Struggling Today

I feel for you, friend, to the greatest extent I can.

I know it’s harder in many ways for homosexual members than for single, heterosexual members, but, at the heart of it, extended celibacy is brutal for most people.

Frankly, if you can find a boyfriend who will respect the standards heterosexual members are expected to live (meaning you can have real intimacy without the actual sexual activity), I can’t encourage you not to search for that type of relationship. I know many members won’t understand or accept it, but you would be living the Law of Chastity straight members are expected to live – and you could answer the temple recommend question honestly and accurately, regardless of how others interpret it.

Ultimately, of course, you need to choose your own future (and I will support you no matter what you choose), but there are non-traditional ways to govern yourself according to your own understanding of core principles (to live and worship according to the dictates of your own conscience) that are not in opposition to the central tenets of the Church – again, regardless of how most members would see your views.

Amen, cwald.

I try to support others in finding ways to find peace and joy in the LDS Church – but that simply isn’t possible for some people. To those people, I say:

Go with God.

I understand to the extent that I once felt I had to give up all my friends to be at peace and harmony with those in the church. Which I did. The irony was that it felt superficial to me at either en(my old friends and members of my ward). In the end I saw friends who shared my values but mostly away from church. I wanted to feel real and authentic and that is how I found it. It is likely different for different people. There is no “one size fits all life”. I have found tremdous reward in happiness living the gospel of Christ but not peace within the LDS culture. Actually any culture I feel out of place. I found peace by seeking some friends from various cultures with values but not sticking with or feeling I belong to any particular one of them. Approaching 40 within my Jewish Orthdox friends it is a joke since the “40 y.o. virgin), it is difficult at that prolonged time to live a chaste life and my Orthdox Jewish friends both laugh and acknowledge this in my life. It is a source of constant jokes. Although I am straight I feel for you. A difficult struggle. A few core friends from different cultures and faiths who support me has made all the differnce in my life in light of the fact I don’t “belong or fit in with LDS culture”. I don’t know what will work for you but we are here to support you on your journey. We are interdependent children of god, we need support of each other to walk in life through our trails. Find out where you can find peace and being authentic hopefully within your goals of the church maintaining your goals while being authentic to yourself. Find out who supports you in this and befriend them. Non of us can do this alone.

Thanks for this, Forgotten_Charity. I have a ton of gay friends mostly that no longer go to church. I think this was all brought on, (how I’ve been feeling today) by the fact that I went to a friends 60th birthday party last night. There were a lot of my gay friends there. I told him I didn’t want to go in the first place, which I know is kind of rude, but I didn’t want to go due to the fact that I knew there really wouldn’t be people my age there. That and I feel like it’s some sort of sin to go into places like that if I am trying to live Church standards, which I am. That’s the big one for me and the one that causes me the most guilt, is that I feel like I’m sinning if I go into places like that. I have tried explaining this to my friend, but he just doesn’t get it. This, and the fact that I have never been 100% ok with being gay. I know a lot of guys have gotten confirmation or whatever that they are ok being gay and that is how God made them, but I just have never gotten that. I’ve always felt like it was wrong. Granted, I’ve never directly asked God either. Anywho, just some more information I thought I’d share.

I was also told by a friend of mine that I haven’t given things enough time yet…that I need to see this thing through to the end, as he says. And true, I haven’t given it enough time. I am horribly impatient, and I have only been going to church for three weeks so far. I just…I guess that’s it. I just need more patience. I want my endowment to happen now, and I want to be happy, but I guess today is just not that day.

I was also told by a friend of mine that I haven’t given things enough time yet…that I need to see this thing through to the end, as he says. And true, I haven’t given it enough time. I am horribly impatient, and I have only been going to church for three weeks so far. I just…I guess that’s it. I just need more patience. I want my endowment to happen now, and I want to be happy, but I guess today is just not that day.

Only you can know what makes you happy. I have personally come to know what makes me temporally happy and what makes me permenitly happy. It’s good to have short, medium and long range goals. Patience is a virtue. Not everyday will be happy even if you do all the right things. Heck I’d be happy even if was just once a week. But I’ll settle for contentment on most days. Learning to be at harmony with oneself is a true discipline, it takes time but can be so rewarding in a smoother life experience.

Thanks everyone. I ended yesterday feeling much better. Yesterday and today are stake conference. Yesterday was a wonderful service for the adults. Almost all of the music that was sung was my favorite hymns, and someone pointed out during their talks that all of the music for stake conference was selected by the stake president. Someone pointed him out during one of their talks, and he seems like a very sweet man. He seems to have a gentle spirit and actually would be the kind of stake president to follow the spirit, because he was wiping tears off his cheeks during the music and some of the talks. I went to bed last night feeling at peace. I feel fortunate to have found this board, so thank you all. I also feel blessed that I seem to have a gentle bishop and possibly a stake president who goes by the spirit of the law and not the letter. I think this will be helpful to me moving forward, as I stated in another post that I have not had the best stake presidents or bishops. I feel very fortunate this time around, because I’ve always hated how the bishop and stake president thing is more a roll of the dice than anything else concerning how nice or understanding they will be. I’m glad to have found this board as well, since it is nice to see that not all Mormons are wearing rose colored glasses and drinking the kool-aid. Utah Mormons sure are different than anywhere else (most of them anyway) and not in a good way. I feel a lot of them can be self righteous and judgemental, so I can’t wait for the day I can move away from Utah. For now, I’m just glad to have an understanding bishop and what seems to be stake president. Oh. I also talked with my roomate the other night. I’m not sure if I told you guys I had one or not. He is gay, but we were talking about what we were going to do when the lease is up in December. It looks like we will be signing another one, which I am grateful for. The other problem I’ve had is that once I’ve started going back to church, a couple of months later I always end up moving, so the bishop never really gets to know me, and every time I move I’ve had to start over with my goals. This has been very frustrating to me so I was glad to find out we will be staying. I brought this concern up to my room mate too, and he has been understanding about my church attendance, even though he doesn’t believe himself. It’s been nice to have that as well. Thanks again everyone. Have a great day today.

Hey Kmullin,

I feel very inadequate to give you any advice, but there are some things that are common to all journeys. I am reminded of Benji Schwimmer’s comments about how his path and his journey (even the hurtful parts and the part where he lost the “love of his life”) was important for him. He felt that his journey into what LDS church life would mean for him was necessary for him to so confidently choose another path. Rather than wondering about “the road not taken,” I got the impression that he had taken the LDS road far enough to know that it was not what was best for him and that God didn’t require him to travel that road any more.

http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3247&hilit=benji

I would look at your goal of the endowment as part of a larger faith journey of finding ways to reach out to the divine. I hope you are successful and I hope that reaching your goal becomes all that you want it to be. But whatever happens the journey continues, sometimes what seems like failure brings wisdom and maturity down the line. And I believe one of bigger secrets to understand is that God walks your journey with you. I believe He is found in the temple and at the culmination of your goals. I also believe that He is found in your pain, and sorrow, and failure.

It is easy to get impatient when we are waiting for something great to happen. Something great is happening right now and it is you, feeling your way forward, living your life one step at a time, growing into your future self.

Good luck!

Thank you Roy for posting this. I have just finished with the first part. Some of the things I can really, REALLY, relate to are when Benji kept mentioning that he “never felt good enough”. That is me to a T. I will either do something perfectly or I might as well not do it at all I feel like, and if I feel like I’m failing at something or not doing good enough, then I will try all the harder to work even harder and be even more perfect. I know that we are all our own worst critics though. I will state something that I said in a facebook group recently to kind of show you how my thought process worked. I told the group “that I would receive my endowment or die trying.” Those were my exact words. I think you are right about me getting my endowment as being part of a larger faith journey, I’m just not sure where everything fits in yet or when the time will come when I feel like I don’t have to attend the LDS church anymore. A lot of my friends have gotten personal revelation that they say that Heavenly Father told them they were ok just the way they were, gay and all. I have not received anything like that from HF. I have one of the strongest testimonies of the Church ever, and I think sometimes that is why I try so hard to be “The Perfect Mormon Boy”. I don’t want to let anybody down and I don’t want to let myself down, and I know what I know to be true, and so right now that is the driving force in my life. Sorry if this is not making sense. Also, to the person who told me to seek out a relationship in the church that I could have one without violating the law of chastity, I think I will be hard pressed to find another gay boy in church, especially here in Utah, much less one who wants to get to know eachother and see how things go. I pray for that and want that for myself, but I don’t feel like that’s going to happen, at least not any time soon. We are so repressed here and it is so taboo to talk about it that I doubt I will find another gay worthy Mormon who wants to try and live the Church standards as close as he can like myself.