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| The Sacred Grove- Palmyra, New York |
I wanted to talk about why I am a member of the church. The simple answer to why I am a member of this church is because I believe it’s true. I grew up in the church, my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents have all been members. Only now in this current generation have people begun falling away. All my aunts, uncles, grandparents and their siblings are all still active. A lot of my cousins and even one of my siblings have fallen away.
Non-members believes that church members (or any religious people) are ignorant because they’ve been living in a bubble. They think we’re sort of brainwashed in a way. I can confidently say that is not true, at least for me. I can see why they think that because of all the repetition and shoving things down our throats when we’re young. However, I am not a member just because my ancestors were members. I had to truly find out for myself if I honestly believed these things and it wasn’t just some fantasy a bunch of people “hoped” was true.
I’ll admit, I wavered back and forth for several years. I had a lot of doubts. I never left the church or anything, but I questioned some stuff. I never had that “burning in the bosom” everyone described when they felt the Spirit. I began wondering if everyone was just making it up because I never felt it. I would get emotional over things sometimes, but I could never pinpoint it as the Spirit. I was just kind of blindly stumbling forward. It’s not to say that I didn’t get promptings or get choked up in meetings sometimes, but my rational mind always came up with some sort of explanation. For example: I just got emotional because I felt sympathy or I thought it was really cool; or that wasn’t a prompting, it was luck.
I’ve never been very good at identifying the Spirit because I don’t feel it the same way other people do. I’ve learned over time that I don’t get that “burning in the bosom” like most people, but actually, the Spirit speaks to me through rationalization. Unfortunately, I’m already a very rational person so it’s difficult for me to discern when I’m actually being prompted.
But then, there’s one moment, quite recently actually, where I could not deny the existence of God.
It was about a year or so ago. I had just finished watching a video about the Book of Mormon and got super “emotional” over it. My rational mind went to work as I began thinking how there was no way the Book of Mormon could be made up. How could Joseph Smith make up something like that? How could he know all those things with a third-grade education? I just was thinking about Moroni and Mormon and all sorts of stuff and was thinking it was all so cool.
Then, I knelt down for my evening prayer and... you know in JSH how he describes a cloud of darkness overtaking him? That is exactly what it felt like. I remember it so vividly. I couldn’t focus on what I was trying to say no matter how hard I tried. All these horrible thoughts about how the Book of Mormon wasn’t true, how God didn’t exist, and so on flooded into my mind. They weren’t just fleeting thoughts either, they were really convincing ideas and they were consuming me. And they definitely weren’t my own. I felt so awful and empty. I wanted to cry. I just wanted to finish my prayer, but couldn't. I tried to remember how good I had felt only moments before, but to no avail.
But then I remembered what I was doing. I was praying! Even though this voice in my head was telling me God didn’t exist, if there was a chance that He did, surely He would help me, right? So, I plucked up my strength and firmly and desperately asked my Father in Heaven to get rid of these horrible thoughts in my mind.
Non-members believes that church members (or any religious people) are ignorant because they’ve been living in a bubble. They think we’re sort of brainwashed in a way. I can confidently say that is not true, at least for me. I can see why they think that because of all the repetition and shoving things down our throats when we’re young. However, I am not a member just because my ancestors were members. I had to truly find out for myself if I honestly believed these things and it wasn’t just some fantasy a bunch of people “hoped” was true.
I’ll admit, I wavered back and forth for several years. I had a lot of doubts. I never left the church or anything, but I questioned some stuff. I never had that “burning in the bosom” everyone described when they felt the Spirit. I began wondering if everyone was just making it up because I never felt it. I would get emotional over things sometimes, but I could never pinpoint it as the Spirit. I was just kind of blindly stumbling forward. It’s not to say that I didn’t get promptings or get choked up in meetings sometimes, but my rational mind always came up with some sort of explanation. For example: I just got emotional because I felt sympathy or I thought it was really cool; or that wasn’t a prompting, it was luck.
I’ve never been very good at identifying the Spirit because I don’t feel it the same way other people do. I’ve learned over time that I don’t get that “burning in the bosom” like most people, but actually, the Spirit speaks to me through rationalization. Unfortunately, I’m already a very rational person so it’s difficult for me to discern when I’m actually being prompted.
But then, there’s one moment, quite recently actually, where I could not deny the existence of God.
It was about a year or so ago. I had just finished watching a video about the Book of Mormon and got super “emotional” over it. My rational mind went to work as I began thinking how there was no way the Book of Mormon could be made up. How could Joseph Smith make up something like that? How could he know all those things with a third-grade education? I just was thinking about Moroni and Mormon and all sorts of stuff and was thinking it was all so cool.
Then, I knelt down for my evening prayer and... you know in JSH how he describes a cloud of darkness overtaking him? That is exactly what it felt like. I remember it so vividly. I couldn’t focus on what I was trying to say no matter how hard I tried. All these horrible thoughts about how the Book of Mormon wasn’t true, how God didn’t exist, and so on flooded into my mind. They weren’t just fleeting thoughts either, they were really convincing ideas and they were consuming me. And they definitely weren’t my own. I felt so awful and empty. I wanted to cry. I just wanted to finish my prayer, but couldn't. I tried to remember how good I had felt only moments before, but to no avail.
But then I remembered what I was doing. I was praying! Even though this voice in my head was telling me God didn’t exist, if there was a chance that He did, surely He would help me, right? So, I plucked up my strength and firmly and desperately asked my Father in Heaven to get rid of these horrible thoughts in my mind.
I kid you not, no sooner were those words out of my mouth did the darkness instantly evaporate. It was seriously gone in an instant. I could think normally and felt relaxed again. It’s hard to describe. It literally felt like something poisonous had been sucked out of me.
I can testify without a doubt that Satan was working hard on me that night and when I struggled and called on the Lord, He came and cast him out for me. The Lord has complete power over the Devil, that’s for sure and if we have His light in us, we can too.
I always recall this moment now whenever I find myself doubting anything. That moment was SO clear and SO significant for me.
One could call it a “sign” which it sort of is. I wouldn’t consider myself a sign-seeker as the Book of Mormon describes them. A sign-seeker is someone who wants some great, miraculous sign to “prove” that there is a God. But God never gives these people signs because according to Ether 12:6, “ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” Sign-seekers don’t have faith first, they want proof first. People only gets signs after they show they already believe. I hope that this incident proves that even though I didn’t have the strongest testimony in the world, it was strong enough to bring this event about.
Like I said, I wavered for a long time, but I can say now without a shadow of a doubt that God is real. If He is real, then pretty much everything else falls into place. People who deny the existence of God are completely blind to what is around them. I marvel at this world and His creations. There is no way all of this stuff just happened. There HAD to be a creator.
I believe 100% that God is real, that the church is true, that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith was/is a prophet, that we have a prophet today, that Jesus Christ walked the earth and died for our sins, and everything else. It’s all true! Amen.
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