Guest Post: Putting Down the Armor of God

by Julie

There is a bag in my closet. A burgundy bag with a hanging clip and cross body straps. Inside is a neatly folded white outfit that fit me a lifetime of faith ago. The knee high stockings neatly tucked in the shoes that have only ever been used on sacred floors. The lacy white top with long sleeves and a solid back layer. The white skirt that is long enough for me to trip over. Ceremonial clothing that made conversations from my various classes at BYU suddenly make more sense.

I don’t remember when I folded them. It might have been in Manti, when they did live sessions. It might have been Mount Timpanogos after going through a session when one of my sisters went through the temple before her mission. I don’t think I went to the temple much longer after that session. I didn’t have a chance to go to my next sister’s endowment session. My recommend had expired at that point, and I no longer felt comfortable answering the questions to retain it in the expected manner.

Since then I’ve added to the bag a collection of garments, underwear I used to hold sacred and now don’t quite know what to do with. I can’t quite bring myself to get rid of the bag. It’s been with me move after move, from the house I lived in with my roommate who came with me when I first went through the temple to now with my roommate and her friend with benefits. It takes up space but giving up this bag of clothes feels like giving up on everything I hold dear: my faith in a loving higher being, my values of loving and helping those around me, my love of rules and rituals.

I am the same woman who wore these pieces, this armor protecting me from the world. But I don’t fit them anymore. My shoulders are free and no longer sagging from the guilt. My knees are showing their scrapes and bruises. And somehow my struggles are less struggly now that I’ve given myself permission to keep only the things I want. I get to keep the heavenly parents and I get to make my own rules and rituals. But it’s still hard. Inside this bag are all the family weddings I can’t attend. The siblings going on missions I can’t attend a part of that ritual with. The nieces and nephews I’ll never get to do baptisms with. All the family dreams I’ve broken by being me. And so it stays there, in the back of the closet. Where I sometimes wonder if life would be easier if I just went back in with it.

Julie lives in Utah where she spends her spare time doing hand crafts while listening to audiobooks.