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Hello, I am so grateful to have found this forum, as well as the other tools out there for Members of the Church, like myself, who are struggling. I just want to get it all out there, in hopes that someone out there can point me in the right direction.
I was born a member of the church, to parents of generational members. Growing up, I always “knew” the church was true. I read the Book of Mormon at a pretty young age (12), prayed about it at the end, and got what I felt was the answer “You already know it’s true. You’ve always known.” I kept the commandments, Chastity, tithing, the Word of Wisdom, never missed seminary… attended the rallies, and was a present teen when my state banned gay marriage. I went to BYU at age 17, went on a Mission to California at age 19, and at age 24 I married in the temple my best friend, and the kindest, sweetest, most faithful girl in the world. She is seriously one in a million. She is also the truest Mormon that ever broke bread, and the most Christlike woman I have ever known.
I’ve also strugged with debilitating depression, which has progressively gotten worse over the years. Deep down, I like to think I’m really a nice and happy guy. Deep down, I know I’ve got a lot going for me, and feel so lucky to be alive. But… I’ve got this brain problem that feels like death, shuts me down, and makes me miserable. Medication doesn’t help, and counselling gave me perspective, but hasn’t done much else. For the most part, I’ve just got to deal with it. But it makes it hard to go to church or even to read my scriptures, with one of the most prominent messages being “If you keep the commandments, you will have hope, happiness, and prosper in all things. But if you’re miserable, and without hope, wo be unto you because of your sins.” It is also the reason why, according to my wife, I might be struggling with my faith. Depression can really drown out the peace of the spirit.
But for a while now, first while reading the Book of Mormon, and then when delving into Church History, there have been many things which haven’t set right with me. Little things, at first, like quotations of the bible in the Book of Mormon, which in even current editions contradict the same scripture in found in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Then, there are doctrines taught from the earlier conference talks (Journal of Discourses), which contradict modern doctrine… I even had a Sunday School teacher tell me that what is taught by living prophets trumps what was taught by early church leaders, almost to the point that anything taught by Joseph Smith through Lorenzo Snow outside of the Doctrine Covenants was only speculation. Third, there are a few instances in Church History that don’t set right with me… Like how two of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon (David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery) accused Joseph Smith and the other witness (Martin Harris), of committing adultry, even before the doctrine of polygammy was established. That doesn’t feel like the most promising witness.
I’ve really got to know whether or not the church is true, and I can’t know without God Himself telling me one way or the other. I’ve felt the spirit before, but lately the “good feelings” and “testimony” I’ve felt haven’t seemed good enough. I’ve had plenty of good feelings in the past I’ve taken as the spirit, for things that were weren’t right later on. I’ve recieved priesthood blessings from the most faithful of men, containing very specific promises that did not come true. Most of my patriarchal blessing, at least the parts with specifics, haven’t come true despite my best efforts. I feel like spiritually I am in darkness, and I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what is right, and I really want to feel peace and happiness, and to follow God in all things.
I still attend church, and try to fulfill my callings. I still go to the temple with my wife (although I’m nervous about getting my recommend renewed. I don’t think I’m worthy, and not because of commandment violations, but because I cannot honestly say I believe Joseph Smith is a prophet, or that church leaders are called of God). I am SO GRATEFUL for the commandments and principles taught my the gosepel. I am so glad I’ve never touched a drop of alcohol, was able to get married 100% a virgin, and was able to experience the joy of serving others and reaching for something greater than myself. I believe for the most part the church is good. And I promised my wife I would always attend church with her, hold family home evenings, give priesthood blessings to the best of my ability, and attend the temple as long as the Bishop allows.
But I am in the dark. I don’t know what to do. I don’t feel the Church has been much of a support to me anymore, and I feel guilty. I feel guilty being married to such an angel, who wanted more than anything a husband who will stay true to the church. I feel guilty going home teaching and preaching a message I’m not sure I believe in (as helpful as they sometimes are). Have any of you ever watched “The Seveth Seal”? It’s a very old movie. There are three characters. There is a jester, who believes whole heartedly in Christ. There is a cold, agnostic servant. And there is a crusader knight, who every night cries out, “God, are you there?”, but hears no answer. I empathize with the knight. I feel lost, praying and willing to act on any answer from God I recieve. I just don’t feel like I’m being heard.
Thanks for sharing your story and joining our conversation. I think it helps to work through those dark feelings and the thoughts you have with others online, especially those of us who share mormonism but feel on the outskirts of it. It helps to know you’re not alone or unworthy.
My initial thoughts to you are to start working on your self talk and self image as faith in church transitions and grows.
You ARE worthy to have a recommend. You have to decide if you want one.
Church history and teachings can get messy. But you can grow to handle it. I find it most helpful to focus on gospel principles and then realize that much of the other stuff that doesn’t make sense may not matter as much as the important things the church teaches.
Finally, you can grow to learn to accept others at church will say a lot of things. Teachers, leaders, and people in the ward…what they are sharing is how they see it. But part of life is learning to take others’ opinions and then decide for yourself what you believe. Just because others say things doesn’t mean you have to agree. They are on their own journey too. Let them journey, even if they sound so confident. Many of them will change their minds about things over time. It’s ok to do that.
I hope you find peace in dealing with your depression. I do think many just have to deal with that, but there are ways to find coping mechanisms and to avoid putting yourself in places that make it worse.
If you haven’t read or checked out any Norman Peale…you may find some good thoughts in his books, or just skimming chapters to get the gist of it. There is power in the mind, but it can take years or a lifetime to harness and train our thinking and even accept who we are without pressure to try to be who others are.
I enjoyed studying Buddhism to enhance my mormonism.
Lots of good things you can do.
I am glad you joined us.
Search the archives on temple recommend questions and feel free to post your thoughts on older threads. There are good things there.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Be open to learning and feeling out of place at church. It’s ok.
I look forward to learning from your posts. Thanks for being here.
Thanks for the well-stated post. I could have written a lot of it myself. I used to pray a lot to ask God to know the truth. I’ve never received what I felt was an answer, but I think I’m ok with that. I now just try to hold onto what is good about the church. If I find anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, I seek after it, regardless of the church. I rely more on my conscience. This has made life more interesting and uncertain. Embrace the uncertainty. Hi, dande48 – I’m glad you’re here, but I’m not usually long on good advice. All I can say is that my faith crisis was the best thing ever for the free-floating guilt and anxiety that used to dog me. I’m suggesting not being afraid of where your questions will take you, because I’ve felt God’s love in the midst of my disillusionment with the church. Kind of like the line from God Be With You Til We Meet Again: “Keep love’s banner floating o’er you.” That banner is big and can cover us as we each make our way. A book that really helped me: Navigating a Mormon Faith Crisis by Thomas Wirthlin McConkie. It’s about the stages of adult development, and becoming a Mormon “adult of God” in particular.
I have a question — how persistent is the depression? Is this constant? Or is it episodic, and if it’s episodic, how long does it last? Are there specific triggers for it? The reason I ask that is that I read a book called Healing Church Hurt. There were a number of really good pieces of advice in it. One was simply the perspective that Abe Lincoln and Winston Churchill BOTH suffered from depression, but learned to live highly productive lives in spite of it.
So, I have learned not to condemn myself for my own bouts of depression that have occurred now and then, or the other mental weaknesses I have. I embrace them now as part of who I am, and accept they may not change in my lifetime (I have not been successful in changing them). But I take comfort that in spite of their existence, I can live a highly productive life just like great men like Lincoln and Churchill did. So the challenge becomes NOT to fix the weaknesses, but to be productive in spite of them. You can have greater success with being productive in spite of weaknesses than changing those weaknesses if they are particularly deep seated.
The other thing I did was to simply avoid the triggers for depression. There are certain people or situations who bring it on. I have minimized those situations in my life to the point I have not been depressed, in spite of the presence of other triggers (like overwork) in my life. Life is so much better now that I have learned to accept myself the way I am, to fill my life up with joyous experiences, and to avoid the people and situations (many of them church-related) that have triggered depression in the past. I just realized that I came through a period of massive overwork (a trigger for me) without any depression at all!! Thanks…that shows progress — and its because I had minimized other triggers that have existed in the past. Perhaps that might work for you.
Maybe there is something in my experience above that may help you.
Here are a few other ideas:
1. Don’t let your lack of knowledge of certain faith-based questions hinder you from answering yes to the TR. There are “shades” of belief — if you even think there might be a remote chance he was a prophet, that is good enough. Doubt is not visible, and until you KNOW FOR SURE he wasn’t then you are still in that gray area between anti-knowledge, and perfect knowledge of the truth — like everyone else — don’t make it visible to your priesthood leader who can’t see it. I also wouldn’t create a problem for yourself, and your wife, by opening up about all your doubts to a priesthood leader. As soon as you do that, you have NO control over your situation. Retain that control for yourself, and save the Bishop the quandry of figuring out what to do with you if you don’t answer the faith-based questions right.
2. If you feel God is not hearing you, then stop expecting to be heard. I don’t expect him to hear me anymore, even though I do pray with hope now and then. If he is not interested enough in my life to answer prayers, or even to give comfort, then I live my life without expecting anything from him.
In a way it is easier than expecting God to be there, given the old proverb [man-made] “Blessed is he who expects nothing for he shall not be disappointed”.
Then you live your life doing the best you can. If God jumps in or answers a prayer, that’s a bonus, but if he doesn’t, you are simply working off the status quo of expecting nothing from just about everyone including God. And you can keep your inner peace intact as a result.
Hope that helps. That’s where I’m at right now..
SD
Welcome to the forum. I’m glad you found us, too. This forum is by far the single most contributing factor for me to be able to StayLDS. You’ve gotten some great advice already, and I agree with all of it. You seem to feel a lot of guilt. I think it’s important that you work on trying to let go of that. Guilt is a part of the gospel (in the sense it can be a catalyst for repentance), but the kind of guilt you speak of is much more man imposed than God imposed. SD touched on the TR questions. I’ll just point out that none of the questions ask either of the two examples you gave. There is no question about whether we believe Joseph Smith was a prophet and there is no question about whether we believe current leaders have been called of God. Do yourself a favor and stop reading things into the questions and look at them as they are written.
I hope you come back and share more. May you find the peace you seek.
Welcome dande, I don’t have a lot of time. I’m on the road & traveling. I will try to respond in more detail later. Keep posting.
This is a great site to ask questions or vent. Keep coming back.
dande48, Welcome. Like others, I look forward to what you have to offer to us. I feel that every time we have another person like you join our ranks, that the community gets a little stronger.
You and I have much in common. I suffered from depression for a long time after my faith crisis. I can remember explaining to my wife that “Life sucks. I know that now. There’s no point in trying to fix it.” But, it turned out that I was wrong about that. Life is wonderful.
Each person is different, and for those who suffer from depression, there are different manifestations of it. Mine was deep. But I have overcome it and feel like it’s in my past now. It can occasionally flare up, but nowhere near to the same level as before. Like SD said, understanding triggers is a big part of that. I eliminated from my life the factors that triggered it and now I enjoy life more than ever. I think the key is to keep working at it. I tried three different counselors before landing with the one that really made the difference for me. They are not all the same. In my case, it helped to talk to all of them, but the one that made the biggest difference for me was the one who challenged me. That’s me, your situation is unique to you, but I just wanted you to know that you have a family of kindred spirits here.
On belief, one thing I can offer is belief belongs to you. I give you permission to find your own belief and then discover the commonalities and differences with the beliefs of others; in and out of the Church. Commonalities are comforting and reassuring. Differences can be invigorating. I’ll give you a quick example. For me, I’ve decided that JRH and I don’t see things the same way. It used to frustrate me when he would say things that I really disagree with. While that can still happen, I find that the more I recognize the differences, the more at peace I am with it, because it helps me more clearly define what it is that I believe. Sometimes contrast is what helps us see the subject more clearly. Don’t be afraid of either commonalities or differences.
Finally, let me say, I’m grateful for my upbringing in the Church. My fall caused a lot of heartache, but I can truly say now that I wouldn’t have changed a thing. You’ve gotten so much great advice here already. I’m so grateful for this community and I hope it serves you well, as it does me, and I look forward to your added voice here.
On Own Now wrote:On belief, one thing I can offer is belief belongs to you. I give you permission to find your own belief and then discover the commonalities and differences with the beliefs of others; in and out of the Church. Commonalities are comforting and reassuring. Differences can be invigorating.
Well said, OON.
Others in church may talk about what success is for them…but there are type A personalities, and type B. There are extroverts and introverts. Myers Briggs differences in people and how they approach things and what are generally successful ways to navigate. So…this is something we can learn as we grow and mature…we are not all alike and there is not just “one way” for all. The important thing is becoming our best selves, and so others’ have opinions and that is great to take words of wisdom from others…but likening all scripture to our lives means personal adaptation. That doesn’t dismiss others or the importance of church and its rules. It is just embracing the variety of personalities God has created in this world, and allowing yourself to be OK the way you are, even when others tell you that you can’t be that way. Those pressures are about what they think…not what is true.
I think God wants us to come to a peaceful place, where we know we are sons and daughters of God created in His image…and so…satan can get behind us with his lies and whisperings of our inadequacy…and we can be courageous to have our own faith and beliefs and connection with the divine. God wants us to find the path that works for us. And our children will be blessed to see our confidence and faithfulness in following our own convictions, as we worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.
That takes time. Even years. Go slow and let things happen, and follow your heart or spirit on what feels right to you. It is a church of love, not a church of fear.
I’m well acquainted with guilt and depression. Ironically I didn’t come to feel at peace with god until I stopped believing in god. I couldn’t let go of the guilt, it was my constant companion until I reached a point that was so low that everything sort of fell apart. Some time after that I decided it was time to rebuild and I decided to rebuild with a much healthier view of where guilt fit into my puzzle. My old definition of god had to die in order for me to rediscover a more loving god. I guess you could say that my definition of god and I evolved together. Depression. That’s a tough one. It’s one thing to hear other people say “it gets better” and it’s another thing believing it. I’m sure most people that have suffered through depression would tell you that when struggling with depression it truly doesn’t feel like things will ever get better. I don’t know whether I ever identified a trigger, sometimes I feel down and there’s a valid reason, sometimes I feel down and don’t know why. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of removing a trigger but a matter of recognizing that it’s another one of my low moments and a process of telling myself that this too shall pass.
One thing that I find helps is talking to people. Whether it be a friend, a therapist, or even people here. I think deep down all of us want to be understood and feel like someone cares.
dande48 wrote:I feel guilty being married to such an angel, who wanted more than anything a husband who will stay true to the church. I feel guilty going home teaching and preaching a message I’m not sure I believe in (as helpful as they sometimes are).
I see a great deal of empathy reflected in those statements. I can really tell that you love your wife and care about her feelings. There’s no reason to feel guilty about that. I can also tell that you’re willing to sacrifice personal comfort to serve others by home teaching them. That shows Christlike love and here again, I don’t think you have to feel guilty for that.
:thumbup: Welcome to StayLDS.
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