A wrestle with God, and a last day

On the first Sunday of November, I went to church. Since the pandemic, after missing church for a year until the vaccine came out, I’ve gone once or twice a month, no more. My reasoning for each was, “It’s not my week.”

But this day, I had several good reasons to not go. I’d woken up two days earlier with back pain and it had gotten progressively worse in the last 24 hours. It was snowing hard when I left. It was testimony meeting, which never left me with a good feeling. But I went anyway, propelled by a need to go that I couldn’t place. To myself, I wondered if this was my last day.

Three days later, in the pre-dawn hours after the U.S. presidential election, I realized that it had been. I’d like to share with you that choice and the years-long wrestle with God that has preceded it.

Learning to trust myself

I’d woken at 2 a.m. Nov. 6 to news alerts that Trump had won. I curled up my on couch to study, then just cried and prayed—the kind of angry, emotional conversation with God that cuts through formality and politeness and is just raw, unfiltered rage. I don’t remember what preceded the realization that I could not go back to church, but in that moment, that reality was clear to me. When I said the words out loud, “I have to leave the church”—I immediately stopped crying and felt calmer.

The only words I had for that experience come from the church: revelation, inspiration, spiritual experience. After weeks of reflection and sitting with that choice, I now have others: trusting myself. Relying on my authority as an independent adult, a smart and thoughtful person and a child of God. (OK, some of the words still come from church. Since I have not left my belief in God, I’m fine with that.)

Was this the Spirit whispering to me that my choice was correct? Or was it my brain, after years of agonizing over the question, just relieved that it could finally rest? Was I just so exhausted from my Sisyphean journey of trying to reconcile the vast differences between what I saw and what I was told at church?

I don’t know, but I knew it was the right choice, one made not in a moment but through years of study, prayer, conversation, hard questions, tears and trying to imagine a future in the church and a future out of it, both of which seemed murky and frightening. My entire life I’ve been told to trust God. It took this long to realize that trusting God was not an excuse to not trust myself—that the God I know would never want me to ignore what is right and good for me.

Nobody is coming to save me

For years, I wondered why my shelf hadn’t broken. The stories of abuse of women and children, abuse of power, what tithing money was used for, the modern-day colonialism our missionary work represents, the treatment of LGBTQ members (and non-members), the lack of acknowledgement for harm done to women through polygamy and continued systemic inequality, to black people through the priesthood and temple ban, to Native American and Indigenous peoples through placement programs—all have bothered me intensely in recent years, and yet I couldn’t find it in myself to walk away. Even my experiences as a single woman who constantly heard messages, both spoken and unspoken, that I was not enough, that I did not belong, that I had failed in my purpose, didn’t make me leave. They made me angry, and they made every Sunday at church miserable and isolating. But they didn’t make me leave.

I had stopped paying tithing to the church more than two years ago after receiving my own revelation, I stopped wearing garments earlier this year, I hadn’t been to the temple in five years, I didn’t say “amen” after prayers addressed only to Heavenly Father—so, all prayers—and I listened carefully to talks and testimonies before I would say “amen” to them. I realized that I didn’t believe a majority of the words spoken from the pulpit.

Yet none of those things drove me to leave. I’ve realized since that I was trying to offload responsibility in some way—that I wanted an external factor to be the tipping point for my decision. I was waiting for The Big Bad Thing that would justify my decision—to those around me, yes, but even to myself. I knew many would still disagree with me, but I could point to The Big Bad Thing and say, “but look at that. How can I be OK with that? I had to leave.”

Abby Wambach, in a recent episode of “We Can Do Hard Things,” said it better than I can:

“There’s nobody coming to save you. … I have my experience, and I have to believe and understand my experience is holy in order to really want to take full responsibility for it because before I think I was just giving away responsibility, giving away my own life, giving away my own accountability. And there was something that shifted in me. … There is something magic in the surrender and the acceptance that nobody is coming to save us.”

There was no Big Bad Thing that broke my shelf. What came instead was that having a shelf was a choice. I didn’t have to keep those things that wounded me, that led me to question my worth, that made some people more important while telling others to be quiet. I could throw them out and fill my shelf with things that bring me joy. My shelf is filled with loving Heavenly Parents, feminism, truth and inspiration. It is filled with my morals and beliefs about the eternal value of all humans, of the Earth and her waters, trees and animals, of knowledge and learning and courage and compassion. It is filled with pictures of my dog, with mementos of my travels, with books and art and quotes from Ruth Bader Ginsburg and seven different Bible translations in four languages.

My shelf didn’t break, and neither did I. I feel whole for the first time in years. For so long I’d felt torn apart by my conflicting beliefs, by my membership in and love for an organization that did harm to me, by a church that had both beautiful, sacred ideas and ugly, destructive practices and beliefs.

Why I stayed

I have been thinking about why I held on for so long. I have mixed feelings about younger Heidi’s revelations and inspirations; it is not fair to myself to dismiss those spiritual experiences. I have had moments with divinity when I felt inspired, when I felt loved, when I felt guided and protected by a higher power. Those included moments when I decided to go on a mission and experiences on my mission, they include other leaps of faith and inspiration gained through study and prayer.

I also realize, as a member of a high-control religion, I have been taught my entire life the “correct” way to receive revelation, the feelings to look for and what they mean and that I can only trust myself and my feelings if I am doing what I’m supposed to and following the commandments. I’ve essentially been taught not to trust my true, authentic self. So it is hard, now, to know what is mine and what is the result of what I have been taught all these years.

I also held on because much of what the church purports to believe is beautiful. I love the idea of forever families. I love the existence of a God who encompasses all genders and all races, who sees and loves people for who they are, whose love is unconditional. I love the notion of an Atonement in which all sins can be forgiven. Personal revelation, agency, the knowledge of good and evil—there is so much beauty and love in these ideas. So much potential to become something more.

But the church does not always practice those things. In my experience, personal revelation is to confirm what’s been taught from the pulpit, agency has been subsumed by all the rules we must follow without question, forever families has a big “if no one breaks our rules” asterisks and forgiveness has a reprehensible “except for sexual sins which, because of prudish Great Awakening ideals, you cannot fully be forgiven from, the reminder that you’re impure will always be there” asterisk. So much harm has resulted from church teachings: the shunning of LGBTQ people, including money paid to lawyers to advocate against their rights in the highest courts; the excommunication of people who stood for something; the teachings that for years have kept women from recognizing their potential as full humans.

This has been discussed at length, but I keep coming back to Women on the Stand. Having women leaders on the stand cost nothing. It didn’t give women any additional power or authority, it didn’t give them decision-making authority, it didn’t offer additional speaking opportunities. All it did was make them more visible to their wards or stakes. And that was still too much. That is the meagerest of crumbs, and it was still too much. Other things were more important, but that one hurt. Rightly or wrongly, it felt intended to remind women of their place.

A benediction

Thank you for reading this far. Please know that I do not want to cause harm to anyone with my story. Many people who read this want to be in the church. There is nothing wrong with that; we are all on our journeys and have our own paths. So much good is found in community, and many, many people have found community in the LDS Church. What’s more, organizations are changed when people stay in them and make them better. May you find joy, inspiration, Christlike love and Christ in the church. Remember that you can trust yourself and your instincts—that Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father trust you. I hope your voice is heard and valued, that you feel empowered to be loud, to take up space, to claim ownership of a church that is as much yours as it is any leader’s.

And those who are struggling–to stay in, to leave or anywhere in between–know that you are not alone. There is nothing wrong with you. There is community everywhere you look–here at The Exponent, the At Last She Said It podcast, the Pod Squad at We Can Do Hard Things, at the Faith Adjacent podcast. Questioning is part of your divine right. You deserve to feel safe in your relationship with divinity, not threatened or afraid. May you find the home and the peace that you seek. May you never stop seeking.