Just Taking it a Day at a Time

I am a pretty quiet person in real life, usually listening more than talking, and that also comes across in my online communications as well. I have been reading here for a few months, and decided that it’s probably time to introduce myself.

I grew up in an area with fairly high LDS membership, and now that I am an adult, I am living in a place with an extremely high percentage of LDS (that is also VERY conservative, religiously as well as politically). I first had a faith crisis when I was in my teens, and had a Sunday school teacher that taught some pretty “unusual” lessons, quoting heavily from uncorrelated writings of early church leaders (JoD), journals of early church members, etc. The lesson that really got to me was one about polygamy. He started out by saying “You’ve probably learned your whole life that the parable of the talents if about playing the violin and stuff, but that’s not really true. Brigham Young taught us that it is really about polygamy, and the talents actually represent wives.” And it just went downhill from there. He told us that monogamy is a lesser form of marriage that we just have to “endure” until the second coming when the holy form of marriage can be practiced again, and all kinds of other things. Only having heard very minimal things about polygamy prior to this (and usually justifications like it was to take care of all the poor widows), I was sent into shock and was completely horrified. What kind of church did I actually belong to? I came home after church that day and just bawled. I felt like all the things I had been taught in my life about being a daughter of God with divine potential, with men and women being of equal worth in the sight of God was all just a big lie to cover up the fact that women were really just possessions to be traded around and glorify men in the eternities. Ugh. My parents were completely perplexed at my reaction and tried to comfort me, but the sources they used did not help (D&C 132 & Mormon Doctrine). Neither one of them seems to have any issue with polygamy at all, and just assume a lot of people will have to live it in the hereafter. I just cannot relate to their perspective, just like they cannot relate to mine. I assumed there was something wrong with me for being so upset about all of this, so I just kept it bottled up for a long time.

Another big time of faith crisis for me in my teens happened when one of my friends came out as gay (or “experiencing SSA” as they like to say in the church), and seeing how he was treated in his ward after that. He hadn’t “done anything”, but was just trying to figure out where his place was in the church, and what his future was going to look like. I thought that his ward members would rally around him and support him in his efforts to live the gospel despite his “trial”, but he was treated horribly. I just could not believe it. These people had known him for years, and watched him grow up. They knew he was a good person, right? Why did this change that? Especially if he hadn’t “sinned”? Almost his entire family ended up leaving the church over this, and it just breaks my heart that they were treated that way. I also knew the people that treated him so badly – and these were “good” people, or so I had thought. I just didn’t know how to reconcile all of this.

Anyway, this might give a little background into some of my struggles with the church – the main ones being women’s issues in the church (including polygamy, inequality in the temple, absence of women’s voices in Church policy, knowing next to nothing about Heavenly Mother and not really being able to talk about her, etc.), LGBT issues in the church, and race issues in the church. I also struggle with some of the teachings that have to due with sexuality – the emphasis on women’s dress when teaching about modesty, teaching women not to become “walking porn” (as well as the often implied message that men “just can’t control themselves”) asking people about masterbation in interviews (especially with youth), etc. I also struggle with the concept of “one true church”. It just seems when dealing with imperfect people messing things up all the time in the church, the variety of life experiences that people have on this Earth, etc. that God must have a bit bigger, more inclusive plan. I admit I have a hard time understanding ordinances, especially the temple ordinances, in the traditional way.

Now that I have all of that off my chest, I would like to say that I love what I consider the “core of the gospel”. I believe in God and Christ, and I feel like Mormonism has many powerful and beautiful doctrines – such as eternal progression and learning, eternal relationships, the value of truth from all sources, treasuring the earth as a beautiful gift, we are all brothers and sisters with the goal of everyone being linked together as a family, growing and progressing by helping each other, that we have Heavenly Parents, etc. I feel like the Book of Mormon has many valuable teachings in it, and its stories are a large part of my spiritual upbringing and who I am today.

I come from a very TBM family, and married a TBM spouse in the temple. I am committed to staying LDS because of the parts of the Church that I love, and also largely because of the pain it would cause in all of these family relationships for me to do otherwise. I am trying to take a “bloom where you are planted” approach – make a positive contribution to where I have found myself in life. My husband knows what my main “triggers” are, and what many of my unorthodox beliefs are and doesn’t push me on those things, but the rest of my family doesn’t know (well, other than my parents knowing I hate polygamy), and my ward doesn’t know. I felt like I had come to a good place in my relationship with the gospel, until I became a parent, and then these issues got dredged back up because now my choices are not just affecting me, but my kids. The Church has been a huge blessing in my life, but also parts of it have been a painful burden that I feel like I have been dragging around for years, and I struggle with how to raise my kids in the church, letting them experience the “good parts” but not be damaged by the bad. I struggle with living in such a conservative area at times. I know that people’s beliefs and perspectives are probably much more diverse than I give them credit for, but it seems the vocal majority is very black and white, and just takes it for granted that everyone else around here is as well. I wish I had the guts to speak up more often than I do – be the change you want to see, and all that. I am extremely shy and introverted, and am trying to overcome that, but is is so hard. I have good days and bad days, and on the bad days (or sometimes bad weeks/months) I have a lot of anxiety about how to deal with all of this and feel completely depressed and overwhelmed. This site has really been a Godsend for me, to know that there are others who struggle and I am not just a lone weirdo, and to help me consider different perspectives, and broaden my views. I just wanted to say thanks to all of you that have helped me on my journey thus far, by your conversations here.