New to all of this and so confused

I guess you could say my journey started back during Prop 8, I was living in California where the pressure to support this proposition no questions asked really started to wear on me. I wasn’t necessarily for our against anything, but to me Religion and Politics were supposed to be separate things, and I felt that being asked to support something I had not had time to really sort out on my own bothered me. I decided at that time to take a more blind approach to things, trusting that I would understand some day why God would want me to support something political, and not fully understanding how I felt about the issue itself, that of legalizing gay marriage. To this day it is still something I am torn about to be honest. I was raised in the church, born and bred, so I feel like a lot of what I was raised with is still a part of me. I feel like a am really being split down the seams, with one foot wanting to stay firmly planted in what I know and really have loved, and the other, more rational side of me, fighting to get out. The song about being carefully taught from the musical “South Pacific” keeps coming to mind when I think about how I have had my religion practically sewn into every fiber of my being.

Let me give you some more background. I am a 20-something, full-time president of a small company and have two beautiful children. My husband and I were married in the temple. I am so very lucky because he and I have been on the same page this entire journey, and have really been able to lean on each other for support. My job allows me to work from home, which has been nice, but I still have a full time babysitter to help me out during the day, because I typically work at least 10 hour days. My husband works as well, but only plans to work for 10 years, at which point I will take over as full time provider and grow my business. I have always been a very strong and capable woman, independent and free thinking. I have always been politically liberal and I guess a classic bleeding heart. My political views err on the socialist side, but I always told people I was a “consecrationalist.” That is my religious side coming through as I always felt I could justify a religious based socialism. I studied political science and journalism in college, a bad combination for religion I suppose as I was really taught in Journalism to question everything and seek the Truth (with a capital “T”).

I hardly even know how to continue now, I am sure everyone here has experienced something similar to my earth-shattering revelations. I suppose it would be best to say that I wish with all of my heart that certain principals of the church are True. I find several of our teachings particularly beautiful, especially eternal families and the idea that there is a heaven for everyone here on earth. I can hardly bare to think about a world without my children, and it breaks my heart thinking that there may be an end to our time together. I hold firm to experiences in my life that we do have a loving God who watches over us, and still feel that this is something I can believe in.

Our (my husband and I) questions have arisen completely from church history problems and feeling that we have been lied to. My husband and I were very skeptical in our research and tried to make sure all of our sources had a firm foundation in church sources. We particularly struggle with the following:

1. Polygamy and Polygny- I am sure we are not the only ones. I, like many, had no idea Joseph had plural wives, some married to other men. All of the arguments of justifying polygamy fall down. All of the arguments then for eradicating it fall down, other than of course, the church submitting to the will of the government and cloaking it in “revelation.” It is hard to rationally justify any of the events surrounding this particular piece of church history.

2. The churches changing stance on so many issues really concerns us. It seems to us that God would be more rational and consistent than what we see in “his” church. We are taught that God is unchanging and yet the church is changing all the time.

3. We are very bothered by the churches current investments, its lack of disclosure of tithe monies, etc. We feel we would be better off using that 10 percent in charitable ways of our choosing, ensuring that the money is spent in worthwhile and not mammon ways.

4. We feel that the Word of Wisdom was not intended to have certain principals be more valuable than others. It bothers us that such an emphasis is placed on drinking and not on the other principals of eating too much meat, etc. Even though we are beginning to not believe in it as revelation at all, we still feel that the hypocrisy of certain principals and weighing certain things as evil was not justified. We also feel that this and other church principals had led us to simply do unnecessary things instead of focusing on living charitable lives. It seemed we had so much of a check-list of what it was to be a good person that we were actually so consumed in checking things off we never had the time to actually be good people.

I could go on and on, but I better stop there at serious introductions. Some more light hearted things about me/my husband (I refer a lot to him and I in the “we or us” sense):

1. I Love to read, and I read a variety of things, but some of my more recent favorite reads have been by Patrick Rothfuss and Carla Kelley.

2. We love to Travel, and want to see the world. Our dream vacation is New Zealand.

3. I love to eat, and try new foods. We are pretty daring in what we try and love going to new restaurants. We probably spend most of our money on food and travel.

4. I once lit a field on fire on accident, almost just like Thomas S. Monson’s story, so I always had a kind of kinship with him thinking to myself, “if he did it, perhaps I am not such a dummy!”

Thanks, really looking forward to developing some relationships here. We are still very in the closet about the way we feel and are sorting out our feelings, so it will be nice to have some comrades.