My Story

Hi, welcome to the forum.

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve reached a point where you doubt your faith – I can appreciate it’s an uncomfortable experience. Having your prayers unanswered and feeling the heavens are closed is challenging. For certain this board has helped me to find a way of appreciating the positive aspects of being in the church.

Before writing off the church based on history, remember that there are many people aware of these elements of history and are still in full faith. Regarding the Joseph Smith stories, Jeff Lindsay has written about them – as have many others. You could start here: http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_first_vision.shtml

I wrote a long letter to a friend a few years back about the First Visions which, at the time, helped them reconcile their concerns. FWIW, once you start reading answers to one question, you may find other issues to wrestle with.

This forum is a great place for a supportive environment and not feeling judged for having those question.

I am a very black and white individual, something I am trying to change about myself.

That can be very hard, but it’s worth the effort. Hang in there.

when one has a faith crisis it isn’t easy staying active. i know because i have been down that road.

i had to socially disengage from the church but though i am not active i still remember my spiritual experiences and what i have read scripturally from the standard works.

i have attended a few times since and even renewed a temple recommend at one point.

being away from church socially has helped me. for others who have had faith crises they have stayed active and have worked through their doubts or have found a way to deal with the issues that cause their faith crisis. there is no one perfect answer. everyone is different in how to deal with a faith crisis. there is lots of good advice on how to deal with this period of your life at this forum. we are all hear to listen and help you on your journey – whereever it may lead you. important thing is that you feel supported during this time of confusion and isolation. you don’t have to be alone in this journey and that is why this site was set up – to help those who are on your road by those who have been on that road.

what brought me to stayLDS.com was a youtube.com video by John Dehlin “why people leave the church”. through that i learned of this forum. i found after my faith crisis that there wasn’t too many places to turn for help. there was a lot of negativity online regarding Mormonism. this site became my home because it was pro-mormon and at the same time it was a place we could vent our feelings about how we felt as we went through our faith crisis journey.

what i found, too, was that there are different reasons for a crisis of faith. mine was social in nature but in the end finding this site has helped me heal. i hope you are able to find healing here too.

Sincerely,

BeLikeChrist

Hi Almostgone,

There was an elder in my mission who was a convert from Chicago. He had been in a similar situation to you where he was high on cocaine and saw Jesus who told him to repent, join the Mormon church and go on a mission. He became a zone or district leader and I went with him and another elder on a sister exchange once. This was 1970 and two elders and a sister could go tracting together at that time during missionary splits. Anyway, he told us that story and was a very enthusiast missionary. Too much so that he would force the gospel down investigators faces at times.

Anyway, the point I want to make is that this was your experience and was right for you at this time. God may have other experiences for you somewhere else or in the lds church. Recently, God led my husband and I to a United Church of Christ in Port Orange, Fl. Today, a woman came up to me in that church who knew I was Mormon and had a gay son. She told me that she had a Mormon daughter who just found out her son (this lady’s grandson) was gay and is not handling it well at all. I briefly told her my story and about the book I wrote about our gay son and how God changed me. We exchanged emails and she knew it was no coincidence that we met. I believe God works with all people in all churches so just follow the spirit. History is difficult and cannot be sure, so follow what feels right for you.

Almostgone,

I too had one of the most spiritually transformative moments of my life while experimenting with psilocybin mushrooms (said to be a slightly milder and less hallucinogenic experience to lsd but quite similar i understand). In contrast to your story, this was a singular event in my life that was initiated by a John Hopkins University study I read while in graduate school for a related field of study. See cnn report on study here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7yKpvBQhTw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Also, in contrast to your experience, I had always been a fairly active member of the church and was only seeking to strengthen my testimony (seen as an odd yearning to some more orthodox believers I’m sure) of “The Divine” and and most of all, fill a nagging intellectual and spiritual preoccupation i had with the reported results of this study that i was unable to expel from my mind until I experienced it.

The strengthening I sought, came to me in a huge and spiritual way, and I was able to re-dedicate myself to more simple truths of the gospel including heart felt love and service to all as a result, especially to those estranged from or outside the church altogether. Also, I was no longer timid of looking at truth that would presumably hurt my faith including the many different angles of the church (including ugly parts of history) and consequently strengthening my faith after a long journey of understanding the frailties and fallibility of ALL MEN, prophets or not, and that vital truths can and will spring from the weak things of the earth. I believe God’s plan has always been to choose weakened men to deliver his message so that there would never be any conflation between the man (delivery mode ) and the message.

My experience has also helped me consider the church’s many varying purposes for being on earth, many that are often postulated and discussed on this site. For me understanding that beyond the basic principles of the gospel our experiences/ faith outlook .(see Elder Wirthlin, “Concern, for the One”) is meant to vary as widely as there are unique personalities on earth.

Gone were the “black and white” concrete thinking patterns (ie being in or out of which 3 kingdoms and the gravity of being apart of the only true and living church as well as emotional sorrow and suspicion we often feel for others living in the world without the gospel). This really was a major cognitive shift for me in life. I guess you could say perhaps i had an equally transformative moment like you but it was unique to me and my circumstances.

Almostgone, most importantly, I too have truthfully questioned from time to time the aforementioned experience and subsequent life shift that is quite different from what many of my peers currently see in the gospel. I wonder at occasional moments if this was a fools errand “itch” i had to scratch or the crafty hand of the adversary to lead me astray. But in the end the fruits of my life-shift have been wonderful, it has included many experiences and choices that have undoubtedly added positively to my faith and to the faith of others who are in my life. Long story short, I continue to see this as an authentic and divine experience for me and I hope you can come to the same conclusion for yourself over time… if it be so.

Did Moses, Joseph Smith, and others use a substance to help them have intense out of the norm spiritual experiences?

Maybe, or maybe they were just prone to visionary spiritual experiences as I understand that some people are. Lehi’s wife derided him with the label, “visionary man.” Of course in the BOM, Lehi’s visions were accompanied by the clear and direct interventions of God (the liahona being the biggest example). I suppose the question is – Can you hold out hope that this transformative experience was influenced by God even though it hasn’t lead you to objective miracles and even though you haven’t been able to recreate a similar experience without mind altering substances?

I continue to see this as an authentic and divine experience for me and I hope you can come to the same conclusion for yourself over time…

Welcome to the forum, almostgone.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Very interesting, and I feel for you on how hard it is when doubt and questioning creeps in.

But is this not normal for most of us to have a choice on what we believe, so that we may grow from our choices? I think it is. At different times over different issues or different circumstances…but mortality seems to be a time where we are in the lone and dreary world, with choices on what we make of things.

When I hear your story, first thing that comes to mind is how much good came of those experiences, and serving a mission and you have a family now…there seems to be good that comes from your prior choices based on the experiences you had. If the prior experiences you had led to good, would not God have a hand in that?

So much good came from Joseph Smith, in my opinion. I see God’s hand in that as well. The details are perhaps confusing for me, but the outcome can be a choice to see the good or not.

I had clear answers to my prayers in times past, when I was younger. Recently there have been times I haven’t, and yet, I see small promptings here and there that allow me to choose what I still believe in. I cling to those.

Accepting the challenging part of church history is like accepting the confusing parts of my own life. Nothing is clean and straight forward and easy to see every minute of every day, just like every moment of church history is not clear and pure. We have MMM, we have bank failures, we have polygamy, we have quotes from this person or that person…lots of messy details.

We see through a glass darkly in this life and have a choice on interpreting what we experience. We can choose a black and white interpretation if that works for us. We can choose a nuanced explanation if that works for us. The events are what they are, but the story and the explanations are our choice on what to believe about them. For the most part, I think the church has many things right in what they are teaching about our world, even if those teachings are not all literally factual and historical.

I repeat Roy’s comments…go slow…and work through your questions. There are things to be learned by asking the right questions, rather than focusing on requiring clear and unchanging answers.

Glad you are here. I look forward to learning from your posts.