I was born and raised in the LDS faith and have always thought of myself as Mormon. Growing up tho, I hated going to church. It was boring, and long, and I never really got much out of it. As soon as I was old enough to be left home alone I started fighting my mom on going at all. From that point on, my going to church was varied and sporadic and little to none at times. I can probably count on just my two hands how many times I've ever paid tithing. I never liked just giving away that much of my income. But, I was raised to believe, I was raised to feel guilty for not going, for not paying, for not having enough faith. The church instilled this as much or more than my mom, but it was still part of me, and so I have felt guilty for a lot of that, a lot of my life.
I have always been fascinated by nature and I watched nature programs and NOVA and things like that. When I was old enough to put two and two together, nature often contradicted church. I couldn't comprehend some of the contradictions and couldn't find answers to my questions, or didn't get answers I could live with that didn't bring up more questions, and started using circular reasoning to try and ease my discomfort. TV and school told me the big bang happened and started everything, church and the scriptures say God made everything. To reconcile this in my own head, I would tell myself, and others, that no one knows how God created everything, so maybe he used the big bang to do it. This made both true and made me feel better. I came up with similar answers to evolution and things of that nature as well. I could never reconcile every living thing being in the garden of Eden and Adam naming everything, however. Fossil records show that man did not exist in the time of dinosaurs, that right there contradicts that. I put it in the back of my head and simply tried not to dwell on it. I realize now that I did that a lot, putting things in the back of my head. I would simply not dwell on them or question them because the church told me differently and I was taught the church was true. In doing this, I was able to live the life of a jack Mormon, not being different in any way other than not going to church, and that worked out for me. Most of my family and a lot of my friends were/are jack Mormons. I was never very comfortable in church, praying often added to the discomfort, although it did give me comfort too, and I often sided with church views even tho I wasn't too sure if that's really where I stood. Gays are a good example of this. I have gay cousins and had gay friends in school, but I liked all of them and considered them all good people, but the church and scriptures, at the time, said that being gay is evil. The first time I learned that, I prayed and prayed and read and studied the scriptures. I couldn't accept that. God created man, why would God create an evil man? The church says it's a choice. Well, okay, but then why are my cousins good people? If they chose to be evil, wouldn't they be bad people? I went round and round with that in my head for years. I couldn't come to terms with it either way. Later, after I was married, my husband asked, "When did you choose to be straight? When did you choose to like guys?" That question changed really changed my thinking. It's not a choice, they are just simple people too, they should have the same rights as I do.
So I lived my life, and I lived it as close to how I thought I should as I could without adding boredom and discomfort to my life, but still be Mormon. I never did drugs, I never smoked and I never wanted to do either. I hit a rebellious stage in my early twenties (I do everything late for some reason) and had alcohol for the first time. I would drink here and there with friends after that, but never very much nor very often, but I lived within the Word of Wisdom as best I could other than that. I always told myself that if I was a good person, lived my life as best I could to my definition of what a good person was, and others thought I was a good person, then God would also consider me to be a good person and things would work out on the other side after I died. So that's what I did and that's what I defined myself by. Do unto others, became a big part of my personal philosophy, for this and other reasons.
I was never very social and always had trouble dating and interacting with others. When I finally decided to get serious about looking for someone, I really wasn't sure what I wanted. I based this process on my Mormon upbringing and knew I should go to the temple. That going to the temple is what my Mom and the church wanted of me, but the thought of going to the temple never truly appealed to me. I decided I needed someone who was as close to my beliefs as I could get. Someone who was Mormon, believed in the church, but wouldn't make me go to church unless I wanted to go. Having struck out in the date department, pretty much my whole life, someone suggested I try chat rooms online. This freaked me out, but I decided to go for it. I didn't have any money and didn't want to pay to chat anyway, so I ran searches for free LDS/Mormon chat rooms and got started there, and eventually I found what I was looking for and have been incredibly happy ever since.
No comments:
Post a Comment