings. It looked more like Team Jacob vs Team Sparkle It is impossible for me to hear about the early sealings, the sealings that were done in the endowment houses rather than temples, the presence of non-members in those events, and then turn around and take the current sealings as more serious and sacred than they were in the primitive church.
The church has formalized many things and made sealings into a more sacred element. That doesn’t mean God had anything to do with it.
I do believe that God smiles when we align ourselves with one another and make promises that represent love, kindness, and responsibility. I also think he is okay with us shifting alliances. Maybe the church will eventually catch up.
My DH does his HTing in a real way. When I was a VT, I rarely missed doing my VTing. We both approached it as truly caring for people in a real way. When assigned to new people, we stayed friends and resources for past people we had been assigned to. For us, we tried to give 100%.
OTOH, we have been assigned some HTer who did not approach it with the same energy. We have given better than we received. Our hope was that we showed some families an example of what could be.
Too often, people want to give a little less than they recieve. If their HTers are not stellar, that is used as an excuse to be even less stellar. When I mentally decide to give a little more than I receive, it is a healthier dynamic for me personally and for my community.
The problem isn’t going to the opera. Going to the opera is a healthy thing to do. The problem is being told that I will be joining the opera and the rest of my life will be focused on preparing for opera, performing in opera events, memorizing lines, mentoring opera singers and constantly advertising every day for the next operatic event. It is being told I need to give away a certain number of tickets at work .. and knowing that my colleagues all prefer hip-hop and heavy metal.
And recognizing that while I don’t hate opera, I would like to listen to some hip-hop, rock and country and figure out what music I really do prefer. And feeling a little uneasy when I realize I don’t really like opera very much.
Expanded Version: We had been in the old ward for 8 years. I always had leadership positions or over some committee, etc. DH has always taught HP. We have always done our HT/VT and show up early and prepared for whatever we were assigned to do.
Our only kiddo still home has been shunned the entire time. I’ve had other parents come and apologize for the actions of their own kids and how they treated my daughter. Each time there was an apology, there was also an excuse. “My daughter just really wants to fit in and she cannot do that if she is nice to your daughter”. “I just found out my kid isn’t being kind to your daughter, that is terrible, but my daughter just really is very different from your daughter”. “Now that my daughter is away at college, I want to tell you that I did recognize that she didn’t treat your daughter very well. In fact, my kid behaved like a BRAT. Oh, BTW .. She is really enjoying college”
My daughter is an Aspergers kiddo but she is barely on the spectrum. She interns at a biomedical lab, takes a full AP/dual enrollment load of classes, and heads up/plans/runs/DMs a therapy D & D group for 15 teens in the spectrum. She has made the D & D group into a truly therapeutic social group for those 15 kids. Those parents are thrilled and amazed with her abilities.
Her strengths, weaknesses, and interests are not the ward average. The other girls all have iPhones. She has a Samsung. They use Facebook. She is on Reddit. They are in band. She was asked to join the Academic Decathlon. She is very capable and very kind. She also misses many nuances and social cues.
Between processing historical issues of the church and seeing my daughter socal struggles, I couldn’t discuss anything meaningful to me in church and I didn’t feel that I could play nice with the parents of kids who were hateful to my kid. I quit attending church services 18 months ago. Daughter quit attending seminary and YW about that same time. There has been nothing but crickets. It felt like I got added to the shunning. YW leaders did take daughter out for ice cream one evening. They expected that to fix the problem.
Daughter tried attending a different ward that meets in the same building and liked the fact that the YW were welcoming. First Sunday, the YW leaders asked her to stand and say where she was visiting from. She named the old ward and said she was trying a new ward to get away from hateful people. One of the YW asked “who is in that ward?” Another girl answered, “oh that is MH and SM and JN and JG.” The entire group of YW nodded and said “oh yeah … they are mean”.
I emailed the old ward and asked for formal permission for daughter to attend the new ward. That was granted. Then bishopric member saw husband in the hall and suggested family records be moved. Husband agreed with that plan. It was done same day. Literally the same day.
Only change for me .. missionaries are suddenly trying to “friend” me on FB and they left a note on our door last week.
So .. records moved and suddenly I’m on “the list” for the missionaries.
None of this feels loving, kind, or Christian in approach.
I’ve always kinda laughed when people talked about members leaving because “they were offended”. Well .. I guess I qualify. I am offended by this long 8 year saga of events.
Hawk girl, DH is truly an optimist. Sometimes in the best sense and sometimes in the worst sense. He had a really hard time thinking anything other that goodness about the church and members. I do not have that same struggle.
What a wonderful thing you have done — given your daughters an opportunity to identity with strong figures in scripture. About BYU Provo and attitude: Such attitude is obnoxious.
For me, I no longer list BYU on my CV. It is not a positive. Plus, I hated my time there. My second undergraduate degree and grad school gets listed.
My daughter and SIL both have engineering degrees from Provo. They found it got them job interviews in Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. BYU was seen as a neutral or negative in some other areas of the country.
Joni: ((( hug )))
I am so sorry for your husband’s loss of employment.
There was a time when I tried to sacrifice for God. God had taken my children’s lives, my husband’s employment, all of our carefully saved investments, and my identity as a mother.
I thought long and hard about what I could sacrifice in order to get God’s attention, favor, and good will.
So much was put on that alter. My time, my talents, my tithes, my hopes and dreams were all carefully and artfully arranged onto that alter to God. I stood back and waited for Him to accept all that I put there. I was so afraid that I wildly looked around for anything else that I could add to the stack. Surely there had to be more than I could put on the alter. I added promises for better Family Home Evenings. Promissory notes for deeper scripture readings and memorization were piled up.
The alter was amazing to behold and nothing in my life changed.
All I learned was that God doesn’t like alters.
Horrible birth defects. Chronic pain. Loss of employment. Houses that do burn down. These things have nothing to do with God. Too often, God gets credit for all of the goodness in life and doesn’t get blamed for any of the bad. I’m not sure what God is in charge of. I haven’t figured it out yet.
What I do know: Nothing in my life is different whether I pay tithing or not. Nothing in our health has gotten better or worse whether I am active in prayer and/or church.
The ability to pray to a higher power makes me more centered in my life. The ability to forgive someone who has wronged me makes me a better person. A culture and society that focuses on forgiveness as part of a societal norm is a safer place for all. Tithing helps a church function, but not God.
Get help from the church. Use the resources available to you, but don’t build an alter and don’t look for ways to sacrifice. That doesn’t work on any level.
In the local ward, we have a number of men who attend with their children. Their wives have not been seen a church in years. I can think of 8 families without stretching for names. Some of those wives served missions, they were all married in the temple. They all have devout husbands and children.
This new rescue effort doesn’t even acknowledge those women’s existence.
Another gender fail.
On second thought .. I wonder if this is about tithing $$$. Most men have employment .. LDS women may or may not be employed. Maybe this is all about efficiency in following the dollars.
I had a roommate at BYU Provo who had modeled in NYC and was truly amazingly beautiful on the outside. It didn’t matter where we went in Utah, men would approach her and state that they felt spiritually inspired to meet her. A few were adamant that The Spirit had whispered to them that she was supposed to be their wife. These poor guys didn’t even know her name, but they were sure that she was The One. Each was sure no other man had ever felt that way about her. I wanted to tell each of them, “Get in line.” It was a 5-6 time a day occurrence. THAT was my first experience mistrusting The Spirit because each of these poor sods were so sincere. Oh come on. Certainly I am not the only girl who has ever called out loudly to diety during intimate moments. I’m sure that was what she meant.
And .. I’m surprised there was no mention about the evils of tooting your own horn.
Back when the ward budgets were centralized, our far-flung ward was told that when we did church-related activities, we were supposed to turn in reciepts for things like gas for our travel. People did turn in reciepts when they traveled far distances for driving youth to stake activities, etc. I’m wondering if Church research showed that people don’t turn in reciepts for distances that were less than 30 minutes.
