My Testimony

[Anonymous]

Because I consider this the best ward on the planet and because I love to bear my testimony but don’t feel I will ever have the courage to do so again in a typical ward meeting, I’d like to take the opportunity to do so here.

My testimony has always been very special to me. I use to bare it consistantly from the age of 8 to oh about 2 years ago. It was a very typical testimony consisting of the big 5 that we are taught to testify of; God, Christ, Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon and current Prophet. I “knew” these things to be “true”. I had strong spiritual experiences regarding God and Christ and nice warm feelings regarding the other 3. Then I had some life-changing experiences that caused me to reevaluate these beliefs. I felt burdened beyond what I could carry. I felt pressure to do and be more than I was physically and emotionally capable of and I felt guilt and shame in not being able to carry out these expectations. These feelings led me to ask questions and begin to break through many assumptions I had about life, the church and expectations in general.

I felt drawn to read books like “The Shack”, “Rough Stone Rolling”, and “A History of God”. When I picked up my scriptures to read I felt confusion and anger. I felt peace as I read “The Tao of Pooh” and explored Taoism. I’ve recently enjoyed the work of Eckhart Tolle and love the concept of “egolessness” and how similar it feels to “atonement”. I’ve begun a study of world religions and love the similar principles I find in the world’s major religions. I love the unity of mankind that those principles represent. Compassion, Kindness and Love are my focus now. Living the words of Christ have become my anchor. I believe seeing Christ in all people and nature is everything, the rest is talk.

I don’t “know” anything anymore, except Love. I feel loved by God and I feel the workings of an atonement in my life. I don’t understand the historical Christ as I use to. I don’t even understand God as an all-knowing white-male father figure any more though I still refer to God as my Heavenly Father as I pray when I feel impressed to pray. I love the concept of a Heavenly Mother. I want to understand more the feminine qualities of God. I had an experience while reading “Rough Stone Rolling” where what I have known the Holy Ghost to be all my life, whispered that Joseph was a prophet. Reconcilling that experience with what I preceded to read has been a very difficult process. As to the Book of Mormon and Thomas S. Monson. I just don’t know. I have learned life enhancing lessons from the Book of Mormon but I have always questioned its historicity. (Though I pushed those thoughts out of my head as being thoughts of the devil at that time.) I’m working hard at having compassion for our current prophet. I’ve never liked his style of speaking. I am sensitive to his underlying manipulation and guilt through story and I am just getting use to the idea that a prophet and his apostles are men and falliable.

I can no longer say “I know the Church is true”. I can say there is truth in the church. I can say there is goodness and there are very good people. There is also goodness outside of the church and a richness of humanity that draws me. I once felt strongly that my purpose in life was to be a woman of God and to mentor others in seeking that path. I still feel that purpose but my idea of what that means is constantly changing and it began with the question “what is a woman of God?” I feel like I am being taught daily the answer to that question and the answers are so different from what I expected. I really do hope to fulfill this purpose and believe God is leading the way.

Thanks for reading and allowing me a place to express my evolving testimony. That felt good.

Canada

[Anonymous]

I guess clapping isn’t reverent, so I will just say — Amen. Thank you for sharing your testimony. It was uplifting for me to read this morning.

[Anonymous]

How about “You go, girl!”?

That’s there’s an awesome testimony.

[Anonymous]

I like this — you can bear your testimony and say what you actually ARE THINKING. So, here is mine.

I can’t deny that I’ve had more powerful spiritual experiences here in the LDS Church than in any other religion. I felt it powerfully when I asked specifically if I should join at the age of 20, and felt this strong electrical feeling that was uncommon, and almost hurt until it subsided. I got baptized a week later. AS a missionary, I had powerful spiritual experiences guiding other missionaries and teaching investigators. Even now, at Church, I come away feeling swept and clean in my “breast” when I teach good principles, and I have see entire groups of people touched by the Holy Ghost when I’ve been teaching well and with humility.

I think the Book of Mormon has a lot of gold nuggets of truth about living one’s life — an absence of authoritarianism, and a plethora of phrases that are quotable and truly do help me feel closer to God than any other book I’ve read, including the Bible, with the exception perhaps of the four gospels.

I also see fruits in the lives of my children and my wife from living the gospel principles and being involved in the LDS Community. There are also a lot of good people who I have a lot of common interests and outlooks toward life. It’s a place where I can go and rub shoulders with people who have good values, who care about relationships (most of them) and who have a spiritual outlook on life that strengthens me. And in the past, their attitudes have lifted the quality of my life.

However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not without reservations. I think one has to separate the Church as an organization from one’s relationship with God. The Church, while doing much good, can interfere with one’s relationship with God when men with the same failings I have make mistakes, treat members’ hard work and commitment with a lack of respect, and resort to guilt and other negative methods of motivating others. One has to develop one’s own philosohy about such things to eventually find peace — the same way one does in their job and their work when there are things that don’t sit right.

I believe the fact that the truth is so hard to discern definitively because it’s God’s plan for saving more souls — that murky groundrules allow for easier judgments and lenient punishments out of fairness — invoking the eternal rule that God must be merciful or He is no longer God. The fact that the truth is so hard to discern gives God a way of justifying easier punishments given the difficulty of the way.

I believe God is merciful and loves all people, whether in the Church or not. I also believe that in the final day, even people who have temporarily strayed in this life and the next will have opportunities for great reward, and that it is not all permanent hellfire and damnation. As the D&C 19:6-7 says “Nevertheless it is not written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written endless torment. Again it is written eternal damnation; wherefore, it is more express than other scriptures, that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men, altogether for my name’s glory”.

This doesn’t mean that we can live our lives recklessly in this life — that way lies pain and lack of progress — but it means that in the end, there will be many opportunities to straighten up and eventually become like God ourselves in our abilities, our inner peace, or perspectives on life, our endurance, our patience etcetera. We have a lot to look forward to, and at some point, the actual truth will be very clear to all of us.

[Anonymous]

My emotional / spiritual testimony is radically different than my intellectual testimony.

I have had a few incredibly powerful spiritual experiences that weren’t just emotional, but I also have deep emotional attachments to the LDS community and people I love dearly. That combination keeps me firmly grounded within the community as a faithful, believing member.

My intellectual detachment, if you will, allows me not to sweat the details (what I personally see as the small stuff). I absolutely love the “grand cosmology” of Mormonism – the vision of eternity that is so unlike anything else within Christianity. I also realize that many of the things I see differently are only visible to me because of the foundation that I receive from Mormonism’s theology. In other words, my testimony includes gratitude that I have an otrhodoxy available to me that allows my personal heterodoxy to be as powerful for me as it is. I don’t begrudge others the fact that they don’t see what I see, since they see what is beautiful to them – and since, in a very real way, I only am able to see what I see because of them. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone else, but it’s fundamental for me.

As I’ve said in other threads, I liken my emotional and spiritual testimony to the kite string that keep my intellectual kite connected to a safe harbor, if you will. My kite can fly all over the sky, but it’s not going to get separated from the string and be burned by the sun or frozen in the atmosphere before it gets to the sun.

There are a lot of things I feel comfrotable saying I know – and lots of things I believe – and lots of things I really do want to believe. I like being part of a religion where that is said to be ok in the actual scriptural canon.

[Author]

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