What Things Cost and is it Worth It.

 

The cost of a thing is the amount

of what I will call life which is required

to be exchanged for it,

immediately or in the long run.

~ Henry David Thoreau

I have often mentioned that days or weeks or times in my life are hard. I don't think a difficult life is unique to any one person. All of us struggle, all of us suffer and all of us pay a price for the journey our lives take.

It's not in the suffering that our skills and life lessons come, it is in the outcome and the reflections of learning from those lessons we have endured through that we better ourselves and the lives of those around us.

In the past year and a half, any prior struggle I have been through pails in comparison. When one loses their core faith base their world turns upside down and a very real sense of vertigo ensures. Finding balance is never defined in the same way. In an internal realm or external, in all of it, it is mind blowing and changes a person in a soul wrenching, life altering way. You are never the same, ever.

I get that some people are angry and hurt and feel that I am weak or deceived or whatever excuse they use in their own heads to explain away my choices. I understand being uncomfortable with those choices.

I knew when I openly admitted my feelings that I would lose my social base, I just didn't expect to be attacked, and quite frankly, if I was a zealous, outspoken, anti Mormon I would get it but I am not and for that reason I write this now.

I will NEVER understand some of the attacks on my character that are happening. Having joined a few Facebook groups of post and ex Mormons IS NOT A CRIME.

Leaving the Mormon church is not easy. It isn't a decision you make waking up one morning and deciding you're done. You don't live, breathe and be something for almost 50 years and then decide all in one moment it's over. You don't open yourself to losing nearly every friend, unforgiving family members and social standing because it just gets hard.

Deciding your done is so soul bending and mind numbing painful that cowardliness can't exist through it. Walking away is social suicide and it ISN'T EASY and so sending notes implying it's the easy way out makes me want to scream!

EASY?

E-A-S-Y???????

Live my last year and come back and call it EASY! You simply have no idea, clearly, no idea.

This past year has been the hardest year I have been though and for those who know my life's journey you can understand this and realize that by saying just that it is what we call; "putting it all into perspective!"

I lost patience along the way for the words and actions of well intentioned members. Shallow and conditioned friendships have enlightened me to what is left for me now; a strong and unconditional core group of family and a few friends who never saw religion as a purpose to convene.

You say you worry for me and for being lost and yet I feel so found it hurts.

I know now more than ever who I am and who I am meant to be. I don't need a Sunday School lesson to teach me how to behave and how to care. It's human nature and when you look past the tag of Mormonism that people wear and see WHO they really are you can find other tags of great and wonderful human beings living and breathing human experience that if a moment more than just a ward boundary companionship was shared, you could find rightness and truth in their journeys as well.

This I believe:

1.) You can not dictate absolute truth without offending others. Being the only right implies wrongness on everyone else and if you took a moment to truly hear yourself speak you might understand how "Mormon speak" is so demeaning if you are not Mormon - my hope; "watch your words".

2.) Don't look at someone who is confused by the history of the correlated church and call them apostate or mislead. Chances are that that person set out earnestly searching for the proof of what they have read being wrong and that all they have learned through their entire 50 years of being Mormon was right, and then only found how truly mistaken they were in trusting all those Sundays of learning.

Oh yeah, and saying that I never had a strong testimony to begin with is so offensive, on so many levels. What I know is who and what my STRONG testimony is about. Thank GOD for it because with it I have emerged more faithful then you will ever give me credit for.

Family is central to a balance that completes you.

3.) YOU DON'T MEASURE FAMILY by whether or not they believe or think or feel what you do. I have no TWIN now because he is unwilling to accept my choices. On every level this is wrong.

Can you tell I am tired? Can you read within my words the frustration?

Every part of me would love to advocate the cult mentality that is LDS, write all my angry words and become some token Ex-Mormon for another congregation but I won't; I can't, because deep down I have the knowledge that in and amongst those people in the church that cause such great heartache to others are good people.

Because of those few people I hold my tongue and honor them. The guts of doctrine, the core Christ like truths that are found in the teachings but rarely adhered to by members are there. But here is something I think most members miss, they are everywhere. There in the parishes, the chapels, the temples, the mosques and the mountains. Those truths are universal. Mormons hold no monopoly on goodness.

So, in response to my dear Mormon friend who anonymously left the note and the words - "I hope you and your family are happy?"

Here is my reply.

Every time I find myself in the loving arms of my caring new husband; I am happy. Every time I hold or speak to my beautiful grandsons, my children, I AM HAPPY! When my sister and brother and I share the comforts of each others homes and we laugh at the dysfunctional home we grew up in with the mother no Mormon seemed to accept ;WE ARE HAPPY! I am happy almost all the time, sometimes I am not and guess what - it's normal. I don't have to take happy pills or pretend because sadness is a real thing too and I am not ashamed of it anymore.

Mormons don't hold a monopoly on happiness.

So, let’s reflect on the title of this blog post.

What did leaving the church cost me - almost everything.

Was it worth it?

Absolutely!