Day Two:
Toughest Choice
I have made a lot of difficult decisions in my life, but what one is the toughest? Again, thanks to my blog I can go back and read about it.
For those who may be new readers here is a quick story to my life:
I grew up in the Mormon church in Utah. I served a mission and then "came out" shortly after. For a myriad of reasons I went back to the Mormon church to try to change in the early 1990s. I have been "back out" since 2000. I stopped identifying being a Christian a few years later and after the LDS church backed the financing of Prop 8 in California I sent in a letter to resign from the LDS church.Let me clarify; resigning is asking to have your name removed from the records of the church. Excommunication is when you are kicked out of the church because some local church leader deemed you a "sinner". I resigned so that they couldn't judge me like that! I left on my own.
Here is why this was such a tough choice. All my life I had heard about people leaving or being excommunicated and having this dark cloud coming over them because the "spirit of God" left them. How their life fell apart or all these horrible things happened. These horror stories were told by people who had "returned to the fold" and were finally happy again.
Did I fear the "dark feeling" of the spirit leaving me? To be honest yes I did! And this is why it was a difficult decision. What I felt was entirely different though! A huge weight had been lifted from me! I was suddenly free from the rhetoric and judgement of someone who had never been in my shoes and who judge us gays wrongly every day! I still haven't told my family yet. They believe that our family was "sealed" for time and all eternity so that we could all be together in the afterlife. I basically broke that bond. But... that's only if you believe in a God that would only love "conditionally" based on only one way of thinking.
It was a tough choice; but I'm glad I did it!
5 comments:
Great post, I had the LDS cloud as well. Thanks for participating.
glad it's been a positive experience for you! Thanks for sharing!
As an EX Mormon from a small town in NY State, boy can I relate!
I am fine now....and oddly enough had a Dad who was Mormon and then living in Salt Lake City announce to me ON *temple Square* that he and my mom had left the church. I was floored, but Happy!
A huge and permanent choice which was obviously the correct one.
This strikes a nerve - the 'tribe' rejecting its members when they consider you bad and wrong. The paradigm is for the outcast to feel awful. When in fact, most of the time it is a blessing.
Post a Comment