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Some people really, really need the church. Some people don’t.
This is also how I feel about missionary work.I really believe that the church is “the one true church” for certain people — many paths, but one direction.
I am sorry, SD. I have been incredibly lucky in having fairly decent church leaders throughout my life, but I can’t imagine I would be strong enough to stay if I didn’t, at least in the past and currently. Unfortunately, this is just an example that the church is very much different from people to people because of people, and not all of them are that great. Quote:He reminded me of a SP who told me to stay home from my mission due to financial concerns, and was a real jerk in his delivery of that decree.
Wow, that is so sad. When I told my bishop about my financial concerns, he promised he’d collaborate with my home ward bishop to find financial help, and they did. Many people in leadership positions in the church just don’t have the social skills and accepting attitudes we typically expect of people in religious leadership.
I am really sorry for such a downturn in your church experience.
I’m glad it was here for you today. 
Heber13 wrote:How do you feel about growth from it?
I think I know what you’re asking (if it’s obvious I don’t, feel free to clarify
Quote:The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all. -Disney’s Mulan
Quote:A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there. -Unknown
Quote:The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. -Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
I’ve ventured out of my pleasant comfort zone. It was very stagnant there. And now that I’m out of it, I’ve grown more in these past few months than at any time for the past decade or more.
I am sorry, justme23. Like Heber said, you are not worthless or useless. I have watched several acquaintances lose heart and fall away due to the culture-based views surrounding older singles, but I have also watched others weather it out somehow and, after years and years sometimes, manage to find peace and happiness. That’s not to say it’s easy. Just to say it’s not hopeless. Are there any friends or family who are supportive and encouraging and not judgmental that you can attend church with if attending church is what you still desire? If you feel like you need a break from the church community and culture, some of us here have found excellent outlets outside of church and within the general community that have helped us build ourselves out while building up others. My advice would be to look within your community to see if there is an organization or group out there where you can go to refresh and build on your feeling of worth, which may help you weather the church-related troubles. I’m not suggesting leaving the church, of course, if your goal is to stay LDS. However, please don’t allow anyone to lead you to question your own self worth.
Thanks for sharing. I love metaphors and analogies, because it’s easier for me to remember and internalize, and I love the though of lotus flowers. I had a faith crisis. I know when it started and when it ended. A crisis in the medical field only lasts a certain amount of time before you go into the recovery stage or the worst case scenario stage. I’m glad I’m past the crisis stage and into the recovery/transition stage.
Quote:I cry because I get overwhelmed. I still believe in the gospel, and I feel like the eternal family I hoped for is slipping out of reach. That is incredibly important to me, and I thought it was to DH, but he’s told me that he never thought much about it, even when he did believe. Thinking of eternity just has never been a priority, and he doesn’t understand why I worry about something so far in the future.
During my FC, the thing that scared me the most was the thought that after death, I wouldn’t be with my family. I love them so much, and the thought of losing them forever once death claimed them was much too painful. So I can definitely relate with you there. I don’t have any advice on this except to empathize.Quote:So here’s where my faith stands right now. I’ve been there before, doubting and trying to figure out what to believe. It was back in college, before I ever met DH. Never told anyone about it, and worked out my answers alone. What I decided in the end was that although there were still troubling bits, I had more reasons to believe than not to, and that I was happier with the church than I would be without it. I haven’t thought much of it since then, until DH brought all this up. I did some soul-searching, but it wasn’t as hard as it was for me before. My same reasons for believing still apply. The things I love about the gospel far outweigh the parts that trouble me, and I find a lot of peace and comfort in it. I’m not someone who can say I know the church is true, but I can definitely say I believe.
Out of curiosity, have you told your DH any of this? Like, has he asked you why you stay, and have you told him honestly why?I can sympathize with your DH. I don’t know much about him, but I assume he was trying to push the matter so hard out of love. It’s difficult coming out of the church mainstream; because it’s such a black and white culture, many people who leave continue viewing matters in a black and white way with little room for all the wonderful colors and shades in between. It becomes the church is absolutely all wrong, because it isn’t absolutely all right, and many people, looking back on their time in the church, view it as negative and don’t want the people they care about living in what they perceive as a negative situation. It’s a difficult mindset to get out of, but not impossible.
I don’t know what advice to give for these situations really, since I came in and out of my FC crisis much like you did the first time — I worked out everything myself and still plan to stay faithfully in the church. I’ve had siblings part ways with the church, but it’s been graceful, and they still strive to be great LDS examples to our younger siblings, so they can decide for themselves in time. But I think that’s because my older siblings recognize that their church experience wasn’t all black and white. Perhaps your DH think it is and just needs a little guidance to see the spectrum.
On a final note, when you have to cry, cry. It’s much more healthy than suppressing it and holding it back. And know that this forum is here for you when you need a little encouragement and support.
Ah, I love positive threads. In all honesty, I think my faith crisis is one of the best and most spiritual blessings I could have asked for, but only because it came at a time in my life when I was best equipped to handle it. Looking back, it felt like a lot of little things built up over the years was preparing me for it. I think I’m also a little like you, Bear, in that I like knowing things that other people don’t know — it’s an arrogant thing, but it’s what led me to my faith crisis, and at the same time, it’s part of what prepared me to handle it. The like of knowing things other people don’t know stems from my desire to have logic and facts backing up every opinion I put forth. If I can’t defend something using logic and facts, then I internally struggle with it, and that’s no fun.
One of the positive things that came out of my faith crisis was, like other people have said, the ability to define my own beliefs. I allowed myself to choose what to believe in; it’s weird that many of us talk about it this way, but it’s really like we had to give ourselves permission not to believe in every little thing that comes from church. I had to start from scratch and build a new foundation for myself, and although I’m still on the long road to doing so, the new beliefs I have are backed by my love of logic and my personal spiritual experiences. I guess, in a way, the faith crisis forced me to assess my personal spiritual experiences and find a reconciliation between them and logic and science, which are integral parts of my personality.
I realized how much I was missing that balance when I began watching the TV series Cosmos a week or so ago. I’d been meaning to do so for a while pre-FC, but I avoided it, because for years I’d struggled with evolution and creationism and figuring out where I could comfortably sit. Post-FC, I allowed myself to accept that I could have both science and spirituality, and that opened up my beliefs and mind so much so that I honestly feel much more spiritual than before when it seemed like the standard religion didn’t allow the acceptance of scientific fact. In one of the episodes of Cosmos, the host talks about how the thought of every living thing on Earth evolved from one single thing, and how that was one of the most spiritual things he could think of. And I really loved that.
So I guess in short, one of the biggest spiritual benefits from my FC was my ability to merge my spirituality with my logical sense. It’s weird, but it gave me a great appreciation and belief in a higher power.
Another spiritual benefit that I love having received from my FC was that I’m much more accepting of other belief systems. I no longer find myself thinking “ah, if only they knew the truth,” because I’ve been able to define my belief in that there is one true belief system, but it varies from person to person — many paths in one direction. For me, that post-FC belief of mine helped me reaffirm my belief in a loving, caring higher power.
I guess in short, my FC brought me closer to God, because I allowed myself to discard all the little things that were distracting me. It allowed me to focus and form my own key beliefs that, for what felt like the first time in my life, granted me peace between my spirituality and my logical, science-based mind.
Welcome to the forums, StoneGypsy. You’ll find other great members here who are in much the same situation as you are with a spouse. They’d be much better than I with offering advice, so I’ll just wish you the best in finding the answers you are looking for. At the very least, you can be assured that you are not alone. Thanks, Ann, for sharing the article, and thanks everyone for your responses. The thread has been both disheartening and a pleasure to read, in that it deals with such a sensitive topic that’s always bothered me, but at the same time, it’s comforting to know that there are so many others out there who struggle with this part of the church’s history and doctrine. I’ve learned a lot about polygamy that I didn’t know before joining this group, and I’m very glad for the knowledge and insight from y’all. I live in Utah, and in the young single adult wards, we’re sometimes looking at less than half the total members as active members, at least in one of the wards I keep track of (I like keeping track of things; I’m weird like that). They’re really big on ward missionaries and working toward reactivating members. I remember years ago in institute at the local university that one of the teachers said a little less than half of the returned missionaries on campus were inactive. There are a lot of ex-Mormons I work with, too, way more than active Mormons. Utah is an interesting place. Old-Timer wrote:Quote:To determine if something is good you should be willing to look at it from the perspective of others.
Amen.
Thirding (?) this point. I think the only reason why I’ve come to comfortable terms with my new beliefs so quickly after my FC is because for years prior I was training myself to look at things from various perspectives, which actually led to my FC in the first place.I sometimes have a bad mood at church, evident solely by my whispered sarcasm to my more laid back friends at the back of meetings — that was actually pre-FC, and I’ve gotten much, MUCH better about that post-FC, and I never had anyone say anything about it, because I luckily live in a good ward. Pretty much most of the time at church meetings, I distract myself with drawing or writing, so I look like I’m paying attention and interested when I’m only half there. If there’s a talk that catches my attention, I pause and listen to it.
The church isn’t all bad for everyone. For many, it’s their one true religion and path, and that’s fine. There are many paths you can take to get to a destination, and that doesn’t make any one path more “right” than the others. I think it’s not so much that the church is bad. It’s just the right path for some and not for others. The logical God I believe in wouldn’t make a world and universe so complex and varied only to expect us to follow a black and white line.
Not too long ago, one of my really awesome non-Mormon friends posted on Facebook about his disappointment and disgust at seeing the LDS temples in dry states using up so much water to keep the lawn and landscape green. He broadened the topic, though, and wondered how a church could spend so much money on these buildings and other things rather than helping all the people who desperately need help. Speaking from a devil’s advocate (lol) type of viewpoint, from what I understand, it seems the church does believe that it is using its money for the best, at least in the case of the temples — they are built so grand, because from the church’s viewpoint, the spiritual blessings that come from having a temple far outweigh anything earthly that the money could otherwise contribute to. Also, the church, in theory and from what I’ve heard from people, invests in various financial things in order to ensure it keeps minimal to no debt while also providing a means to fall back on during prophesied end times. In short, a lot of the church’s use of money stems from the belief that the spiritual blessings that may result from tithing/investments/financial stuff are worth more in the end than using the finances for earthly matters.
Does that mean that viewpoint is right? Depends on who you ask and what you believe. Does that excuse the church from not doing its absolute best to help people with earthly matters here and now? No. The church does much to help with those in need, and there are many more things the church could be doing with its resources to better the earthly conditions of people here and now. I would like to see that someday. And we have to remember, the current church leaders aren’t always going to be there. The people who are listening to the talks and raising their kids with these ideas will someday be in the church leaders’ places. It might be too late to change the minds of older men and women, but we can still hopefully teach something to the younger generations. And a lot of that teaching has to come from the regular, run-of-the-mill members like us.
Definitely not disagreeing that it’s a silly mindset to imply that gays would be automatically attracted to everyone of the same sex, and that attraction automatically causes problems. If that were the case, they’d have to do quite a whole lot more gender segregation to keep all of those with opposite-sex attraction in line. And with that insight in mind, we definitely still have a long way to go. But it’s getting better.
My answer is also not going to help much, too. Directly after my FC, I definitely wondered if I was wrong about a lot of things. It brought me to tears almost every day for a couple weeks, and more than once the tears were frightened, desperate sobbing. Switching from the all-or-nothing belief is really, really difficult, because it’s such a black and white world in the church. You’re either right or you’re wrong. The fear that I’d gotten “it” wrong somehow was really paralyzing for a little while there. Fortunately, I tend to adapt fairly quickly after traumatic experiences, and now I’m like nibbler — I’m comfortable knowing that I don’t know all the answers, and heck, no one really knows all the answers anyway.
There are a lot of instances in life where we just have to take what little information and experience we have on a subject and continue on our way with the hope that the conclusions we reach are the right ones. Some people can make and stick to their conclusion come hell or higher waters, while others are comfortable letting things change and evolve over time.
I still wonder sometimes if I’ve got it wrong and if I’ll die and reach the afterlife and look around and go, hmm, you know, I was completely off on this. But it’s more a curiosity now rather than a fear. The beliefs I’ve redefined for myself post-FC have really helped me a lot in getting to this state of mind.
Quote:Lately I view ordinances as largely symbolic, but have a hard time seeing them as necessary to salvation for all people. I’ve been baptized, endowed, and sealed to my husband, so I guess I’ve covered them all- but I’m not sure they are strictly necessary. Or maybe what I’m not sure about is how necessary it is to live all of our “rules” with exactness.
This is an instance where the conclusion is different for all of us. From what I’ve seen, there are quite a few here who don’t believe our “rules” are strictly necessary. I personally know many who live by the spirit of the law than by the exact word, and they find comfort in that. For me, it’s more a cultural, tradition-based thing, and coming from an ethnic culture based a lot on traditions, I don’t mind living pretty closely to the “rules” when they don’t clash with my beliefs or my logic.This isn’t going to help, but it’s really up to you to decide what you believe on this and what you believe is the nature of God. My belief in the nature of God tells me that with so many possibilities and options and paths built into our existence, it’s improbable to expect anyone to be exactly right, and in fact it’s against nature and logic to do so.
And at the very least, you can take comfort in knowing that if you’re wrong, a whole lot of other people are right there with you.
