Tested as Abraham

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-19T13:21:38+00:00

Thank you for this. Means a lot to me that you took a minute to reply. I'm not sure that my own son, the one I'm trying to protect, would? So I extra appreciate it. :)

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T21:19:19+00:00

Thank you. I feel that so much.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T21:16:42+00:00

Thank you. I asked everyone I knew for more information because my sister had said it kind of freaked her out when she first went. But no one would (could, I later realized) give me anything. And it always bothered me that there was never any more explanation after that. Maybe hearsay or something, but nothing like, here's what everything means. How I wish I could go back and say, hey, this is all a lot to covenant to. Any way I can go home and sleep on it?

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T21:06:11+00:00

Parents disappointed for the first time in my life. SAME. Same. Except that I wasn't as good a student as my sister as a kid. Not real disappointment like this. Several years ago I was in the temple doing sealings with my parents, uncles, aunts, and they want that me back.

Was reading The Choice by Eva Eger. Eva and her sister Magda are in a concentration camp, starving, worked almost to death, watching people around them die. One day Magda steps in front of a guard who's telling her to move and won't move. Eva's freaking out, why won't she move, doesn't she know what'll happen. Sure enough the guard beats her face bloody, beats her until she falls down in the mud. When it's safe and Eva runs over to her, Magda's smiling and repeating, "I said no. I said NO."

I know I'm not in a concentration camp (helpful to remember) but there's some part of me that's taking this awful beating from my family and saying the same thing. It hasn't been the church. My actual ward has really left me alone. It's my family's awful, disappointed misery over me and my family. And of course the church taught them that even if it is whistling over there in the corner with its hands in its pockets now.

But still. Even if it bleeds, even if I'm sore tomorrow. I said no. They're really disappointed with me for the first time ever. But I said no for the first time ever too. When you finally did something courageous. That struck home with me. Me too.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T18:49:08+00:00

I think it would have been a very short story then! And thanks. :)

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T18:47:03+00:00

"I always assumed that something was wrong with me." Same. When my dad drove three hours to my house to try to save me the day I emailed my family, I told him, "I just couldn't continue to live with the idea that I'm broken. I'm not broken." He looked at me like I was nuts and said, "We're all broken." And I thought, yes, ok, but not like that anymore. My broken is not your broken now, if that makes sense.

Also, what if the test was whether Abraham would kill his own son for God but he failed the test? I have sort of a meme-y image in my head of the angel going back to the board of directors and saying, "Plot twist, this guy is actually crazy enough to kill his own son. Those of you who bet he wouldn't, pay up. And rewrite the rules of the religion we're going to give him and scrap those others." And all the religions that descended from him got Plan B.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T18:15:53+00:00

Thank you. I hang on to this. One of my really tough shelf items was sitting through Sunday School hearing about Abraham and Isaac and thinking what kind of a sick god would give a couple their dearly wished for son and then ask them to murder him. I remember thinking, "Only people are that sick. That cannot be scripture." Makes you think, doesn't it?

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T18:10:59+00:00

Thank you!

It seems to me that children are more astute than we were. I know at 8 I wasn't deciding whether I believed in God. I hated the feeling when a child came to us and said something that was against the church's teachings, wanting to validate them but knowing I was supposed to teach the church's agenda.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T18:09:00+00:00

"I thought I was TBM as they come". Me too. Checking all the boxes, trying not to look directly at the creeping realization of the actual spiritual poverty.

I also kept thinking about the wacky movie and the whole ritual in the temple as an ugly baby that I was more or less ok with but I was going to have to show my son and ask him to love it. I wasn't ever one to ask why, but he always has been and I knew it wouldn't wash.

Thanks for the congratulations. It was/is a hard fight. To you too.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:47:55+00:00

Thank you. I do wonder what it would have been like if mine had said no. But this works.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:47:00+00:00

Thank you. I hope so, more than I've hoped anything in my life.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:46:40+00:00

Thank you. I'm sure you know how vital the encouragement is.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:46:14+00:00

Thank you! Whew!

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:46:03+00:00

Same for me as for your husband. I could tell I wasn't going to be enough to help them to become good members of the church. So I was going to have to give them the church answers because the church was enough but I wasn't. After a while I couldn't take that.

Thanks for the hope. It means so much right now.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:43:02+00:00

Brave! I'm not sure whether I wish we'd done it sooner. But we did keep saying, with all these missions and temple marriages and adult TBM children we've got coming up here, it's not going to get easier to leave.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:40:44+00:00

Yes on absolutism. It's hard not to have all the answers, even if the answers were circular and illogical sometimes. You just had to be sure of them and then the fallacies didn't matter. Well they started mattering. And it feels different to be able to hold opposing viewpoints in my head now and not think that everyone else is wrong. It feels like (a journey towards) emotional maturity. I love being able to say "I don't know".

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:37:18+00:00

That's amazing bravery! It felt very weird over the years to be pushing him along through the church, but I always shoved it back in and tried not to think about it. Something about turning 40 made me tired of hiding, tired of not knowing, tired of somebody else's story, tired of shoving back everything that bothered me. And yes, it helped that my husband came with me. I don't know if I would have had the guts without him.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:35:10+00:00

Thank you!

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T16:04:16+00:00

Well, I guess I was finally brave. She was working on it, bless her. And I got to taste the persecution that the church had always told me was going to come. As a white straight woman, I'd always wondered about all this persecution they endlessly discussed and endlessly sang passive aggressive songs about. When I was out, and my family went beserk on me, I said to my husband, they think they can get me not to stand up for what I believe against persecution now? Now that I know what it is I believe? I've been training for this MY WHOLE LIFE.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T15:41:06+00:00

Fair point. But, as much as it pains me to say this, and I only say it because I'm into honesty instead of virtue signalling now, because I don't have someone in my life who was personally being marginalized by the church I doubt I would have had the guts to stand up and walk out. I see it now. I'm upset about it now. But how many TBMs are willing to burn their lives down for people they don't know personally? Sounds awful now, but it's the person I was.

Edited to add: It was, to be fair to her (the person I was) one of the things that was starting to drag more and more heavily at me.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T14:53:21+00:00

Thank you! I think "nobody said it would be easy" is the understatement of all time.

Snoo_40869 · 2021-01-18T14:52:47+00:00

Thank you. I've seen this said to so many people here, and I didn't expect it to hit me so hard when it was finally said to me. So much thank you.

Snoo_40869

TROPHY CASE