A bit of my background that lead me here.

I was born into a family that was not super religious. My dad was kind of raised Methodist, but by the time he was an adult, he left what little religion practice he had in the dust.

My mom was raised super strict, old school Catholic. Incredibly strict. She attended mass multiple times per week, attended Catholic schools her entire life, served in many capacities in her local parish. When she met and married my dad at age 20 (GASP, he was also divorced), she did not hold to her strict ways that she had grown up with. Church was mostly for big holidays and the occasional attendance when you felt the need to confess to the local priest. By the time I came along, her third and last child, we rarely went to church, because it was too long of a drive to go to a Catholic church. (We lived in a small town in West Virginia.) When I was in early grade school, that changed.

My dad was a goofball with little shame (I say this as a compliment!). Someone knocked on the door just as my dad got out of the shower, so he answered the door in his underwear. Father Larry Wren, the priest that had come from Ireland, was knocking on doors to share that a Catholic church was being built nearby. My dad was not interested, and my mom was not home, so that ended quickly. (We did end up attending mass at that new church, and my dad became drinking buddies with Father Larry.)

When I was about 8.5 years old my parents divorced. So my mom and my last brother left at home, and myself moved from West Virginia to Louisiana, to a small town where my mom grew up. (I had one brother still at home; I also had one half brother who was much older, who lived in a different state- he was my dad’s first child from his first marriage, and one other brother who had moved away, so I was the youngest of 4.). That move was awful. Well, the move itself was an adventure, with my older brother, Aaron, who had moved to Louisiana, having come back to help, along with my cousin, Jean. But moving sucked, for many reasons.

When we started our new life in Louisiana, we started going to church every week. My mom got more involved again, mostly in the choir. My brother Aaron moved back to West Virginia, to be with his long time girlfriend. With being in a new town, in a new state, and missing my amazing big brother (I was closest to Aaron), I needed a community, and church was a way to quickly get to know people in the town.

Unfortunately, less than a year after we moved there, one awful night while my other brother and I were in Kmart, shopping with our mom, my grandma came to find us with awful news. Aaron had been in a fatal motorcycle accident in West Virginia. To say I was devastated is a massive understatement, but for now, that is how I will leave it, because it was the worst moment of my life. I was 9, in a new area where I did not fit in at all, and my favorite person in the world was now gone, at age 20.

For the next several years, I became very involved in the Catholic church, including becoming one of the first female alter servers in the area. (That was a big deal in the early 1980’s!) By high school, I was certainly questioning everything church related, but stuck with it, even did the proper confirmation in my junior year. (Side note for those raised in Catholicism: my saint name was Blaise.)

After high school, I decided I needed something new all together, and ended up moving by Greyhound Bus, from New Orleans to the Seattle area, on my own, having never crossed the Mississippi River in my life until January 1991, when I was 18.

This is getting long, so for the sake of time, let’s see if I can speed this part along… I was really pondering what I should believe in, if anything. I was really wanting to believe there was more, so that I could see Aaron again. The pain of losing him never left. It still hasn’t. I started looking into various religions, because the Catholic church was just not me. I was not feeling it.

When I started college, I met a handsome boy named Nelson. We both worked on the college newspaper together and both loved writing and photography. I was smitten, but had terrible self confidence, especially in dating. After 3 months of hanging out nonstop, we finally talked about our feelings and began dating.

Nelson was born and raised Mormon. I was intrigued. I asked him ALL of the questions. (A young Mormon boy’s dream, to be asked about his church by the girl he was falling in love with.) Eventually, I asked to go to church with him…the rest is history.

Just kidding.

After going to church with Nelson and meeting the missionaries and being told all about how I could be sealed to Aaron forever, I was sold. I could see my favorite person again if I signed up? Sold.

Finding Mormonism

July 5, 1992, Mormon baptism day.

So, after I was baptized into the Mormon church, I tried to go ALL IN. I would sit in meetings, especially when they had something called stake conference, and think, ‘There is no way this many people are wrong. It has to be true.’ (Side note, before I saw it spelled as STAKE, I wondered how they were going to feed all of those people STEAK. Yeah, that was my brain.)

Nelson left just 2 months later to go on a church mission to Japan. He told me that he hoped that I would wait for him to return in 2 years, to be able to be married to him, but that the right thing to do was to date as many guys as possible while he was gone, to be sure he was IT. Eventually, I did. But mostly because his parents kept pushing me to do so. (I was way too liberal and independent for their liking, they wanted me to find someone else). Oh, how I was so very sure that I was going to marry him…

Eventually, I met someone, had to write a Dear John breakup letter to Nelson, and I got married in the Seattle Mormon Temple (which, by the way, is not in Seattle). I went through the temple, officially, for the first time, 2 years after I was baptized, on July 5, 1994. I am not going to get into those details, that is for another time.

SUPER FAST FORWARD:

Over the years, I would question my faith/beliefs, often. I truly tried to believe and buy into it all. I wanted stability and community. My marriage was rocky from early on, but I did not want to be divorced like my parents or one of my brothers. I worked hard to make the marriage solid and stable. I tried to be the best Mormon I could be, and still be my quirky and liberal self. It was ridiculously hard all around. I was treated poorly for being a Democrat, for not having my sons in Boys Scouts. And I drank green tea. (GASP)

After 15 years of marriage, 2 sons and 2 foster-adopt daughters, I went through a divorce. (I am not going into those details.) I was treated horribly by church members, but I was determined to dive in deeper, to truly find this amazing faith that I had heard about and been promised. It kind of worked for a bit, but it was awful feeling like I was finally getting deeper into my religion, while being almost shunned because of my divorce. People canceled play dates with my children, I was no longer invited to dinners, as if I had caused it or done some truly no good, horrible thing. (I hadn’t.)

More than a year later, I got into a relationship with truly the wrong guy. But, I was smitten and sure that my eyes were wide open. Long story, but we were, let’s say, not living by Mormon standards that would allow one to go to the temple. It ended up being an abusive and horrific relationship that took me a very long time to end. (To this day, I hope that my kids did not see how badly I was being treated.) When I finally got him to leave, I turned to my church leaders for support. Since I was such a heathen, I had to repent, have weekly meetings with my bishop, and so on. He also told me that he knew that I was in an abusive relationship with a church member that he personally knew to have a history of abuse: but his own church leaders and church legal team had advised him not to offer me help, because they did not want it to reflect badly on the church.

ALMOST LEAVING…

I was promised that I would not need what the church calls a disciplinary council by my bishop, but 3 months later, he was told otherwise by higher up leaders. I had to sit in a room with 4 large men in suits, while they asked me for explicit details of my personal life. They wanted full details. I refused (Honestly, it was creepy and felt so gross). I was told what an awful sinner I was, worse than my abuser, because I should have known better. I was given the sentence of being disfellowshipped: stripped of my full rights as a member, but invited to pay tithing and that I was still officially a member of the church. I was told it was up to me, how fast I could get into good standing.

I wanted to RUN. But, I am stubborn, and dug my heels in. I was going to prove my worthiness. So, I did all of the things.

That was in February of 2014. That April, listening to a talk at their general conference, my brain shifted. I suddenly allowed all of the thoughts that I had been shoving down, to flow. The biggest in the first series of thoughts was a string of: How can I believe in a Heavenly Father that allows rape, murder, incest, war…to exist? How can the church protect abusers more than victims?

At this point, I was making my exit plan. However, my stubborn self also wanted to gain my full fellowship back before doing so. In my mind, it made sense. A kind of accomplishment, if you will. So, I did every single thing asked of me by church leaders. And when I completed it all, I asked for a meeting, and was told that my records were not in that ward, so I could not be re-fellowshipped.

Excuse me?

I asked, how could they disfellowship me, but not allow me to regain the fellowship status after I had done everything they required? They had no answers and were angry with me for asking. A couple of months go by, and at the end of one September sacrament meeting, the bishop (a new one) came to tell me as he passed me by, that I would be reinstated. I was able to have a meeting with him, and it was lickety split. I was a full member again.

I knew I was done. But, I wanted to be sure that the heavens wouldn’t open and convince me otherwise. So, a friend was in town who wanted to go to the temple. So, in October, I went to the temple. And sat there, screaming inside of my head, wishing I could leave…but we had driven there together. We completed the evening and I never looked back. If anything, I got a massive confirmation to exit ASAP.

The kids and I resigned that December 2014. That was also a bit of a mess, but after 6 weeks, the church ‘approved’ it.

Now what?

My journey has continued, but away from any church or religion. I have found peace in focusing on the life I am living now, no longer worrying about the possible next life, or stressing over rules that say I am not good enough. Being more present has been a gift in itself. And that is much easier to accomplish when the only real rules that are in place, are set by myself: be kind, be honest, do your best - whatever that is, and find joy.

A fast forward of my story…