[Called to Serve]

We all definitely have to deal with our issues in the way that best suits us individually. My husband was not nearly as abusive as many abusive husbands. He is Korean and was raised in a society where physical abuse is the norm, but he refrained from physical abuse for years until I started pushing back against the emotional abuse. He truly did not want to be abusive; it was just that he didn’t know any other way and as long as it wasn’t physical, he didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.

I am sorry you are stuck in your situation. I understand how difficult it can be. I was in Korea with my husband, with no family around to help. The Lord showed me the way to leave and go home with my children.

Although I understand your struggles are different from mine, I urge you to consult the Lord in everything you do. He is the only one wise enough to lead you to true safety. He can and he will.

[Called to Serve]

Early in my marriage, I read a quote by a church leader that said something to the effect that you didn’t have to put up with the abuse, but said it in a way that led me to believe I didn’t have to leave either. I wish I could remember it better, but I can’t. At any rate, I believed that and prayed for guidance on how to stop my husband from emotionally abusing me. I was able to put my foot down early in our marriage and teach him not to abuse me.

But it only extended to a certain point. He was still emotionally abusive, but because it was at a level that I was used to, because I had grown up with emotional abuse, I didn’t realize I was still being abused. Years later in the marriage, the Lord opened my eyes and I began to pray again for ways to stop him from abusing me. The Lord showed me what to do and after a few months, my husband was treating me a lot better.

Unfortunately, I found that my husband’s improved behavior boiled down to the fact that he was now afraid of me. It was control or be controlled. Finally he left me because of the things I was doing to stand up to him. I have since found another man who is much more loving and kind. I believe that my husband (we are divorced but I still call him my husband) was instrumental in helping me learn to overcome abuse. But he wouldn’t really change and so we couldn’t stay together. I feel the Lord worked everything out for me so that I was able to learn the lessons I needed to and move on to a better situation.

[Called to Serve]

Bump. Just a reminder for those of you who wanted to join. This starts two days from now.

[Called to Serve]

For years now nearly all of my revelation has been too far out for LDS to accept. The most difficult was when the Lord told me to stop going to church for a time. My closest family members were downright cruel to me over it. In the end, it’s the reason I am no longer a member of the church. I would love to serve the members of the church, but I am not good enough for them, generally speaking.

[Called to Serve]

I think living in the moment includes taking things one day, or one hour or one minute, at a time when you are struggling with a difficult situation. It is so easy for us to look into the future, see no end to our difficulties, and become discouraged. But when you start asking yourself if you can make it for at least the next hour or day, and you realize you can make it at least that long, you start to be able to face your difficulties with more hope.

[Called to Serve]

This is a great topic. Thanks for posting it.

[Called to Serve]

I believe pride is a condition of the heart, not a specific situation. I agree with those who have given examples where they chose to disassociate with those who didn’t recognize their individual value. That, I believe, is actually the opposite of pride.

My definitions of pride and humility are not ones generally recognized by the world, but I believe they are recognized by the Lord. I believe pride is simply believing that some people are better or worse than others. Humility is believing that everyone is of great and equal worth. When we believe everyone is of equal worth, we aren’t willing to put up with people treating us as though we are less than they are.

Those caught in the us/them mentality concerning church activity are prone to misinterpret everything a person does pertaining to the church. Any act that takes a person away from church can be misconstrued to mean that person is acting in pride. These people have a false idea of the true meaning of pride and will never understand it until they are willing to open their mind to the possibility that the church is not the end all and be all of salvation.

[Called to Serve]

Thank you so much for your support, everyone!

[Called to Serve]

Those are some good suggestions of non-offensive things to pray for; however, I am surprisingly finding opposition to my suggestion among church members already and think it might be more conducive to the purposes to keep it as open as possible. Some people seem suspect due to my membership status. It’s quite disheartening, to tell the truth.

[Called to Serve]

I believe God can heal anyone. I don’t think he would be God if he couldn’t. We tend to want to look at people like the one in your example and believe that she can’t be saved. And yet that defies the laws of love. We can understand people being overcome by horrible circumstances and not being able to make good choices in life. So why wouldn’t God also be able to understand and to fix the problem?

If Jesus has the power to save us, he has the power to save all of us. Period. Either he has that ability or he doesn’t. I believe he does.

[Called to Serve]

SilentDawning wrote:

As they say in our church, every fast should have a purpose….do you have a specific goal in mind in fasting for the leaders? That they will lead us in creating a kinder, gentler church? Or some other purpose? I’m simply curious. I have to confess, a fast like this is counterintuitive given the personal wounding i feel I have received from leaders over time, but the idea intrigues me.

Thank you for asking. Yes, it does seem rather counter-intuitive, and from many angles.

I have many friends who are becoming disenchanted with the church and fighting with those who remain firmly loyal to the church. My main motivation is finding some middle ground between the two groups. Nearly all my friends believe in the power of prayer and so I felt like asking them to fast and pray for the church leaders might help bring them together.

But I really do think it will help the church leaders and the members. I believe that the church has gotten carried away with the idea that they hold the “keys” and are the one and only way to salvation. That is Christ’s role, not theirs. But beating them and the loyal members up over the matter isn’t helping anyone. Praying for them is the only thing I believe has real power to help.

Christ told us to pray for our enemies. I have done this and know the power there is in doing so. It usually does nothing for the person I am praying for, but changes me and changes my heart instead. However, in this case, with many people praying for the church leaders, I feel it will effect them as well. I believe we will all be better for it.

I don’t know if that answers your questions. I don’t want to specify a certain purpose other than just generally “for the church leaders” because I want as many people to participate as possible.

[Called to Serve]

I was also always bothered by the sexist stuff even though I was born and raised in the church and taught over and over that women weren’t really unequal to men. It just felt wrong and nothing I could do could change that no matter how hard I tried to talk myself into believing it. I’m grateful for that because as I became more bold in my relationship with God, I finally openly admitted to myself and Him that I really did have a problem with it and I’ve learned some incredible truths because of that. I can see now that men and women really are equal but I don’t see that reflected in the general teachings/culture of the church.

As for the male above who is uncomfortable leading, might I suggest considering something that I believe is true? I believe that it is the man’s sphere to lead spiritually and the woman’s sphere to lead physically. You might learn some interesting things if you allow your wife full leadership in physical things (how the house is set up/run, how the kids are physically taken care of, etc.) and you focus only on leading in the spiritual things, beginning of course with making sure you have integrated the gospel into your own life. It’s just an opinion of mine and I haven’t been able to make it work in my own family yet because my husband thinks he’s the boss of everything 🙄 but I thought you might want to consider it.

[Called to Serve]

Mom3, San Diego by chance? I’ve heard about the atrium but the one time I went there, I didn’t know where it was and we didn’t ask. I regret it now because I’ve heard it’s beautiful.

While the temple endowment has changed, it still stands as a symbol to the spiritual endowment that we can receive directly from the Lord. Each law is a lesson in love that we can learn through the Spirit. The temple itself is just a rehearsal. Real life is where to get the real thing.

I did not understand these truths until I could no longer go to the temple. I can’t attend the temple because I can’t honestly answer the question of whether our church leaders are prophets, seers, and revealators in the affirmative. I am not worried about it because I feel close to the Lord and His Spirit and have had many wonderful spiritual experiences in my own home.

So what I’m saying is, I’m not trying to persuade anyone to go to the temple and I’m not trying to persuade anyone to stop. But it might help in making that decision to understand what the temple is all about. There is valuable truth available there. But if the only thing you do to find that truth is attend the temple, you are going to miss out on the real thing, because the real thing is life and loving others.

[Called to Serve]

littlelostsheep wrote:

I read this article in June 2007 sunstone magazine entitled ‘The yoga of Christ and found it a really inspiring read.

http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/146-30-45.pdf

I’ve started meditating this week and notice a huge difference in how much calmer I feel.

Every time I start feeling anxious, confused, annoyed etc I’ve tried to take 5 minutes to stop and meditate and really feel the benefit.

Since my faith crisis Ive found it difficult sometimes to pray. The last couple of nights I’ve said a short prayer and then fell asleep meditating. It’s made for a wonderful peaceful sleep. So much better than all the nights of stressed thinking.

I haven’t really meditated that I know of, but if meditation is just a way of connecting with God, I do it all the time. I have often struggled with insomnia due to stress and have found that if I can’t sleep, laying in bed and talking to God can help, especially if I focus on the things I am thankful for. Some people have rejected this idea because we’re supposed to kneel, fold our arms, etc., when we pray, but I’ve found it useful and Heavenly Father seems to like it too.

[Called to Serve]

Canucknuckle wrote:

Called to Serve wrote:

I saw in a way I hadn’t before that women are meant to lead in physical things here on earth (you know, cooking, cleaning, keeping the kids alive for at least 18 years) and men are meant to lead in spiritual things.

Ouch :problem:

As the male primary caregiver for my family (and often the stay-at-home parent), that statement comes across rather harshly. I am fully aware that there are a great many who think this way but I simply have to disagree. For me hard-line gender roles such as these are outdated and absurd. There are many wonderful nurturing, caring, and compassionate male homemakers in the world. Just as there are many profoundly spiritual females who are more than capable of leading.

This is just another issue where church culture needs to catch up with the rest of the world.

I never thought about the comment from a feminist position, but I can see how I worded it might come across badly. Let me try to explain where I’m coming from.

What I’m trying to combat is the idea that men are supposed to be the ultimate head of the household, leading in everything, including the things that should be the woman’s dominion. It seems that we want to place one person over everyone in the family, but that leads to inequality, whether it be the man or the woman leading (and it’s usually the man). Instead, we could have equal leadership if we would let one spouse lead in one area and one lead in another. So generally speaking, it would be the woman leading in physical things and the men in spiritual things because usually they are given the mental talents to lead in those areas.

I’m not for hard and set gender roles. Each couple should make their own decisions in those things. But what I am in favor of is balanced leadership and that’s something very few couples ever seem to get the hang of. I think a lot more women would be content with their maternal instincts if their husbands weren’t trying to dictate how they ought to do their job, giving the impression that “women’s work” is lesser than a man’s because he’s allowed to lead. Instead, let the man not only allow his wife to decide how she’ll run the house and act as her servant in that capacity (generally speaking here) and the woman would feel valued in this role.

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