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I think there are a lot of things we might not want our kids to do over the years, but once they are adults it is important to let them make their own decisions. If they ask, we can tell them what we think and then back off. My oldest son almost went on a mission and then backed out at the last minute. He could see I was disappointed and that made him feel bad because he thought I was not proud of him. So, he explained to me that he realized he would be going for the wrong reasons (like having girls think a RM is hot when he went back to BYU) etc. and he just could not do that. He also saw some local missionaries set a bad example in public and that influenced him too. He served in the military, and has a beautiful wife and two little girls and is a great husband and father. Those are all good missions too. After he explained why he could not go on a mission, I told him I was proud of him for wanting to do things for the right reasons. My youngest son had wanted to serve a mission too until he realized he was gay and that really messed him up for a while. He left the church and has gone into the gay lifestyle which is not something I wanted for him, but I no longer judge or condemn him for his personal decisions. I served a two year mission in Austria and really wanted to be a missionary as a young girl. I had a very strong testimony. But, it was a very hard mission and almost lost my testimony on my mission. I just try to see everything as a learning experience anymore and then nothing is wasted. Bridget
I am the mom of a 27 year old gay son. I have some inkling of the hell you have gone through. I am SO sorry that you have had to suffer so much. My son went through so much self-loathing at 16 and thought he was going to hell because a sunday school teacher told him that being gay is an abomination and homosexuals go to hell. Also, that no one in this church ever has that problem. You can imagine how my poor son must have felt that day. He was suicidle at times over this. We have a very unusual story that ended up in a book I wrote: http://evergreenbooksales.com/bookstore … ucts_id=84Or:
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/It … okid=12053.I would be happy to send you a free ebook. For a long time I did all I could to try and ‘save’ my son and get him to change. It took a powerful spiritual experience for God to let me know that my only responsiblity was to love my son as he is and that whatever he goes through is ‘necessary’ for his growth. We are human and have needs that are natural. We can choose how we fill those needs. We can eat healthy foods and feel good or junk food and get unhealthy. Sexual needs are also part of our natural needs. So, you need to decide what is a healthy way to meet your needs. It is extremely difficult to know how to live your life within the church. There is a good book called “Peculiar People’ written by gays who tell how they coped with this that I thought was very good. I will pray for you and hope it helps. I served a mission in Austria years ago and one of my sister companions hit on me sexually while I was asleep at night. It was very frightening for me but I sensed that she did not understand these feelings herself and so we talked about it in a kind and loving way. We stayed friends until she died 5 years ago. None of us know how we would react if we had strong feelings that we were told are wrong. We all have the need to be loved and you certainly have a right to that. Feel free to PM me.
Bridget
Dear ??? I am the mom of a 27 year old gay son. I have some inkling of the hell you have gone through. I am SO sorry that you have had to suffer so much. My son went through so much self-loathing at 16 and thought he was going to hell because a sunday school teacher told him that being gay is an abomination and homosexuals go to hell. Also, that no one in this church ever has that problem. You can imagine how my poor son must have felt that day. He was suicidle at times over this. I also feel bad that you feel lilke God does not comfort you or answer your prayers. My experience has been that He answers my prayers mostly through other people (although I have had some powerful spiritual experiences in regards to my son). We have a very unusual story that ended up in a book I wrote: http://evergreenbooksales.com/bookstore/product_info.php?cPath=27&products_id=84 Or:
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=12053 I would be happy to send you a free ebook. For a long time I did all I could to try and ‘save’ my son and get him to change. It took a powerful spiritual experience for God to let me know that my only responsiblity was to love my son as he is and that whatever he goes through is ‘necessary’ for his growth. We are human and have needs that are natural. We can choose how we fill those needs. We can eat healthy foods and feel good or junk food and get unhealthy. Sexual needs are also part of our natural needs. So, you need to decide what is a healthy way to meet your needs. It is extremely difficult to know how to live your life within the church. There is a good book called “Peculiar People’ written by gays who tell how they coped with this that I thought was very good. I will pray for you and hope it helps. I served a mission in Austria years ago and one of my sister companions hit on me sexually while I was asleep at night. It was very frightening for me but I sensed that she did not understand these feelings herself and so we talked about it in a kind and loving way. We stayed friends until she died 5 years ago. None of us know how we would react if we had strong feelings that we were told are wrong. We all have the need to be loved and you certainly have a right to that.
Bridget
See the post I made on so much guilt thread. I feel very strongly about this. Read this link and how this affects our youth: http://www.affirmation.org/suicide_info/sin_and_death_in_mormon_country.shtml http://www.i4m.com/think/sexuality/masturbation_help.htm Even though I was raised in the church by convert parents, had a strong testimony, and went on a mission to Austria, I too have struggled with my testimony at times. Even with my belief in God. I did not marry until I was 25 and I know the pressure there is to get married and have kids in the church. There have been several times that I felt like a misfit in the church and did not belong. My husband, raised as an atheist, and a scientist, had a hard time with faith and religion. He went to Catholic Parochial school as a child but that turned him off to religion. The Mormon faith was the first religion that made any sense to him and he joined on an intellectual testimony hoping the spiritual one would come. When it didn’t, he left the church and I found myself crying my eyes out in a fast and testimony meeting one Sunday. I was begging the Lord to tell me why he had not given a good man like my husband a spiritual witness. Something very unexpectedly happened then. A clear thought came through my head that said, “Why don’t you go visit that 7th Day Adventist church around the corner?” I thought, “We’re did that come from” and then the thought came to me two more times. I told my husband about it and we decided to follow that prompting. I met with the pastor of that church several times and the things he gave to read answered some important questions I had. You see I had been doing all the right things in the church, (paying tithing, going to the temple, etc. etc) but none of the blessings seemed to be coming. In fact everything had gotten worse. My kids were in trouble and my husband did not get his raise, the car and washer broke down, and now he left the church. Where we all the blasted blessings they kept preaching about from the pulpit. Then I came across some anti-Mormon stuff from the Tanners that quoted out of church history and Journal of Discourses. For the first time I thought that the church might be false.
This pastor handed me a little book called “The 5 Day Plan to Know God.” As I was reading, it talked about how the Jews were waiting for their Messiah to come save them from all their trials. When he came and told them he came to save them from their sins not their problems they were ticked off. A light bulb went off in me and I realized I was like those early Jews waiting for God to save me from all my problems. Suddenly I realized I had been living the gospel for the wrong reasons. I knew immediately that the only thing I should be concerned about is being saved from my sins and that is why Jesus died for me. When my husband joined the church the missionaries assumed he had the milk of the gospel (faith in Jesus Christ) but he didn’t. Sometimes in the lds church we concentrate so much on the meat we neglect the milk of the gospel. Other churches mostly have the milk so it is often highly concentrated there. We left the church for two years and investigated the 7th Day church, but one day as they were teaching us a class on the signs of a true prophet, my husband and I looked at each other and knew they were talking about Joseph Smith. Then two books called the “Gainsayers” and “Are Mormons Christian” came into my hands and answered my many questions. Plus we met every week for a year with a man in our old ward who had a Masters degree in Church history. I had never prayed so hard to know if the church was true or not. I cried and cried for a while thinking I had been betrayed by the church like a woman who had found out her husband had cheated on her. We finally came back to the church and had a much stronger testimony, but during that time I asked the Lord about the 7th Day Adventist church and Ellen G. White and other churches (my daughter had joined the Baptist church and my daughter in law was Lutheran). The Lord spoke to me and said the following: “Although the lds church has the fullness of the gospel, I work through all the churches and they are all my people. That other churches are like stepping stones to the full truth. Not everyone can handle the fullness right away. You cannot take a junk food junkie and make them a health food nut overnight. Line upon line. So, at times God leads people to good Christian churches that may prepare them for the fullness eventually.
Remember that when Jesus told Joseph Smith that the other churches had teachings that were an abomination in His eyes, he never said the people or the churches were an abomination just the teachings. Martin Luther, John Calvin, etc, were all reformers and stepping stones towards the truth. I personally prefer to tell people we have the fullness of the gospel instead of saying the ONLY TRUE CHURCH, implying how false they are. My dad was such a wonderful convert to this church. He would meet a Baptist or Lutheran and tell them how wonderful it was that they were Christians and all the things he loved about their faith. Then he would say, “If you can show me that your church has more to offer than mine, I will gladly join your church,” and then a wonderful discussion would pursue.
My dad joined the Mormon church in Germany when he was 25 trying to show his best friend how false this church was. The first time he stepped into a Mormon church he had prayed for God to let him know what kind of a church this was. Shortly after he stepped into the church he noticed his wallet had been stolen. He thought, “Ok, here’s my answer, they are a den of thieves.” As he was leaving he decided to stop and listen to the branch president that was talking at the time. He said, “If you have come to this church to find perfect people, you will be greatly disappointed, but if you want to know if the teachings are true, you will find the truth. Just like with Joseph Smith, Satan arrived first, then God.
Boy, Can I relate to guilt. I want to share a very personal story that showed me how much God loves and understands us on a very personal level. I learned that personal revelation and special cases trump general guidelines the chuch gives us. Years ago I was teaching gospel doctrine class. I have a gift for teaching and relating the gospel to peoples everyday lives. I had served a mission for the church in Austria when I was 21 and loved teaching. The ward members loved my class and soon inactive spouses started coming and there was standing room only. The spirit was very strong and people would tell me how much my lessons had changed their lives. During this time I was having serious problems in my marriage. My husband rarely pursued me sexually in our marriage and it was affecting my self worth as a woman. I was constantly sexually frustrated. He would not go to counseling and I suspected there had been some kind of emotional incest by his mom when he was young that was causing problems in our intimate life. The only way I was able to cope was through masturbation. Because the church taught that was wrong I had begun feeling so guilty and thought I maybe should resign from my calling as gospel doctrine teacher because I was not worthy. So, one morning I prayed about it and poured my heart out to the Lord about my marriage and my calling. I had the most beautiful and powerful experience then. I felt Christ put his arms around me and hold me and cry with me. He told me how much he loved me and how he understood my pain. He told me that my husband was broken and would not be healed in this life. He told me that I was not unworthy and should not step down and that I was a wonderful teacher. I never felt one moment of guilt again about my situation and masturbation. In fact, I found this link soon afterwards which was such a blessing to me and my son’s who had been struggling with this issue as well. http://boysunderattack.com/masturbation.html I have a testimony of some principles of the gospel but others I believe are man made and we have to decifier for ourselves which ones are right and wrong for our situation.
My husband did the very same thing you did about the promise in the book of Mormon and got no answer. It is one of the reasons he has left the church now. I asked Heavenly Father why He did not answer the sincere desires of my husbands heart. I am sure there are so many reasons this could be the case, but in my case, the Lord told me he withheld a testimony from my husband because he would have become a fanatic about the church and use his testimony unwisely and to Lord over us. He was already too straigh laced, letter of the law type of person, and neglecting me and the kids for his church callings. He was constantly correcting us and telling us how that is unbecoming of a latter-day saint. This may sound strange, but him not being in the church now has been the best thing for our family and he is so much easier to get along with not knowing everything so sure. I am sure your case is different, but sometimes not getting an answer right away could be a good thing. When I was at BYU years ago, a man who had been a pastor in another church bore his testimony about how he had prayed about the book of Mormon for many years and the answer was always No and to not join the church. After 12 years God suddenly told him it was time to join the church and gave him the witness of the BofM. So, life is strange, but I think there is a reason for everything. One other thing. You are correct that there are some very rude and insulting people on that board. That bothers me and I am surprised that lds people, who claim to have a testimomy and be followers of Christ, can be this way. I think alot of lds people cannot handle discussing things that challenge their faith too much becuase without the church and gospel their whole world would fall apart. They need borders and boundaries and black and white thinking to feel safe. It is much more difficult to live in grey areas and get personal inspiration as to what would be the most loving thing to do in each circumstance. I try not to shake other peoples faith too much as much of the church and gospel seem to be working for them. Unless I have something better to offer, I leave it alone. I left the church once for two years (read my intro on this board). I was raised to question and think things through because I want to base my life on truth and reality…if you don’t, your bubble will eventually burst anyway. I live by what I believe to be right and if I find out it was wrong later, I change. Bridget Hi Shederlaomach – I roam and post there ocassionaly. A good friend of mine just got banned forever yesterday from that site. It was on the thread about whether one would have joined the church if they knew some of the stuff now (on being decieved). Which thread where you on? Bridget
Fifteen years ago, when I was working in a plush hair salon in Eugene, Oregon, I had a customer who would fly in from San Francisco. She had become famous and was to appear on some big talk shows because of an unusual “out of body” experience. She told me to share her story whenever possible. This woman had lived a self-centered, fairly wicked life. She had many questions about life and feared what the next life would bring. She had been a diabetic for 8 years on insulin. As she was taking a taxi to the airport one morning, she realized she had forgotten to eat breakfast and had not taken her insulin. In fact, she forgot to take insulin with her as she had felt so rushed. She began to go into diabetic shock and quickly asked the taxi driver to go back; that she needed her insulin. At this point she became aware that she was standing outside the taxi and looking in at he limp body. She also noticed a man in white appearing next to her. She was not afraid and seemed to be ready with her questions. The first question she asked was “Is there really such a being as the Devil”? The being in white said, “I’ll let you see.” Suddenly the being disappeared and everything became very dark. So black and dark you could cut it with a knife. She became aware of the presence of the most awful being coming towards her which frightened her enough to say, “Ok, I don’t need to know anymore”.
The darkness left and the light and heavenly being returned. Well, you’d think she’d leave well enough alone, but she then asked her next question. “Is there really such a place as hell”? The heavenly being said again, “Ill let you see.” She then said she experienced true hell, but it was not as she had anticipated it to be. Her whole life began flashing before her and she re-lived every awful thing she had done to people. She had to feel the anguish and pain others went through because of her actions on earth. Also, she saw the ripple effect it had on others. It was the most horrible experience. She woke up in the hospital and the doctor knew she had gone through something traumatic and asked her if she had an “out of body” experience. She told him about it and then said just before she came to, the heavenly being told her that her time on earth was not up yet and she needed to go back. She was to know that this experience was not just a figment of her imagination, because she would no longer have diabetes or need to be on insulin when she returned. The doctor checked her out and she did not have diabetes and has not been on insulin since. This experience happened 3 years prior to my meeting her.
My old missionary companion and a medical doctor I brought to the church believe Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet. They think he started out sincere and did lots of good stuff but then got full of himself. They think when he tried to cover up his secret polygmany and take Law’s wife and Law tried to expose him in the Expositor, that the Lord took him down. Any thoughts on that? Bridget
Since we are talking about Temple stuff, I wondered if anyone has ever had problems with their experiences in the temple? It is so different from regular church attendance and I think alot of people are afraid to sound like they are unspiritual and so do not express how they really feel. I mean the inside is beautiful and the people are real nice, but my husband said it reminded him of a Klu Klux Klan meeting the first time he went through in St. George Utah. We went during the time that they still had the blood oaths and actors (no movies.) I felt strange during washings and anotings and even though I fasted and prayed to know if this crazy stuff was from God, I never got a testimony of it. I have never really had spiritual experiences there. In fact, often the opposite. One time I wanted to divorce my husband right after it. And I do not like husbands and wives having to sit on opposite sides. Nevertheless, I have just looked at it like when Adam and Eve were offering animal sacrifices and asked by God why they were doing it and they said they knew not why, but were just being obedient. I have to know something is from God before I do things that seems too strange to me. I do believe man can become like God just as a princess can become a Queen, but I don’t understand why the temple ceremonies would have to be part of the process. So, is there something wrong with me? Bridget Thanks for your posts happy mom and Tom. I really appreciated your thoughts and comments. Tom you said see my signature line? Could not see that? What is that? I am so glad to have a group where I can share my unusual experiences and be myself. I really am more of a moderate and spirit of the law kind of gal. I don’t fit in with those real hostile to the church nor do I fit in with those who are blind believers and molly Mormons. It is hard to find a place where you feel accepted. So, I really am happy to be here. Bridget Oh boy!! This opens up a whole can of worms for me. I had two mission presidents while on my mission. One was wonderful and another was horrible. Unfortunately, the one that was horrible I had most of the time. One of my favorite sister companions hit on me sexually one night when I was asleep and scared the living daylights out of me. I just froze and did not know what to do. I confronted her with this the next morning and she felt so horrible and apologized over and over. She did not understand herself why this happened and why she had bi-sexual feelings. Anyway, she felt so guilty that she went to confess to this horrible mission president. He made her feel like crap the rest of her mission and she ended up never forgiving herself. We stayed life long friends until she died a few years ago when I told her about my gay son who had not chosen these feelings either. I was only kind and loving to her because I knew this is what she needed (healthy love.) I finally asked her? Who do you think wants you to feel like garbage about yourself, God or Satan? She finally got the point that it was Lucifer and those horrible mission president that made her feel this way. This mission president also made me feel that I must have done something wrong too. It is very difficult having church leaders who have no professional training in some very important areas. I know the church was sued over a young man killing himself because a bishop told him that masturbating was a sin next to murder. Another incident was where a new convert sister had gone to a stake fireside and the stake president had told the members there that sex was only meant for couples to have with the intent of getting pregnant. She could not get pregnant and asked me if that meant she should never have sex with her husband. This is the crazy stuff we have to deal with in the church because of leaders with old fashioned ideas and hang-ups. We were given a brain to use it, but I think sometimes members think leaders know better than them. This is why I love this quote from Brigham Young: Personal Responsibility
By Brigham Young
In the early history of the Church, many converts who joined with the body of the Saints expected to find a spiritual utopia. Frustrated at finding that the communities of the Saints were populated with people, who in many instances were no better than themselves, some of these immigrants voiced their disillusionment and left the Church. These people had anticipated a Zion in which they could bask in spiritual light day and night. Longing to be nurtured by revelations, miracles, and manifestations of divine power, they sought heaven on earth. They did not realize that spiritual maturity often comes slowly and that many, like themselves, find the courage and strength necessary to overcome their own weaknesses. Of such people, Brigham Young would inquire, “What hinders you from enjoying all that you anticipated?” If you are not as you desire to be, if you do not feel the prompting or influence of the Holy Ghost to the extent that you think you should, where is the fault to be found? Responding to his own question, President Young explained that it was a mistake to suppose that others could prevent you from enjoying the light of God in your soul. “All hell,” he said, “cannot hinder me from enjoying Zion in my own heart, if my individual will yields obedience to the requirements and mandates of my Heavenly Master “ (JD 1:311). Brigham Young declared himself to be the only man in heaven, on earth, or in hell responsible for Brigham Young. Further he held that the same doctrine applied equally to every Latter-day Saint. Salvation is an individual matter. “I am the only person that can accept Christ and save myself,” said Brigham. We cannot pin our faith on someone else’s sleeve. No one can accept or reject salvation in behalf of another. It is not the object or design of the gospel to create spiritual dependence. Of those who constantly suspend their own judgment to lean upon others they suppose to have greater wisdom than themselves, President Young said that they ‘will never be capable of entering into the celestial glory to be crowned as they anticipate; they will never be capable of becoming gods.” They cannot rule themselves, let alone give direction to others. Spiritually, he likened them to children who need direction in every trifle. “They cannot control themselves in th least, but James, Peter, or somebody else must control them. They can never become gods, nor be crowned as rulers with glory, immortality, and eternal lives.” Who will?” asked President Young, “those who are valiant and inspired with the true independence of heave, who will go forth boldly in the service of their God, leaving others to do as they please, determined to do right, though all mankind besides should take the opposite course.” Ibid, p.312) (taken from SEEKING THE SPIRIT by Joseph Fielding McConkie)
