I was born in rural Michigan. My mother had been raised Catholic & when she married my biological father she converted to Methodism. So I was baptized into the Methodist church as a baby. Obviously, I have no memory of this. About 3 years later, my biological father left my mother for another woman. He fought for 2 years to get custody of my 2 older siblings & myself. It was decided there would be a 6-month split. He would get us for 6 months, leaving my mother with one weekend a month to spend with us, & then it would be reversed. She would get us for 6 months, leaving him with one weekend a month. He went first but before that first 6-month split was completed all 3 of us had been kicked back to mom, he wanted nothing to do with us. I never saw him or heard from him again. Nice guy, right? Leaving my mom to raise 3 kids on her own in rural Michigan. I don't know what his demons were & frankly I don't care. Karma sorted him out. When I was 15, my mom & stepdad pulled me aside & informed me he had dropped dead of a massive coronary. Karma.
After surviving Michigan winters for a couple more years on her own my mom had finally had enough & moved our small family back to her home state of California. I was 8. My mom met my stepdad when I was 9 years old. Within a few weeks of getting together, we moved into his apartment, no they were not married, yet. My brother was 15 & my sister was 17. He was an inactive member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. More commonly known as Mormons. Both of my parents drank & smoked. He was what is called a Jack-Mormon. I had never heard of Mormons at that point, I was only 9 so it isn't all that surprising. We went to church infrequently, usually when he felt guilty &/or during a religious holiday ie: Christmas/Easter. And typically we only went for the main meeting during which I pretty much slept through.
When I was 10 we went to downtown Los Angeles, we lived in Anaheim, & toured the visitor's center for the LDS Temple. It was here I was exposed to the roots of the Mormon church. The first vision of Joseph Smith etc... If you have never been to an LDS temple you wouldn't know how beautiful they are to behold. Like fairytale castles. I was given my first Book of Mormon, which I read very slowly, I was only 10 after all. We still didn't attend church on the regular, and my parents still smoked & drank. A big no-no for church members.
When I was 12 years old some of the girls I went to school with, also members of the church I attended, asked if I wanted to go to Raging Waters with the Young Women's group from our church. Now it was summer, I was a latch-key kid, so my choices were: a) to stay locked in the apartment all day by myself, b) go to my stepdad's diesel repair shop & act as a receptionist, which meant sitting with an old portable black & white TV all day doing very little else OR c) go with the young women's group to a water park for the day. Not much of a choice. My stepdad at this point in my life started getting stricter & stricter & there was much tension in our house. This was a man who had met my mom at a bar & they went home together that first night. Whether that included intimacy I don't want to know, according to them all they did was talk all night long, it could happen. He also smoked, drank, swore, lived with my mom in sin, he watched R-rated movies, and had no problem letting me watch R-rated movies too. But as I became more & more independent as a teenager he felt his control of me slipping away. He had already chased my sister out the door with his need to control & had a rocky relationship with his 4 sons from his previous marriage. I am not saying he was a terrible human being but he was a tremendous hypocrite. It wasn't until years & years later that he was diagnosed with bipolar depression. In the 80s that wasn't something of which we talked. His childhood was filled with what we now know would be called trauma but at the time was just part of life & wasn't talked about. But this trauma set him up for an almost pathological need to be in complete control. He was great with little kids but as soon as the little kids hit puberty he changed.
When I was 12 my parents officially married. They did not get married in the LDS Temple. In order to get married in the temple both parties must be active members of the church. My mom had no desire to convert, unlike in her first marriage. That should have been my first warning. When asked she would say I don't want to quit smoking & drinking & if I am unable to quit those things I cannot in good faith join the church, it would make me a hypocrite. My mom was not perfect. She was human. Do I wish she had stopped smoking? Hell yes, maybe, just maybe she wouldn't have died of lung cancer a few years later. But I am glad she stuck to her morals about being a hypocrite. Shortly after they married my stepdad formally adopted my brother, sister, & me. My last name changed & he was no longer my stepdad. Remember my bio dad had absolutely no desire to be related to any of us anymore & happily gave up his parental rights to us all. Don't worry, Karma remember?
After going with the Young Women's group to the water park they continued to invite me to different get-togethers & eventually to the weekly Youth meetings at the church bldg. When I was 13 years old the Missionaries, in this case, Sister missionaries, approached me at a young women's meeting, to ask if I wanted to take the Missionary Discussions on the church? In order to be baptized. I asked my mom & she said it was up to me. Of course, my stepdad was very keen on the idea. So I began the Discussions. At the end of the 6-week lessons/Discussions, they asked me to pray & see if I felt that the church is true. I was 13. Far too young, IMO, to know anything about any religion. But I did as asked & came back to them with a yes. I felt peaceful when I prayed. I interpreted that to mean yes the church is true & yes I'd like to get baptized. Again my mom said it was up to me & she would support me in whatever I chose. She was amazing like that. My dad got his shit together long enough to be worthy to baptize me as a member of the church. It didn't last long, like most addicts he took up smoking & drinking again very shortly after that. And went back to being a Jack Mormon.
I went to church by myself every Sunday, unless I was singing or giving a talk or it was a religious holiday my parents never attended and I got myself to & from my Young Women's meetings, and paid my tithing from babysitting money, read my scriptures, etc. When I started high school I attended Seminary, like a good little Molly Mormon in training ought to be. From the time I was 13 years old, I did all of this myself. And yet my dad still treated me like I couldn't be trusted with anything. He closely monitored who my friends were, where I went, and what I did, and refused to allow me any freedom. Even though I got excellent grades in school & was a better Mormon than he had ever been. It was all about control for him. I had a friend from church who once stood up to my dad. This was after my mom had passed away & I was getting married in the temple. He was bragging about how great I turned out all because of him. My friend looked him in the eye & said, "You had nothing to do with it. Jess is who she is in spite of you. She did all this herself." And she walked away angry. I thanked her & laughed, not surprised at all how he took credit for MY hard work & dedication. It was typical of him. I once joked to her that I made the decisions I made in my life because I didn't want to turn out like him. I didn't want to be a hypocrite or a Mormon in name only. That I wanted to walk the walk if I was going to talk the talk. This I learned from my amazing mom, not my dad. I told you about his control issues, yet never touched on all the other ways he was a hypocrite. I grew up listening to him denigrate every marginalized person on the planet. About people of color & the queer community, I learned words that should never be used to describe other human beings! But when asked he was adamant he wasn't a bigot. Sounds familiar? Yeah, I noticed it too. I could say he was born in 1937 & that generation was filled with rampant bigotry & hatred for anything "Other". And of course, there is some truth in that. But you have to be taught that kind of hate & he was. He tried teaching it to me but I refused to learn it. My mother taught me better than that. She taught me all human beings deserve to be treated w grace & dignity. But I was a respectful daughter & never argued with him outright, also because I had been backhanded the two times I stood up to him & had no desire to be backhanded again. What a great Christian right? Can't make your 5'2" 100lb daughter fall in line, then just backhand her & make her behave.
When I was 17 years old my mom died of lung cancer. Leaving me with my dad, who was dealing with his grief the only way his bipolar depression would let him, drinking himself into a stupor every chance he got & yelling at me that I "didn't love my mother because I never cried over her death". Probably the reason I still cry only when I am alone. I spent so much time watching his pity party over her death only thinking of how he felt & ignoring me, except to yell & control me even more, that I seriously cannot stand the idea of people seeing me be weak. God forbid I look or sound anything like him. My way of dealing with her death was with anger. I was so angry. I was angry with God mostly. I had spent the better part of my life trying to be as good as I could. Going to church, paid my tithing, read my scriptures, kept the Sabbath day Holy, doing everything that was asked of me. And he took the one parent I was closest to, the one that I LOVED & respected the most! Not that I didn't or don't love my dad, I do but he didn't make it easy. He wasn't a bad man, but he had serious trauma & mental health issues that were never addressed & that meant that sometimes, even though I loved him, I didn't always like him. He wasn't perfect, none of us are but given the choice, I would have chosen to keep my mom over him any day. And I hated God for taking her away & leaving me with him. After that, I stopped going to church for a year. Eventually, I went back to being the perfect little Molly Mormon again. Got married in the temple to a return missionary. Raised my children under the covenant. Was active in any & all callings I was given as an adult, and never said no to anything the church asked of me.
In 2005 my, then 4-year-old, son was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease. We went through the grieving process over & over the next 15 years. I continued through those years to be a good Mormon wife & mom. I participated in all the callings I was given. In 2012 I was called to be a part of the Young Women's presidency. 2nd counselor. We watched over, taught, and organized activities for all the young women in our ward. Yes, the same program that brought me to the church all those years ago. I loved this calling, it was demanding & very rewarding working with all those beautiful young girls. But here is where my faith was tested again...
Every summer the church offers a one-week camp for both genders, separately. Girl's camp was one of my favorite things when I was a youth & I couldn't wait to see our girls enjoy the festivities as I had once upon a time. Now one of the downsides, IMO, of being in the leadership of the youth is you have to get to know all the family issues going on in each girl's personal life. Which is really taxing for a leader to carry. At least it was for me. I don't like knowing intimate details that maybe the girls are not comfortable sharing. We had one girl who was on the cusp of adulthood & who was struggling with her faith. She hadn't had an easy life & had a lot of anger & defiance. I knew she was so close to walking away, and at the time I felt like if I failed her & she walked away we'd lose her soul. We all did everything we could to show her how loved she was by us & her Heavenly Father. However, at Girl's Camp, the one place she should be safe is where she was lost. She was walking, with one of my fellow leaders, through camp & they overheard our Bishop talking to one of the other men in our stake about her inappropriate relationship with his son. He called her a Jezebel. And laid the blame squarely at her feet. And she overheard this, and this was not only our Bishop but someone who had acted like he liked her & supported her & her family as they dealt with trials in their life. It isn't surprising that after hearing her spiritual advisor gossip & backstab her, we lost her after this. She never came back to church. I couldn't believe that he was gossiping out in public, not even w someone who is in a leadership position, whom he was seeking advice from. Spreading gossip & lies about a young woman, a soul under his leadership & care. How dare he!!!! I was so shocked & disappointed in this man for being so incredibly sexist & judgmental. Why is it her fault? It's not like she forced his son to misbehave, where was the accountability on his end? This man was released as our Bishop later & called to an even higher leadership position, as a Stake President. I lost all respect for him & his authority. Shortly after this, our son's health deteriorated & I asked to be released because the stress of the calling & his health crisis became too much for my anxiety.
In 2015 we discovered our son would get sick almost every time we tried to attend church because so many church members would come to church even when they or family members were sick. By this point his immune system was non-existent & so we made the decision to stop attending church meetings completely in order to keep him out of the hospital. When I say hospital I mean checked into the hospital & put into the ICU to keep him alive. At this time things were heating up for the 2016 election & I couldn't help but notice how very many members of the church were backing Trump. A known sexual assailant. Just because he was running on the Republican ticket. It was frustrating that all these so-called "Christians" could support so vehemently a man who had cheated on all of his wives, one of which while she was pregnant & giving birth, & brag about grabbing women by their genitalia. A man who was a consummate liar & cheat. I still can't believe how far afield their Christianity they had strayed from practicing actual Christlike behaviors. I had already been struggling with my faith since I was in the Young Women's presidency & seen the hypocritical behavior of a trusted leader. At this time our oldest son, 17 at the time, came to us, he had been struggling with his faith as well for months. He couldn't stand most of the kids in our ward because of their lack of acceptance of those who were different or not members of the church. Only listening to church music, only reading church books. It reeked of cultish behavior to him. He came to us & very nervously told us he didn't believe in the church. He didn't believe in the Book of Mormon or that Joseph Smith was a prophet. He didn't even like the church & he couldn't handle the pressure that the leaders were putting on him to serve a mission. We told him, he was 17, old enough to make his own decisions in regard to religion. That no matter what he chose we loved him for him & that if he didn't believe in the church he didn't have to go. That we supported him because we loved him & he was our son, nothing was going to change that.
Over the next few years, I noticed I was a lot more relaxed than I had been when I was attending church regularly. Gone was the ever-present worry about being the most spiritual person I could be & trying to keep up with the other members of the ward. It was very freeing. And still, I noticed via social media, that a predominant amount of my fellow Mormons were still spouting off the hateful rhetoric of Trump & the GOP. I even had several friends in the church who became ardent Q followers. A couple of them even sent me direct messages telling me that they worried about my soul for being so against Trump. In return, I told them I was worried about their souls for following him & Q. I just couldn't believe how many members of the church were buying into the lies & conspiracy theories. It was maddening! And not once had the leaders of the church come out & said anything against Trump. They claim they don't get into politics but they had no problem in 2008 getting involved in politics to try & stop gay marriage! This was the beginning of my faith crisis. I couldn't wrap my brain around the insanity I was seeing in previously sane Christians. The hypocrisy was mind-boggling.
Then 2020 happened. A global pandemic hit. And people who had once been rational, caring people fought having to wear a mask & taking basic precautions to help those around them who couldn't protect themselves. They believed Trump & the GQP when they said the pandemic was a hoax. Even after President Trump caught COVID & could be seen struggling to breathe on the steps of the White House. They denied it all! I swear it so sadly could have been nothing more than a comic farce, one Mel Brooks could have written & had! Trump could have gotten on the news & asked, "Are you going to believe me or your own eyes?" And they would jump up & believe him instead of their eyes. The complete antithesis of the Christian values they espouse so vehemently. When suddenly wearing a mask, while not fun, becomes a monumental problem to people who claim to want to serve the Lord by serving their fellow man. Only not if it involves putting pieces of fabric over their mouths & noses? What? That a piece of fabric over their nose & mouth is traumatic but AR-15 weapons being used in multiple mass shootings across the country on a weekly, sometimes daily basis is not traumatic. The complete lack of awareness of their own inhumanity & lack of anything Christlike is astonishing.
But Joe Biden won the election. Fair & square! But Trump & the GQP had so beautifully laid the foundation of doubt in the eyes of their blind followers that every one of them believed in the big lie that the election was stolen! I could cry with how many people whom I had considered friends became the sad caricatures of the Q Cult. And then Jan 6th 2021 happened & I couldn't believe how many were defending the attempt to overthrow the government. They even tried to say it was a conspiracy that none of the people storming the Capitol were Republicans, they were actually ANTIFA. I just sat there mouth & eyes agape watching this horror unfold over our democracy & seeing rational people turn to the cult of Trump & Q. It was sickening to me. They absolutely refused to accept the blame &/or see the truth. I still can't understand how this is possible. It's like half the world has decided to turn back to the Dark Ages as the way to be. By February of 2021, my son was admitted into the ICU for the last time. He died of aspiration pneumonia due to his underlying disease of Ataxia Telangiectasia. So many people sent me support via social media but I couldn't unsee all the hypocrites who refused to wear masks to help protect people like my son. All the people who said, with a gallic shrug, of their own families, "if we die, we die". Or even worse the ones who said it was just God "culling the herd". What the actual fuck is wrong with humanity!!!! I couldn't see past the cruel words. I couldn't believe any of them felt actual sorrow at our loss. I was angry with them. I am still angry at them. The lying 2 faced fake pieces of human refuse who couldn't be bothered to do the decent thing while our husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends were dying of a pandemic they could help fight but refused because of their own blind arrogance, stupidity, & selfishness.
For my "Christian" friends, I liken your profession of faith & following Christ the same way God told Joseph Smith in the First Vision that none of the churches on earth were actually the true gospel of Christ. "...they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me..." This is how I now see modern Christianity, including Mormonism. You talk a good talk but when it comes down to being actually like Christ you are so far off the mark it's sad. My faith crisis continued to worsen. I searched the scriptures, and I prayed, sometimes hourly, begging God to help me understand. Then one day as I was searching for answers via the internet, as my scriptures had failed in a way they never had before, I stumbled across a site for the CES letter. At first, I didn't know what I was downloading to read. It took me a couple of days to finish reading it as I kept following the links to the church website to further study the different questions the letter produced. I just kept going back to church history on the church website. Then started to search for historical versions that were not whitewashed by the church but told as plain fact by non-Mormon historians, not anti-Mormon just non-Mormon. It was then I realized that my faith crisis had come to the conclusion I now have... The Church is not true. Joseph Smith was a fraud, the Book of Mormon is fiction, & the Book of Abraham has been debunked by actual experts in the field of Egyptology. I was both blown away by all the things I was learning & at the same time realized how much more sense it all made to me that it wasn't true.
So my faith crisis journey has brought me back to where I was before I was introduced to the church. While I still believe in God & the Savior, in heaven, not necessarily in hell though I will no longer put my faith in organized religion of any kind. Not all Mormons (same with any other denomination or religion, Christian or otherwise) are bad people or hypocrites. There are so many who are trying to live, as I did, as authentically as they can. But I can't ignore the hypocrisy of organized religion as a whole any longer. I still pray & talk to God regularly. He & only He knows what is in my heart. I leave it up to Him to judge me. The rest of you hold no sway over my heart it belongs to God & God alone. I feel more peace in my soul than I have in years & years. I think my mother would be proud of me for realizing that my relationship with God is between He & me & no one else. She once told me, God doesn't really care what church you belong to, as long as He is the center of your life. And He is. I am not angry at the LDS Church. Some of my fellow ex-Mormons are but I am not. I have not disembarked from this journey only to find I don't believe in God, quite the opposite. Do I feel like I wasted a good portion of my life on the church? Yes & no. I wish I had not shoved purity culture down the throats of my children. I know now the damage it can do to one's psyche. But I learned who I am thanks to the LDS church. I also learned who I am not & who I do NOT want to be. I am not the quintessential Molly Mormon, with her sweet quiet voice. I was never going to fit that mold. I have opinions & they are quite loud. I laugh loudly, I speak loudly, and I refuse to apologize for who I am any longer. And maybe that is something that comes with age more than with the faith crisis. I don't know as I don't have all the answers. For those holier-than-thou fanatics of Mormonism or really any religion, your superiority & your arrogance will be judged by the higher power in which you profess to believe. That's between you & Him.
This is the first time I have addressed this learning/growing experience in such a public forum. No doubt there will be those members who will discuss amongst themselves how sad it is that I've fallen away from the Gospel. No doubt members of my own family will look at me with pity & sadness in their eyes at my "lost soul". They are all free to feel how they feel just as I am free to feel how I feel about them. From here on out though we will all have to accept that we have a major difference of opinion when it comes to organized religion in any form and simply agree to disagree. Between the CES letter & all the different cases of sexual abuse found in so many different religions across the globe, I feel I am making the right choice in walking away from all churches. I have faith in God & the Savior, not in the earthbound human-led churches on the earth, the ones, pardon me while I paraphrase, "who draw near to Him with their lips, while their hearts are far from Him".
Keep in mind I have only provided one link to each different organized religion's sexual abuse scandals. There are dozens to each one.
If my family &/or friends feel that they cannot agree to disagree or feel they need to cut me from their lives that is their choice. I am perfectly capable of going on without them in my life. I have chosen to cut all the toxicity out of my life. I believe Christ lives & He Loves all God's children equally no matter their belief in Him or not. I believe He has nothing but love & acceptance in His heart for His children, much like I have for mine. I believe He would be a socialist if He walked the earth today & that more people need to stop putting words into His mouth He never said & never would have said. The Savior fought against the wealthy & the elite. He worked to serve those who were marginalized & in need. He fought for the least of them. And that is what I will center my life upon.
By the way, this is the story of my faith crisis. I have no idea what my husband thinks about any of this, as he does not wish to discuss any of this with me. His opinions are his & his alone. I know he knows about the CES letter, as I have asked him. He knew about it before I had even heard of it. But as of this post, he has not shown any inclination in reading the letter himself or if he has in sharing those feelings with me. And that is perfectly fine. I am not here to tell anyone what they should or should not believe or read etc... Everyone is entitled to their own faith journey, in their own time.
Why did I write this post? It felt like it was the right time. These are the things that I believe in;
Women's Rights are Human Rights
Love is Love
Black Lives Matter
Science is Real
And that my relationship with God is between He & I and only He & I. He knows what is in my heart. I leave all of this to Him. Let go & let God.
Everything else? I leave it up to Karma to sort out.
Jes
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