Why I Stay: The Blinding of My Mind (Part 3)

I had thought that my testimony was infallible, but my first year of college taught me otherwise. 

When I was fifteen, I attended EFY where I accepted a challenge to never miss a single day of reading my scriptures for the rest of my life. I think I missed one, maybe two days during the remainder of my high school career. Scripture study was a staple for me. 

That continued after I moved to Orem. I had good roommates, (at least) one of whom was equally, if not more, committed to the gospel than I was. I had a great ward and a great bishop. I happily performed musical numbers, attended ward activities, and hosted monthly Munch and Mingles with my roommates (who filled in for my dud of a co-chair). Though I didn't have a car, I frequently caught the bus early in the morning and rode it across town to the Provo City Center temple. 

Then one gray day in November, I met a cute boy and my life hasn't been the same since --in a good way. 

I had always been a very independent person; it wasn't hard for me to arrange my social engagements around my free time (since I had few social engagements and a LOT of free time). But I'd never known someone who didn't get tired of my company, and so whenever Jason asked if I was free, my flattered self invariably said yes. Every. Single. Time. 

We stayed up late and I stumbled into my apartment each night after work too tired to keep my eyes open let alone think about cracking open my dusty scriptures. Getting up before school was a no-go too; I frequently dragged myself out of bed fifteen minutes before my 8 AM class and sprinted across the parking lot to the school. In the afternoons I had homework, or work, or I hung out with Jason. There just "wasn't time" for scripture study like there had been before. (I ignored the reminders from my brain about the 17-hour days I used to pull between school, cross country, homework, and friends--days where I STILL managed to find time for scripture study.) 

Soon after dating Jason, I decided I would not serve a mission, at least not until I'd seen where our relationship would go. With that decision went my last real compulsion to study every day, and I became a Sunday-only worshipper aside from my institute class. 

That was not a good year, though you may think it should have been. I'd met and married the love of my life, I was doing well in school despite being sleep-deprived, and I was enjoying living on my own away from my family. But that was a really, really hard year. Looking back now, I can clearly see that the Spirit was entirely absent from my life. We went to church and occasionally attended the temple, but we rarely prayed together and half the time I had no idea where my scriptures were. Additionally, I didn't exercise nearly as much as I was used to and I ate like total garbage (I am a firm believer that our spiritual health is deeply connected to our physical health, but that's a topic for another time). 

As I gradually drew further from the gospel, I realized there were things taught in the Church that I could not make sense of (primarily the Church's doctrine of eternal families and its stance on LGBTQ issues). There were many things I still believed and loved about the gospel, but I no longer knew that it was "true", nor did I think that I had ever really "known" it to be true. I learned things in my college classes that seemed to be secular explanations for things I had always thought to be solely spiritual (for example, the idea that bearing your testimony makes it stronger can be understood by simply understanding that humans are prone to adhere to anything they have already affirmed in front of others, even after they are proved wrong.) At the time, it didn't occur to me that God, being all-knowing, would use those psychological principles as tools to strengthen testimonies; I just assumed that church members were being manipulated. I came to understand how (if not why) my dad had left the church, and with that understanding came total acceptance and forgiveness. (This is the one silver lining I can see amidst the cloud of darkness I found myself in.)

I drifted in this spiritual limbo for quite some time, briefly tried to pull myself out of it towards the end of my pregnancy with Ollie (more out of maternal obligation than any real desire on my part), and then got thoroughly distracted by motherhood, moving to a new state, finding a work-from-home job, and starting my own piano studio. I told myself that God couldn't expect me to worry too much about the scriptures -- I was busy doing good things and He would understand. 

And maybe He did, but that didn't mean it was okay. 

Part 4