last year i went into a very deep faith crisis.  i lost all hope in my religious practice (church) and in God. I wasn’t sure if i could believe in God or not and i wasn’t sure that i could stay within my church.  i had come across a few things that stung, made me question everything (not just my church but all religion). a part of me died that day as i stood over my kitchen sink trying to keep it together. i said my last prayer standing there that would last 7 months. i felt like i had been betrayed, felt as if my life was one big lie, and felt abandoned again.  so that week and the coming weeks i stopped going to church, i took off my religious wear, and went to a beer fest and then tried to retrain my brain from any unhealthy misconceptions about myself.

it was really hard to talk to anyone about this it was always met with the same sunday school lines; read your scriptures, pray, go to church, go to the temple, just have faith.  they never helped, the questions i had weren’t getting answered due to people not knowing or maybe they had heard but didn’t believe and came up with another sunday school answer.  i never said anything to family member, especially certain ones, if church was mentioned directly to me i either lied or changed the subject. i was already different and i couldn’t add more to the flame.

i felt as if everyone was seeing me as this apostate or would once they new (i would be that family member, of friend that just didn’t believe and would be gossiped about in church for not having enough faith and therefore the lesson to all there not to act like that).  i don’t much care for this word -apostate- it’s negative and doesn’t let you really see someone as they really are. when you hear it said about someone or group of people its like saying they are bad or evil and thats not true.  was i bad person for not going to church? no, i didn’t go off telling people not to go or that it’s all a lie. no i asked questions, i stated my opinion and how i felt. was i sad, hurt, angry? yes i was, and you know what? its perfectly okay. i might have gotten into a few heated discussion been passionate about it but it was something that i was feeling and going through. i know now that it was something i had to go through. as much as it hurt and as scary as it was for me to think that there was no God, that i felt as if my church was a lie and that there was no real plan for us, that we just happened. i had to go through it because i realized that for myself and who i am i have to believe in a God, to believe in Divinity.

i have gone back to my church, its what i know and what i am used too but i have decided to do it on my own terms and to be more open to other avenues of spirituality.  i am going to keep searching and asking about my questions and if something is said and it doesn’t feel right to me i won’t just obediently agree with it. i don’t have to believe it, find it truthful, or do it. i know this may sound strange and wrong to some, but to me it feels like more freedom, more authentic in what we should be doing.

with love,

jess

p.s.

there is so much for us to learn and to gain while here, i don’t believe that anything is supposed to be hidden from or kept from us. only we do that to ourselves. this is something that i have been learning and gaining to understand.

“ask, and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.”

mathew 7:7

“and whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you.”

3 nephi 18:20