Losing Faith, Finding Self
Wonder what a faith crisis feels like?
Dark, lonely, confusing, vulnerable, terrifying, beautiful
Wonder what a faith crisis looks like?
It looks like finding a solitary place to cry your eyes out and scream at the world around you while making sure your spouse doesn't hear. It looks like mental whiplash and an ever-changing way of seeing the world. It looks like constantly doubting yourself and wondering if you can trust your own mind.
Have you experienced any of these emotions? Has your life ever looked like this? Good. Then you have a taste of what it's like to experience a crisis of faith. Of course, that doesn't mean that you can completely understand. To you, God, commandments, doctrine, Jesus, etc. might make complete sense, and you may not understand why someone would question these things.
That's not the point. This is -- step, for a moment, into what it feels like to experience a faith crisis. Don't try to change it. Don't try to reason through it. Just sit there and feel it.
I did not choose to experience a crisis of faith. As I mentioned in my introduction post, my upbringing helped me see the world in a colorful way. I wanted so badly for the equations that the church promised me to be true.
- If my parents pays their tithing, we won't be evicted from our apartment
- If I pray enough, the people close to me won't drink and drive
- If I knock on every single door I see on my mission, my family will heal
Here is my experience:
Those equations are not always true:
- There are wonderful people who pay their tithing and are evicted from their homes.
- No amount of prayers can prevent an addict from doing a certain behavior.
- I can knock on every door I see until my knuckles are sore, but my family members still are able to make whatever choices they want.
Now I want to preface this following explanation with this: I don't believe what I was taught and what I learned are the same things others experience. I do believe that others can attend the same church lessons, read the same talks, and learn something totally different. And that is beautiful. For me, the doctrine I learned taught me that if I worked hard enough, I would be able to influence those around me. If I had enough faith, worked hard enough, went to the temple EVERY week, then I would be able to make miracles happen. Did they happen? I'm not sure. I used to trust that they were happening but I couldn't see them. I've since accepted that I do not know if they happened. Leaning into that uncertainty caused many things to unravel.
In therapy, I had to learn what codependency is, how to break the cycle of codependence. Here is a link that explains it better, in case you haven't heard/don't quite understand the term.
As time went on, I was better able to see that the way I practiced and understood the gospel was extremely codependent. This way of thinking would lead me into a relapse into my ED, which I was not willing to easily let happen.
Again, there are many who are practicing members of the Church and have excellent boundaries. Codependency is not their concern. It is mine, and this is my story.
As I allowed myself to sit in the discomfort of not knowing if the equations I had learned in church were true, I wondered if a person could be truly happy without the gospel. I had been taught and had taught on my mission that it wasn't possible for a person to reach true happiness without following the principles of the gospel, but I was willing to question for a second if maybe that wasn't true. I began to find people in my community who were able to confirm for me that they were extremely happy.
I want to pause for a second to explain something I've learned over the years: honoring someone else's story is the key to empathy and connection. It is extremely important when speaking with others that we honor their stories. We can't sit and listen to someone explain where they come from and say "no, that's not true because that's not my experience." If a person is willing to share with us, it's our responsibility to meet them with compassion and say, "I honor that this is your experience." Don't try to correct them.
As I spoke with others in my community, I practiced honoring their stories. Who was I to disbelieve them when they say that they are happier without the gospel? I am not omniscient and I have not been in their shoes. I don't get to chime in and say "that's not possible because..." If I want to practice true compassion and understanding, I need to practice being uncomfortable without trying to change what I'm being told. I need to be able to say "I believe that is your experience" and hold space for my own experience at the same time.
I ask that of you as you continue this journey with me. Honor my story. If this is not your story, that's okay. I will honor yours. I honor that you experience abundance and love in your faith. Please honor that I experience confusion and pain in that faith.
Back to the story.
I told Cameron I was experiencing doubts. I told him that at the time, the church wasn't working for me and I needed to take a step back. I did just that and it was a process. Learning to navigate a mixed-faith marriage from an LDS background is very difficult. We both had to challenge ideas of orthodoxy and black and white thinking errors. We had to practice communication and patience. Cameron was very respectful of my growth.
That's not to say we didn't fight a lot -- how can we be expected to get along perfectly when what we both had pictured for our family was changing?
I was supposed to attend my family's sealings. I was supposed to be able to escort my daughter through her first endowment ceremony. I was supposed to fufill callings outlined in my patriarchal blessing like relief society president and I was supposed to serve another mission. I was supposed to read the Book of Mormon to my future children and raise them to want to be missionaries.
Everything I was supposed to do and everything I was supposed to become was gone.
Talk about a real grieving process. I cried for so many days and nights trying to grieve was I wasn't sure I would ever do or be in the future. My future family, everything it looked like, had changed.
Shortly after this, the questions about the doctrine of the church came to mind. After a lot of study and meditation, I came to the conclusion that the truths I was taught about the church were no longer what I believed them to be. And I wasn't able to continue to believing the way I had previously done.
I felt deceived, I felt disrespected, I felt abandoned. When I asked for help, the finger was pointed back to me. You must not be doing enough. You must not be reading the right things, or try to listen to this talk, or pray more and it will work itself out. But the burden is heavy. Continually trying to carry the weight of all these questions is exhausting, and not sustainable.
For my mental health, I decided I would no longer attend church.
Yes, I stopped wearing my garments because I no longer believed in what they symbolized (which, by the way, absolutely CRUSHED me. I loved the temple more than anything else, and I loved my garments. Grieving their meaning was devestating).
I asked to be released from my calling as a relief society instructor. I loved teaching. It made me feel alive. But I could no longer stand in front of the amazing women in my ward and pretend that my testimony had not collapsed beneath me.
I did not renew my temple recommend and I chose not to attend family or friend sealings. Waiting outside was excrutiating. But I knew I wasn't able to honestly answer the questions correctly in order to pass the temple recommend interviews with the bishop and stake president. My integrity is too important to me to do that.
I had an angry phase when I left. I was angry at what I needed to grieve from what my past life had offered me. I grieved what future I craved that would no longer come to fruition. Even if I did go back to the church, it would never be the same. I was angry at the world (and to be honest, I'm sometimes still angry).
Where am I now? I have since adopted an ambivalent God and the meaning of life. I believe the LDS church might be true. I am allowing room for that to be true. I also allow room that the LDS might NOT be true. Right now, I don't believe it is "true" (whatever "true" really even means). The same can be said for Christianity, judaism, islam, etc. God might exist, but he might not. And I don't know for sure, but I also don't believe anyone else really does either. I do not currently attend church nor do I practice any particular theology. I have found a lot of peace in the principles of Buddhism, although I don't attend any Buddhist services of any kind.
Practicing what I said earlier, I honor your experience if you do believe that God exists. Please honor that I do not know and don't believe I have enough evidence to say so. Please honor that this has been painful for me to let go of.
Practicing what I said earlier, I honor your experience if you do believe that God exists. Please honor that I do not know and don't believe I have enough evidence to say so. Please honor that this has been painful for me to let go of.
If you've gotten this far, thank you for going through this with me. Thank you for trying to understand me. I am nervous to see what lies behind all the beliefs I once felt such a strong conviction for. I'm afraid that I'll be exposed when I do. I'm afraid I'll find out that the world doesn't work the way I think it does. Please experience that with me.
1 comments
Thank you so much for sharing your story. It was very authentic and I recognize your struggles. I hope you can find peace within wherever you may be at this point in your life.
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