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Of all the losses during faith transition, the biggest loss for me was the eternal idea of our work. Not the temple, genealogy work. I mean our daily efforts being purposeful to eternity. Some how I didn’t expect to die and just walk up to the Celestial Kingdom, but I really embraced the idea that this life was like school. You learned, grew, were tested, shaped, and effected. You chose and built, had tough projects and learned. Then one day you could go home to share what you learned. You could tutor others, continue some great work you had started, you could look back and have an “I get it moment.” That assurance is all gone.
I can keep faith with the idea if I wish to, and I do, but the assurance was deeply helpful for me when life was hard or disappointing. Imagining each event as purposeful, gave me hope, resources and encouragement. It’s the blue pill I wish I could swallow and fix.
What do you miss?
mom3 wrote:What do you miss?
Feeling very certain that I belonged, and being on the same page with my husband.
I miss being a size 4. Hawkgrrl wrote Quote:I miss being a size 4.
Amen, Sister.
Ann wrote:Feeling very certain that I belonged
Yeah that is a big one for me. We were part of a small ward in Arizona that was like a family. We keep wondering if we can ever get that back. Even if a ward had all the necessary ingredients, we are not the same people that we were.
Perhaps the bigger issue for me is my internal locus of control. I used to very much be a make your own destiny kinda guy. I had inspirational posters in my office and would quote Victor Frankel. This belief is both motivating and comforting. It motivates you to work hard and make good choices. It comforts you in that as long as you do your part – your life will be rewarded. Law of the harvest etc.
Now I am accutely aware that many things are outside of my control and some have the power to take away everything I love and work for – like the nest of a field mouse being overturned by the plow.
It seemed a much more safe and protected existence before.
mom3 wrote:Of all the losses during faith transition, the biggest loss for me was the eternal idea of our work.
I don’t think it’s lost at all. As long as I continue to exist, then so will my knowledge. And I suspect there will always be unlimited human needs that require leadership, achievement, service, etcetera, even in the eternities.
For example, when people die, they will likely arise with the same hangups. Will we sit around with all our needs taken care of us in the eternities? I doubt it. There will be work to do, and the experience we get here will allow us continue to serve and achieve at higher levels than if we had not done work here at all.
I am seeing eternity in my daughter’s character. She had a conflict with a friend last week, and came to me about it. I coached her on how to have a “crucial conversation”. How to create safety, to set objectives for the discussion, to establish certain groundrules, to point out patterns in others’ behavior that needs changing, and to deal with problems in the right medium (face to face, in this case, rather than text).
She came back after the face to face meeting triumphant, the relationship repaired, understood, validated. The other person appears to have had the same.
Provided our spirits are eternal, she will have this memory and skill as she goes forward in life. That is my contribution to the eternities — the skills I develop in myself, and the skills I impart to people who I coach and train.
I do miss this — that sense of [false] security that as long as I accepted church callings, had a TR, paid my tithing and was a “righteous priesthood holder” things would LIKELY be well in the eternities. Big unknown now, but if my personal peace is any indication, I’m better of for this life on my current path.
mom3 wrote:What do you miss?
Mom3 – I miss the assurance that there is something better than this life. The idea that we can only utilize this sometimes-pitiful existence disappoints me. Especially for those for whom life is cruelly unfair.
SilentDawning wrote:mom3 wrote:Of all the losses during faith transition, the biggest loss for me was the eternal idea of our work.
I don’t think it’s lost at all. As long as I continue to exist, then so will my knowledge.
This is one that a choose to believe – that there is a God and he loves us all. I acknowledge that I could be wrong. If I am, what the hell does it matter if I have a false belief? If it emotionally/mentally helpful to me then why not hold to that belief?I miss the God who is interested in my well being and is involved in my life. I have come to appreciate my current God, though.
DarkJedi wrote:I miss the God who is interested in my well being and is involved in my life.
+1 on that for me.Probably what I miss the most is the sense of purpose. But that’s far from all of it. From a long ago thread: On Own Now wrote:I used to love going to the temple. Just being in the Celestial Room without any other concern in the world was a wonderful thing, and something I dearly miss. I clearly remember walking along a dirt road on my mission and looking up at the bright stars on a moonless night and the feeling coming over me how I knew why we are here, the purpose of our lives and how it all fit together so beautifully. I miss that, too. I remember the emotion of having a prayer answered, when I sought to know if the BofM were true. I never pray anymore. I remember the excitement of hearing a prophet speak in person, but he’s gone now, and I’ve lost the excitement. I remember home teaching with my dad, playing games with friends out on the church lawn after mutual, the first time I taught someone to pray, big family dinners on fast sundays, giving a blessing to a child while concerned parents looked on, embracing a man that I’d baptized when I visited him a year later, family home evening when my kids were little, a favorite religion class at BYU, my first kiss (at a stake dance), prayer with about 40 missionaries every night at the MTC, being baptized, a particularly fun camp-out when I was a priest, standing next to my wife who was so beautiful in her wedding dress in front of the temple; unable to wipe the smile off my face.
It’s why I can’t be against the church. It was the fuel that provided happiness for most of my life.
After having my faith reconstruction what I miss the most is going to church and General Conference and not cringing every time I hear so much of the black-and-white statements that are said. I also miss the gullibility I had pf the prophet and the other general authorities with thinking they were so close to perfect while the rest of us were so far from it. But if it wasn’t for those experiences I would not be where I am today. I miss feeling loved and cared for by God. It was a personal relationship that has a lot of distance right now. Something I struggle with now, and in a way, have always struggled with, is loneliness. Feeling like I’m on my own to take care of myself, that I’ve always had to look out for myself and can rely on very few people…feeling like I’m not understood or loved. I still have this tendency to assume friends or people won’t help me. I have to work through it.
I miss “knowing” that not only I, but everyone else, would get a happy ending. That in the eternities, people would love and appreciate me and I in turn would love and appreciate them. We wouldn’t be riddled by disagreements and human weaknesses. We’d all just love and understand each other. I had this vision of all of God’s children being happy together. I know Mormon ideology teaches of three kingdoms but for me we’d all be able to visit and be happy together. That’s what I “knew” awaited us.
I still hope for this.
Thank you everyone. I visit this every day and I shed a tear for each of us. I too have hope. I don’t know what it’s anchored in or where it comes from. I know being here with everyone helps a lot. I am sending love and hugs to each of us. My wish is that this journey may be worth it and seen more clearly from some point in the future. DarkJedi wrote:I miss the God who is interested in my well being and is involved in my life.
I think I stopped believing in that God long before my faith crisis hit. He sometimes shows his hand in dire emergencies, but even then, I know He is more than willing to let me tough it out on my own. I think about the millions of people He’s left suffer at the hands of totalitarian governments who implemented genocide, and realize that low expectations, coupled with high hopes, and healthy skepticism, present a reasonable path to inner peace.
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