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I was born at a very young age. I grew up LDS in Utah county. I went on an LDS mission to Japan. I got married in the LDS temple in SLC. I could not find a good enough job to take care of my family, the way that I wanted too. I joined the US army. After 9 years, my wife decided that she had had enough. And she did everything that she could to ruin my military career. We came back to Utah. It took me a year to get a job with the postal service. She did not like that and tried to ruin my postal career. She ended up in the state mental hospital and I divorced her. My bishop at the time tried to have my 5 children taken from me. I got remarried and moved to a different area. I got transferred to a graveyard shift. I was in the elders quorum presidency. I hit a 4 point bull elk while riding my motorcycle to my work. My family has gotten very little help from anyone. My wife went to school and I fought to get my retirement and disability, because my doctors tell me that I won’t be able to work again. I had 9 years army and had just gone over 11 years with the post office. My wife and I made many sacrifices to get where we are right now. I got a 20 year retirement and social security has determined me to be fully disabled. I just turned 50. My wife has a great job as a nurse at the Roosevelt hospital. It is interesting, people that wanted nothing to do with us while we needed help are all of a sudden telling me that I need to help others. I will help anyone the same way that we were helped when we needed it. At the time of my accident we had 86 acres with our house on it. We sold 46 acres and payed off our house on 40 acres. I never lost my faith in the LDS church. I have lost my faith in the people of Utah.
God has helped me and my family to regain more than we had before my accident. But I don’t trust many people anymore.
Hi Kastaway. Welcome to our community. It sounds like you have gone through quite a lot in your life. Has all this suffering given you insights into faith and our relationships with God and with people around us?
What do you think would be some good strategies to regain trust and love for people again? You mentioned having lost that. Your life experience could be a great resource to others who have suffered pain and a feeling of rejection or abandonment.
Welcome, Kastaway. It sounds like you have had an excruciating story. This is a welcoming place for you to find and give support as you look to build a new, positive, different kind of LDS life. I hope you will gain and grow as much from your participation here as I have.
I know how you feel. My brothers and sisters have always had more money than me. I have been in the financial field and in education which does not pay as well as construction, being an attorney, or being a manager of a corporation. I am going to try to be a principal and then maybe I will be accepted. It seems if you are not rich in Utah you are not accepted. Welcome to the community! What an interesting and emotional story. Thanks for sharing. I am eager to learn from your perspectives and your experiences. Especially how you can keep such faith in God throughout it all. What has been the biggest thing helping you feel like God is still watching over you, despite others’ failures? Welcome, Kastaway. I think it is very hard for those who have not experienced something to understand those who do. Homogeneity also breeds contempt and misunderstanding. I know that is simplistic, but if we stop and realize those things that we find hard to understand – and that we really are no different in that regard than those who don’t understand us – it can go a long way toward helping us find peace and personal joy.
Welcome!! Thank you for sharing with us. I could really feel your pain as you described what happened to you. I hope that we can help be a refuge for you and provide help along your spiritual journey to recover some hope in the human race.
Holy cow. Kastaway wrote:I was born at a very young age.
OK. I know that I don’t know you at all yet and that your post was very heart felt, but this line made me laugh.
Kastaway….I struggle with trust issues too. It is difficult when the members of the church don’t get it with regards to having charity (in the BofM sense…..the pure love of Christ….the gift that comes to the faithful, etc.) As I have tried to figure this out I find myself struggling with my expectations of people and my impatience with mormon culture. Sometimes I feel that mormons are sometimes human “doings” rather than “beings”. Maybe that is an understandable condition as we try to serve with all of our many responsibilities and assignments. But perhaps we are…..or at least some of us…..missing the capacities of love on the insides. Our fears and insecurities and self absorbing thoughts get the better of us and sometimes (too many times) we aren’t there for each other as we should or could be. There were many times in my darkest strugglings where I wondered if God was there and if He was sending anyone to help. Maybe He was and no one was listening. Maybe He sent them, but they didn’t know what to do once they got to my door. Maybe my expectations were misplaced as I had to learn how to endure never ending midnights. Maybe He let me struggle alone for some other wise purpose I can’t know at this time.
What I do know is this. I am not there all the time in the best ways for the people around me either. And….maybe that is ok. Do I need to improve? You bet. But I have learned to be ok with myself with where I am today with my progression, spiritual and otherwise. And if I can be that forgiving and patient with myself….knowing all my vast weaknesses….then just maybe I can let the rest of the church be wherever they are at on their journey too.
We are all in this life thing together. And sometimes life is very literally a veil of tears. Let your life experience turn to something more loving and more trusting in your heart. Trust God and trust yourself to handle lifes challenges and the very imperfect and painful people we meet along the way. Pain is an interesting teacher. It kinda breaks us down and disorients us a bit. Maybe that is by design so that it can carve out space for more perspectives and greater love for this whole imperfect life thing we are involved in.
Best wishes to you ….. and me as we learn HOW to trust again with all of our new understandings.
Poppyseed wrote:Sometimes I feel that mormons are sometimes human “doings” rather than “beings”.
What a great quote!! That is going in my journal! I find I get caught up that so many times too, and it has helped to stop always trying to be doing more, and just relax sometimes and enjoy a sunrise or a nice cuddle with my kids and enjoy being who I am, where I’m at in that moment. Great quote, poppy.
Poppyseed wrote:There were many times in my darkest strugglings where I wondered if God was there and if He was sending anyone to help. Maybe He was and no one was listening. Maybe He sent them, but they didn’t know what to do once they got to my door. Maybe my expectations were misplaced as I had to learn how to endure never ending midnights. Maybe He let me struggle alone for some other wise purpose I can’t know at this time.
I have also gone through this and conclude that sometimes the help I expected was not felt, so I just need to move ahead anyway. At first I felt betrayed or disappointed that others in my ward weren’t there when I needed them, or God doesn’t really answer my prayers, but I think I believe now that God has a more long-term view and in my moment of crisis I think it is critical to get help from someone, but it passes and I am still ok. I struggle now with establishing my faith that God may always be there, but may not always need to intervene…the same goes for members in my ward. I appreciate their help when they give it, but I expect nothing look at things as my respnosibility to deal with. It has changed my view of things.
Heber13 wrote:What an interesting and emotional story. Thanks for sharing. I am eager to learn from your perspectives and your experiences. Especially how you can keep such faith in God throughout it all. What has been the biggest thing helping you feel like God is still watching over you, despite others’ failures?
Heber,
I have been told by many people, even my doctors, that I should not be here after the accident that I was in. If you think of a car windshield shattered by a rock, that is the condition that my skull was in. The only thing not broken in my head was my nose. Even the doctors were betting for the first 2 weeks that I was in the hospital were betting that I would not make it through the night. My accident happened on 28 June, 2005. My family was told that, if, I ever came out of the coma that I was in, I would be in a wheel chair for the rest of my life. I have had to relearn how to do many things, but I know that I was not suppose to give up. A week after I got out of the hospital, I have been walking ever since. I have learned not to take anything for granted. I had just gone over working 11 years at the post office in Provo, Utah. I had 9 years that I was in the US Army. I retired at 46 with 20 years of federal service and it took another year to get full disability. My wife was a stay at home mom. But she went to school and graduated with honors. And now has a great job working at the Roosevelt hospital. Our lives have gotten better. We got ouor house paid off and we are working on getting our kids graduated from school. My main doctor has told me that when he has a bad day, he thinks of my situation and his is not so bad. He has also told me that he has people that are still in wheel chairs and my injuries are 10 times worse. I cannot give up with all of the help that God has given to me.
Kastaway wrote:Heber13 wrote:What an interesting and emotional story. Thanks for sharing. I am eager to learn from your perspectives and your experiences. Especially how you can keep such faith in God throughout it all. What has been the biggest thing helping you feel like God is still watching over you, despite others’ failures?
Heber,
I have been told by many people, even my doctors, that I should not be here after the accident that I was in. If you think of a car windshield shattered by a rock, that is the condition that my skull was in. The only thing not broken in my head was my nose. Even the doctors were betting for the first 2 weeks that I was in the hospital were betting that I would not make it through the night. My accident happened on 28 June, 2005. My family was told that, if, I ever came out of the coma that I was in, I would be in a wheel chair for the rest of my life. I have had to relearn how to do many things, but I know that I was not suppose to give up. A week after I got out of the hospital, I have been walking ever since. I have learned not to take anything for granted. I had just gone over working 11 years at the post office in Provo, Utah. I had 9 years that I was in the US Army. I retired at 46 with 20 years of federal service and it took another year to get full disability. My wife was a stay at home mom. But she went to school and graduated with honors. And now has a great job working at the Roosevelt hospital. Our lives have gotten better. We got ouor house paid off and we are working on getting our kids graduated from school. My main doctor has told me that when he has a bad day, he thinks of my situation and his is not so bad. He has also told me that he has people that are still in wheel chairs and my injuries are 10 times worse. I cannot give up with all of the help that God has given to me.
Kastaway,
What could the Saints do to support you or to help restore your faith in their goodness now in your life?
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