Hello

I came across the CES letter 10 years ago but it didn’t concern me as I skimmed over the listed issues. I grew up with multiple sets of missionaries and leaders in and out of my home as they tried to convert my non-member father, so many of the questions about anomalies in the Book of Mormon or the practice of polygamy or any number of things were openly discussed during these discussions. You could say I was inoculated against the common truth claim concerns. It was easy for me to dismiss doubts. Plus I had had so many spiritual experiences, had taught seminary, and felt very knowledgeable about the scriptures. 

But things began to shift and change as one by one my husband and my kids left the church. Also, I was working as a grief coach and I was seeing a lot of the harm play out in women’s lives as I compared Mormon women to other women I encountered. 

On Mother’s Day 2007 my 2 youngest children died in a car accident. Previously my brother had died by suicide. The gospel teachings had been both helpful and harmful as I navigated my personal grief. But overall I clung to the eternal family concept. 

Eventually my spirituality usurped my religiosity and I began to see God or Source and even Jesus much differently than what was being taught at church. I began to truly see God as a loving entity that would never judge his children and give them a hundred hoops to jump through to fully return to them. As my view of Source shifted I no longer worried about my brother on the other side. I no longer worried about my inactive kids. All was well. Except that the leaders at church were far more interested in reactivating my family than I was.  They seemed to care less about me who was sitting in front of them as they did about talking about what they could do to reactivate my husband and my adult children. I am sure they were disappointed by my apathy on the topic. 

I also began to see that I was not as respected or as highly regarded once my husband was no longer attending. I had to admit to myself that I was more vulnerable within the church as an active woman without an active husband. These realizations shocked me and opened my eyes to the harm done to men and women because of the patriarchal structure. Not to mention that my husband and I were both in our second marriage. I had happily cancelled my sealing with my first husband to marry my current husband but technically I was now the second wife. It was all so convoluted. 

All the harm I was noticing and realizing that in truth we didn’t need the so called covenant path to be reunited in the afterlife led me to look at all of it with fresh eyes. One day I was sitting in the temple and I thought this is all so culty. The church had changed so many doctrines and practices over my lifetime I wasn’t even sure what was true anymore. 

I was in a stake leadership meeting one day as they taught about upholding doctrine and I thought to myself, doctrine according to who. It was clear that even the top leadership didn’t agree on doctrine from one decade to the next. 

As I allowed myself to explore the problems with the origins of the Book of Mormon, the truths the church claimed, the unadulterated history everything began to make sense like never before. Everything fell into place. Of course the Book of Mormon is a product of the early 1800s Protestant teachings.  No wonder the church looks nothing like the early days of the church. There really is no healthy explanation for polygamy. 

In the church, I had to believe in a God who was hard to discover and hard to hold onto which is why I had to ‘protect my testimony.’ A God who was judgmental and harsh while also somehow being loving. I had to believe in a devil that was so powerful that he could deceive me at any moment and I could lose my salvation. I had to believe in a God that expected me to sacrifice all I had and all I was to return to him. 

Out of the church, I am free to be myself, and to believe in a truly unconditionally loving God/source. I can wholeheartedly love all people regardless of their color, religion, status, sexuality. I no longer need to be codependent like the church taught me to be. It feels so good. And yet it’s hard because my newfound freedom and peace is looked down on and I am now seen as deceived and dangerous by family members and friends that I love. In the end, I’m grateful to be true to myself.