bright days of dazzling light; cold nights of uncertainty

Thanks for sharing this. I really enjoyed it and found comfort in the meandering path through faith that was taken in the life of the author. So many of us here have encountered the same obstacles and frustrations and I’m not sure that many have been able to have the patience that Sam MB had to work through them.

My path from general theism to specific Mormonism represented a series of choices and commitments made, a network of relationships on which God’s seal rested.

By acts of my divinely affirmed choosing, Mormonism has been my life these last two decades.

This idea–the idea that we CHOOSE what to believe–is one that I have come to terms with in the past few months. In the past, my faith was obvious to me; born not so much out of choice as an inevitable conclusion based on the way I was raised and the information presented to me at the time. Now that I have reached a point in my life where the evidences are not so clear and the presence of conflicting information abundant, I have realized that my faith is NOT inevitable–that I, in fact, must CHOOSE to believe it or not.

I would like to believe, like the author, that my choices are “divinely affirmed.” I’m not quite there yet. But I know that the choices that I have made so far–to remain in the Church and focus on what I DO believe rather than on what I don’t–has brought me peace at a time when peace of mind is very scarce.