I was born and raised hard core LDS, working hard to do all the right things and get all the right blessings. It never worked all that well for me, but well enough that I could keep going that way. Until 11 years ago.

Three separate times on a drive to my office, I thought about stopping and felt very strongly that I should not stop, I needed to keep going. I was never one of those people who heard a Still Small Voice, so this had a huge impact on me. I ended up being hit by a double dumpster that ran a red light. If I had stopped anywhere along the way, I would not have been in that intersection when the guy ran that red light.

I was 6 months pregnant and had a 2 year old at home and that accident has caused more pain and suffering for all three of us than I could ever have imagined. My husband took our temple marriage so seriously that he bailed out on me when I did not respond appropriately to his demands that I snap out of it and get back to taking care of everything I used to. The decision to marry him despite some misgivings was also a rare moment where I felt I was being led by the Spirit. I ended up in a brain injury program where everyone had spouses who were their rocks and their salvations, except for me and the other LDS woman in the program, whose husband has also divorced her and used her condition to try to get custody of the kids he hadn’t seemed that interested in having primary responsibility for before it factored into child support calculations. Major crisis of faith anyone?

The good Mormon girl in me didn’t know how to handle it. I tried devoting myself even more to the Church and to faith. It didn’t work. What did work for me was actually the opposite. I let myself be mad and I cried and screamed at Heavenly Father in many a long and emotional prayer. I really let him have a piece of my mind and I asked him straight out why he would do this to me. Why set me up with the car accident and with the marriage that would be hard enough before I was a wreck but nearly kill me when I needed a positive, not more negative. What kind of loving father would do that? Omniscient beings have no excuse! My therapist made the mistake of quoting Buddha saying something about picking up a hot rock to throw in anger and burning oneself and I told him the Buddha could shove his hot rocks up his ass. No religious icon was safe.

That anger didn’t cut me off from God in the end, it brought me closer. I was willing to listen after daring him to tell me what the hell he was thinking and, no still small voice, but I felt love and peace and a sense that things would be okay that I couldn’t reconcile with how hopeless things looked. I had no idea how this was going to happen, but couldn’t deny that feeling, either. It took years to learn how to free fall, but I finally had to either do it or die, literally.

If I were in testimony meeting, I’d use the word faith, but it really wasn’t the Mormon version of faith that I had understood. It was more just free-falling and trusting that whether I fell on something soft or something hard, it would be okay. Even as I type that, it makes no sense. It can’t be okay to dash against the rocks, but it just was because it had to be. I had to let go, which is not something I could ever do before. Mormonism taught me to keep working, but what I really needed was to give up.

I came away from that more spiritual than ever and less religious. I see the Church much like I see my ex-husband (still husband according to the Church because my stake president wanted to save me from being without the blessings of the sealing by keeping me sealed to the asshole who kicked me when I was up and even harder when I was down). They both have a really good heart, but it is just covered with so much crap from developmental nightmares that you have to look real hard to see it. You live day in and day out with the crap and only get glimpses of the beauty within.

I am absolutely convinced now that there is a God and he or she or it loves me and knows what is going on in my life. I still tend to see God through LDS eyes, but I see God as that good heart underneath all the crap that past leaders have heaped on the church as it has developed. My ex MIL thought she was raising her son right, too, but it didn’t stop her abuse from messing him up in serious ways. I go to Church when it helps me. I don’t when it doesn’t. I pray for direction and am convinced that when it has mattered, I’ve been led to where I need to be.

It is still really hard much of the time. I will never be the same as I was and I really miss the old me and everything she could do, including make herself happy in the Church. But the worst thing that ever happened to me has also been one of the best. A big part of that is how my relationship to God and church has changed. It is more complicated, but more real and more comfortable to who I really am. I don’t have much faith that the Church will ever be the perfected church that it claims to be, but I don’t need it to be as long as I can still see God in there. If I ever get to the point that I can’t, it’s not such a big deal because I can still find him on my own.

I think that every church is going to have major flaws. God has to speak through humans, the way I see it, in order to organize in ways that do help many to find Him and grow spiritually. But humans always filter through their own weaknesses and experience. We can’t even wrap our brains around God and we are supposed to wrap our brains around and explain to each other the entire spiritual realm? It’s like a bunch of ancients having a vision of two moderns talking on cell phones trying to explain to their neighbors not only what happened but how. They won’t even agree on what happened and how to explain it, never mind any of them having a chance of getting the engineering right. The only real understanding comes from spirit to spirit communication in my view, so the same personal revelation concept that keeps me drawn to a Mormon view drives me away from being anything the Church as an institution would approve of. I don’t accept their authority or ability to explain anything God says or is to me. Not that they are always wrong, just that they can’t, by definition the way I see it, ever be 100% right.

I don’t know if any of this makes much sense to anyone other than me. I certainly wouldn’t say that my experience should dictate what you should do about your crisis of faith.I just want you to know that you aren’t alone and that there can be a light at the end of that dark tunnel even if you can’t see it from where you are. Also, if you are hanging on to the faith of your fathers because you really feel that is right for you, that’s great. But if it is out of fear that if you let go, you will fall away and not know where you might land, that might not be as dangerous as trying desperately to hang on. And, last of all, if you need living proof that if you let go and let God have it one day, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be struck by lightning or even that God will turn his back on such an ungrateful servant. Even Jesus had a hard time keeping it all together when he was feeling forsaken, but God doesn’t seem to take being questioned that hard. That makes a lot of sense, actually, when I think about the fact that I don’t mind explaining my decisions to my children and I’m not even close to being perfect. Even when I couldn’t explain, like when they gave me the “how could you let them do this to me?” looks and screams when I held them down so they couldn’t fight their way out of painful shots, I felt much worse for them than I did for myself and I certainly understood where they were coming from. I’m sure an omniscient being understands it isn’t our fault that we can’t always understand and need to cry and shoot dirty looks when we feel like those we see as our protectors are selling us out.

What’s been so difficult with the experiences I’ve been dealing with recently is not that I’m struggling with sorrow, per se. It’s that *God’s direct involvement* in my life has been the source of quite a lot of the pain and sorrow. I’m hoping that at some point God will explain to me why He has put me through so much intense pain and despair, especially in the past year, and why His actions/guidance have seemed so inconsistent, but right now my ability to have faith and trust in God’s purposes, etc., is almost non-existent. But like I said in my post, I’m not giving up quite yet because I do want to believe that somehow it will all make sense.

(BTW, Vada, even after reading through all 45 comments on this post, I am still laughing about “I Diesel 10. I breaking timber.” I totally understand the dead brain thing.)

First off, you inspire me. I don’t understand the whys and why nots, but the fact that you are still exercising a small particle of whatever faith you’ve got…that inspires me. I know some may think I have my whole life figured out and that I have never struggled with my faith in the same way that maybe you have, but trust me, there have been times.

There is one particular thing that kept coming to mind as I was reading through your post. I went through a particularly challenging period of time a few years ago where I was quite depressed and could not seem to get out of it. It was actually serving a mission…the period of time in my life where I was most dedicated, keeping the commandments more than I ever had (or have really), and THOUGHT should be the happiest time of my life thus far. Wrong. For me, it was not the case. Other missionaries would say…”that was the best 2 years of my life!” or “please, let me stay 2 1/2 years!” and I…well, I just didn’t say anything, usually, because my thoughts were “can I get out of here any faster?” You don’t know how many days I thought about just giving up and going home.

I remember reading one day the scripture in Alma 31:38 which takes place during the missionary days of Alma and Aaron and their brethren. After separating from each other at this point, the scripture reads “…yea, and [the Lord] also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ.” I thought that meant no matter what I was going through, that while I was in the middle of it, I should be able to have my suffering “swallowed up in the joy of Christ”-that somehow that suffering should be able to be taken away as I did x, y, z.

But that didn’t happen. At least not in the way I thought it would/should.

I actually started studying “sorrow” in my personal scripture study at that point. I started realizing very quickly that “sorrow” or “grief” or related words were hardly ever mentioned without a close reference to “joy”. That led me to a number of talks, mostly by Elder Maxwell, where he talks about that very connection. Here’s a small piece of one of them:

“In any case, brothers and sisters, how could there be refining fires without enduring some heat? Or greater patience without enduring some instructive waiting? Or more empathy without bearing one another’s burdens—not only that others’ burdens may be lightened, but that we may be enlightened through greater empathy? How can there be later magnification without enduring some present deprivation?

The enlarging of the soul requires not only some remodeling, but some excavating. Hypocrisy, guile, and other imbedded traits do not go gladly or easily, but if we “endure it well” (D&C 121:8), we will not grow testy while being tested.

Moreover, we find that sorrow can actually enlarge the mind and heart in order to “give place,” expanded space for later joy.”

It’s the last line that is the point of my whole post. I wasn’t having much luck with the ’swallowing of my sorrows’, but maybe my ‘well of sorrow’ was just expanding and expanding so that later it could be filled with joy.

I don’t think we really can experience the same joy the Lord experiences-now or in the future-unless our depth of sorrow has made room for that amount of joy.

Does that make any sense? I have done a whole lot of study/thought on this subject and I have decided that even if at times my pain/sorrow is not taken away, maybe it is making it so I have the room to be filled with joy later.

On a side note, regarding the scripture in Alma 31:38-I had a little mini-revelation much later. One of the times I struggled the most on the mission was with a particular companion who was going through a lot of depression/self-doubt problems herself. I thought I could not get out of that companionship FAST enough! Much later, when I was reflecting on some challenging times that I had with her, I re-read the scripture in Alma and realized that this particular companion is now one of my best friends, and the people that we taught together are some of the people who I still talk to frequently and who are faithful, active members of the Church.

I realized that I HAD received the “swallowing of sorrow” that I had been waiting for-it just came years later. My sorrow had indeed been taken by Christ, and replaced with joy, but not while I was in the middle of it.

(sorry for the long post-it was actually more for myself than anyone, but you love me, right? )

However. Four years ago I was a senior in college. My best friend in the world came to visit for the weekend and died from a heart attack/stroke while sleeping next to me, when I woke up, she was cold. That was the year that both of my grandmothers were dying of cancer, my pastor’s wife (I was living with them after my friend’s death) lost her dad, and my very dearest friends lost their two-year-old daughter who I was very close to in a tragic accident. Everyone else around me seemed unscathed, but I was crushed by circumstances. I came to the conclusion that the Almighty loving Father of my soul had decided He hated me. Then, the next minute, I would be frantically convinced that He was punishing me for something, leaving me sorting through my sins looking for something big enough to repent of to get my loved ones back. Then, I would suddenly realize that He was just teaching me a lesson, and I would try to understand why He would teach me what appeared to be the same lesson (loss, loss, loss, loss) so many times in a row.

I stopped believing in a loving God for a while. I continued to be faithful, to do all the outward acts of faith, but I was angry, hurt and felt betrayed over and over again. Wasn’t I doing a good enough job?

And I will admit. It is not the pondering of the atonement, of His own sacrifice of His nearest and dearest that brought me back to His side. What did it for me was partly habit (continual reading of His word and fellowship/worship with His people) and partly His grace in surrounding me with people. My friends who had lost their daughter had three other children and were grateful for my constant availability and time and love. A particular friend from college stood by me through ugly situations and listened and never judged. My mom sent me new books to read and notes in the mail. And even while I was convinced that He found me unlovable, His people loved me.

And one day, I woke up on the other side, realizing that I had been walking all along in the shadow of His grace.

Maybe this won’t encourage you, but know that I mean it to be. Hold on. Take the little blessings, even if it’s just your favorite cereal this morning or a cup of tea in the sun. God’s reasons are not always clear, but He never lacks them.

crazywomancreek, thanks for your perspective. I have plenty of atheist friends from college/grad school who live ethical, moral lives, and in many ways, don’t seem as angst-ridden as I tend to be. And I can definitely see the appeal of that.

I think belief is too central to who I am for me to go the atheism route, but I certainly am thinking through what exactly it is that I believe in and what that means, etc.

I don’t recognize myself when I hear about the faithful’s characterization of the “void” or unhappiness of unbelief. I feel engaged in ethical, philosophical and even spiritual matters in a very personal and daily way. I think I may be too sleepy to make sense but wanted to add my two cents. Good luck. I’ll add my crazy atheist prayers to the pile

I had this unsettling thought a few days ago. If we are to someday become like God, and forever increase in our “perfection”…. what if he is learning about his creations as he goes?

Another way to put it…… is God perfect because he creates all the laws, or because he obeys them?

If it’s the latter, than there is some power higher than God. If the former, than I don’t know if perfection is the right word.

Either way, I’ve lately been feeling more alone in this world.