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Lately I have been contemplating identity and how we view ourselves. These thoughts come after considering Alison's post on hair with the connected peer treatment and attitudes. My thoughts are also a result of recently reconnecting with some friends from high school and from the ward in which I grew up. These situations have made me think about how I used to be seen and how I am viewed now – and how I perceived myself then and now.
Most people likely remember me (from my child/teen years) as a red-head with freckles who was super thin. I was known as a voracious reader, an honor student, and an overall “good girl.” I was quiet and rather shy. I was insecure and lacked confidence. I had a difficult time accepting myself. I have always been a perfectionist and unrealistically hard on myself. However, with the perspective that has come with time, maturity, and increased self-assurance, I have discovered that these physical characteristics and personality traits do not completely determine who I am.
Now others see me as a graying brunette with glasses who enjoys reading and spending time with her family and friends. They know me as a good friend and listener who is faithful, dedicated, compassionate, understanding, and loving. (To be fair, some of these characteristics applied to me previously as well; they just weren't as widely recognized, by myself or by others.)
We all identify ourselves by various titles: child, sibling, cousin, student, friend, spouse, parent—as well as by designations based on our occupations, callings, activities, and hobbies. We also at times identify ourselves by our level of accomplishments—”I have done a good job” or “I have failed at ___.”
We each have many experiences that form our attitudes, our values, and our views. Life circumstances contribute to the people we become. As members of the Church, we believe that mortality is a time to learn and grow and progress. (See Alma 34:32.) I believe this includes learning to value our individual identity. This does not happen overnight. It takes time and effort.
Time brings change. For most of us, that includes maturity, perspective, and hindsight. Time helps us learn what is important, what is useful, what is transitory. We gain skills and tools to help us become successful in whatever endeavors we follow. Hopefully, we also learn how to be less judgmental of our peers, to be kinder and more understanding of a variety of circumstances. Hopefully, status becomes less of an issue. We need time and maturity to be able to move past the ridicule and insensitivity that so often happens during childhood, and the typical indifference and self-centeredness of the teen years.
I feel like I am connecting the dots. What I am beginning to understand is that seeing ourselves appropriately is a process. It is a learned behavior. Moving from the feelings of “I hate my hair/body/thoughts/etc” to the “My peers ridicule and call me carrot-top/four-eyes/anorexic/chubby/geek/whatever and they must be right because I don't feel worthwhile” to the “I can do some things well and have some worth” to the “I am of worth simply because I am a child of God”—these thought progressions come with time and experience, with maturity and understanding.
When we accept this personal identification process, we come to better understand ourselves and others. And when we recognize our own core identity as a worthwhile child of God, we are then able to look at others and see them also as worthwhile children of God. We move past simply seeing differences and ridiculing that which is different, unfamiliar, or unknown. Only then are we able to identify ourselves as God knows us.
How have you come to know who you are? How have you determined what it is that defines you and what your priorities are? How have you navigated the process of understanding your individual identity? How have you come to accept who you are, with your combined strengths and weaknesses?
Along with these questions, I offer the following points for consideration in a discussion concerning identity:
“Let us make man in our image…” (Genesis 1:26)
“Have ye received his image in your countenances?” (Alma 5:14)
(It would be fascinating to look at the multiple questions asked in this entire chapter in terms of personal identity. It takes the questions a step further—from ‘this is how one should be' to ‘this is how I want to be.')
I suggest doing a search on the church website under “identity.” The results are a veritable gold mine! Here are excerpts from an Ensign article by Russell M. Nelson:
It is important to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, vital as your work is. You pursue an education to prepare for life's work, but you also need to prepare for life eternal life. I emphasize this because some people on life's journey forget who they really are and what is really important. Without sure identity and priority, blessings that matter most are at the mercy of things that matter least.
…
If the Lord were to speak to you, He would urge you to understand your identity to know who you really are.
…
The Apostle Paul taught that divine doctrines, such as these of identity and priority, are to be written “not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” (2 Corinthians 3:3) The importance of an inward commitment to the Lord is symbolized as we partake of the sacrament. Contrast it to other promises made in life, usually symbolized by an outward sign, such as a raised hand or a written signature. The Lord has invited us to symbolize our covenant with Him by a sign that is inward as well as outward. When the sacred emblems of His flesh and blood are administered to us, we are invited to take them into our bodies. As we do, His atoning sacrifice literally becomes a part of our own identity.
(I love the various nuances in this last quote, especially the last sentence!)
Discuss. Please share your views and experiences in coming to know yourself.
Alison Moore Smith is a 61-year-old entrepreneur who graduated from BYU in 1987. She has been (very happily) married to Samuel M. Smith for 40 years. They are parents of six incredible children and grandparents to two astounding grandsons. She is the author of The 7 Success Habits of Homeschoolers.
I love the recognition that this is all a process.
And really coming to know and understand who we (really) are is also a gift.
For me, the process has reached an intensity this past year, and it has been a painful but exhilarating process. There’s too much to sum up here, but I am learning more and more who I really am and what that means. It is taking a new and different kind of faith than I have ever really had to exercise before.
Thanks, Michelle. I totally get that “painful but exhilarating process.” It is so difficult while you’re going through it, and yet so fulfilling when you start to see results and benefits!
Michelle, thought-provoking post. I don’t think I *do* know myself, really. Or maybe I think I know enough. I’ll have to think about it some more.
Michelle, what do you mean when you talk about knowing “who you are”? The more I think about it the less I’m sure.
To really know that I am a daughter of a God who loves and knows me perfectly, and is willing to give me life nad experience and esp mercy when I goof (which is often). To really trust His love above all, and not define myself by things that fail around me — my house, my resume, my health, my parenting, my kids succes or lack thereof.
When we say, ‘WE are beloved spirit daughters of God” as RS sisters, or “We are daughtesr of a heavenly father who loves us and we love him” — that to me sums it up. If we really, truly believed that and understood that, we would pray with fervency and connection. We would live with faith and conviction not because it looks good but because it’s right.
Knowing who I am…my quest, is not to be tossed about by wind of opinion or circumstance, to not doubt myself, to trust my meager efforst to do and be good, and to let go when I can’t do it all. It’s to learn to see myself as God sees me, and to stop imposing limitations on His love and mercy that come from untruths that are wired into me.
I can seek a new mind==about myself, and about God, and about my relationship ith Him. ANd I am in the throws of that.
and I can’t type because my sleep drugs make me feel drunk. must go now. hehe
My intentioned focus is on how we define ourselves within the context of knowing we are children of God. Do we let the labels of childhood (carrot top, etc) determine who we are and who we become? Just because I was shy and insecure as a child/teen, do I have to remain that way or can I change how I am perceived and how I interact with others? Why do we so often allow such hurtful labels to define us? (IOW, why did I allow myself to feel worthless when I still knew I was a beloved daughter of God?) Why do I still struggle at times to acknowledge the good characteristics about myself? (I am continually improving in this regard.)
Alison, “who I am” is a daughter of God who has strengths (faith, bedrock knowledge that He knows/loves me, etc) and weaknesses (perfectionism, impatience, etc) who struggles to balance firm testimony with too-frequent unrealistic expectations. [My son just said I have unrealistic expectations of trying to come up with a word to include in my weakness list as a synonym for unrealistic expectations!!]
As an example: for as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a mom. A number of years ago, I realized I had reached my main goals in life (temple marriage, wife, mother, etc). I spent some time discombobulated and feeling that I was just moving to-and-fro at the whim of whatever happened to me. Then I realized that I needed to re-define myself and come up with some new goals and reconsider what was most important to me. I had to rediscover myself. I had to move through the process to go beyond identifying myself by what I do to identifying myself as me. I am more than just a wife and mother.
My point in my article is that learning to discard the false assumptions and labels, and reaching the point of true self-acceptance and acceptance of others, is a process. I wanted to know how others have come to understand why we are who we are – which part of us is an eternal part of our spirit and which part was inherited/gained through genetics and environment.
Argh!! I’m on Ray’s laptop and didn’t notice that he hadn’t logged out! That last comment was obviously mine…
Ha, I was like, did I read that right, then realized Michelle you must have been signed in under Ray :bigsmile:
Ha, Lewis. Yeah, that is frustrating!
Michelle, I figured this was the best way to tell you directly how impressed I am with how you handle yourself on FMH. djinn and lorian, particularly, can be so blind to their prejudices and emotional hyperbole, and it’s inspiring to see how calm and clear and lovingly you respond – even when they go overboard and thinks they’re being insightful and profound.
I just want to make sure you know how much I admire your comments there.
Good article, Michelle. I’ve been giving your post some thought. The last few days have been spent in self-examination.
I think I’ve told you before. My dad raised me to be competitive, and that was cemented by having a twin sister, a situation which just naturally causes competition. When I was young, it never occurred to me that I was anything but valuable. I didn’t have any doubts about myself until I was in college. I attended BYU Provo as a single mother (divorced), and I realized with astonishment that I wasn’t acceptable to some, maybe even most, of the parents of the young men I dated, because I was a failure and therefore a risk. Can’t tell you how many times young men told me, “I really like you, and I enjoy dating you, but I can’t take you home to meet my parents. They wouldn’t understand.” They DIDN’T understand. They didn’t understand anything about the Atonement and how hard I had worked to achieve forgiveness and get my life back on track. They wanted a perfect someone for their precious boys; these were active members of the Church. I slowly realized they didn’t REALLY believe in repentance and forgiveness. They didn’t want damaged goods for their sons.
I took it very personally. I believed them about my worth. I soon came to feel that I should apologize for breathing. It has been a hard habit to break, feeling that everyone else deserves consideration and admiration, but I was somehow a miserable exception, no matter how hard I tried. The problem was compounded by the unfortunate night problem I’ve told you about before. God doesn’t want abuse for his beloved daughters, but somehow it was good enough for the likes of me. I felt like He had abandoned me in sending me to such a bizarre situation, trapped in an eternal marriage and silenced by the laws of decency.
Three things, I think, helped to turn me around.
1. A small statement in the movie Corina, Corina. The housekeeper Corina sends the little girl she tends to kindergarten. The little girl Molly is scared and reluctant to go. Corina tells her to march right in there and say to herself, “My name is Molly Singer, and there is no one in the world better than me!” She has her repeat it several times. At first I thought, “How arrogant!”, and then I thought, “How true!” She wasn’t marching in there saying that she was better than anyone else; she was proclaiming the God-given truth that no other mortal was better than she was. It was an equality statement, true across the board. That little statement took on great meaning for me.
2. A slow realization that mortality is the great equalizer. Nobody is exempt. We all deal with the imperfections of mortality in one way or another. Because He sent us to bizarre physical situations doesn’t mean He loves us less; it simply means that He was willing to let laws of nature prevail for now, which means we deal with the sadnesses and even horrors of mortality temporarily. My husband’s problem is a now well-documented biological malfunction of the brain and completely beyond his choosing. It is unfortunate that we had to deal with it, but it doesn’t mean our Heavenly Father loves us less or has abandoned us. I have on occasion felt Him crying with us.
3. The choice to stop letting other people’s opinions decide who I was. They all had such differing opinions, and I really was “tossed to and fro, and swayed by every wind of doctrine.” If the people around me disapproved of me, I was devastated. If the people around me sang my praises, I was ecstatic. It was such a back and forth thing every day that I was experiencing mental whiplash. I finally decided that the only opinion worthy of consideration was Heavenly Father’s opinion of me. He made me, so He of all others knows who I am. Like Michelle, I decided to trust His statements about who I am. “I am a beloved daughter of God, and my life has meaning, purpose, and direction.” I literally had to say that to myself many times before I began to believe it. It is automatic now. When I start to feel those self-doubts about my worth, it automatically plays back in my head: “I am a beloved daughter of God, and my life has meaning, purpose, and direction.” There is GREAT WISDOM in having our young women say their motto every week. It will become the default mode of their thinking when they are faced with difficulties, whether they realize it or not.
I am grateful for those helps.
davidson, that is beautiful and profound. I’d like to modify the specifics about your marriage and publish that comment in every YW manual in the Church. Thank you.
Thanks, Ray. 🙂
Thanks, Ray. I have actually been wondering exactly how you are thinking over there — sometimes your comments have been a bit vague. 🙂 Just last nite I thought of writing you, so thanks. (I needed a bit of reinforcement after all of that; I’m feeling tired!)
I still can’t quite figure out djinn’s anger toward me. I AM trying to be calm about it all, though, so I’m grateful if any of that effort at all shows through.
My participation on that blog has a specific purpose, and being “vague” fits the purpose.
I try to be a voice of middle-ground calmness and reason there. If you look closely, I don’t comment on all the threads – less than half, actually. I tend to comment most on threads where the Church is being attacked, but I do so by pointing out the hyperbole on both sides – so that the liberal side doesn’t see me as an opponent and might actually pay attention to what I say. I defend you from their stupidity, but I also defend them from the stupid comments of some thoughtless and knee-jerk very conservative people. I’m trying consciously to model a behavior for both extremes there, so I pick and choose the posts where I comment and can do so from the “middle” – so to speak.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never “defended” anyone from any of your comments, just like I’m not sure I’ve ever “defended” anyone from one of MikeinWeHo’s comments, because I’m not sure either of you ever has posted a hostile or attacking comment there. I protest hostile conservative comments there for the same reason I protest hostile liberal comments. Frankly, it’s a tightrope, but it’s one I feel impressed to walk, so I do it.
Every once in a while I get a glimpse that it is worth it, when I read one of the more rabidly liberal people acknowledge the legitimacy of my pleas for civility, but I also have been thanked privately by a few people for calmly putting the vociferous idiots on both sides in their place. I’m not sure, honestly, if I will comment there long-term, but I’ll continue to do so for the foreseeable future, at least – or until I feel inspired to stop.
I have noticed your patterns, and you gotta do what you feel best. As often the lone voice, sometimes I have really hoped you would jump in a little more to help as a second witness (not that you completely always agree with me, but I think you know what I mean).
But I understand trying to do what you feel is best. These are hard forums to be involved in. I don’t get involved much anymore, either, except once in a while when I just think it’s too far out there. I am not in there to change anyone’s minds who is actually participating; my intent is to be a voice on ‘the other side’ when those on the left (and/or out of the Church) dominate…so that lurkers who stumble don’t think that all feminist mormons think in that way. 🙂
You’re a good man. Thanks for the good you do.
p.s. I hope that someday I can meet you and Michelle in person. You just seem like the kind of people I would like to get to know better as more than faces and words on a screen. 🙂
That would be nice. Once the kids leave and we have some extra cash . . .
Check out my last comments on FMH, if you want to get a flavor for exactly what I described above. Jon does incredible damage with his comments, and I think the responses are perfectly natural (natural man, that is), so I am trying to present a Mormon voice of reason that can help moderate the effect of Jon’s insensitive and horrible presentation. Even if he were 100% correct, and he’s not, I still would try to step in and show that not all Mormons (and Mormon men, in particular) fit the caricature they draw – and some people reinforce.
I totally understand, and it’s hard when comments like that end up representing us all. Keep doing what you feel you should do. We all have to kind of do that, and hopefully, on the whole, we can help the cause, no?
I am open to your feedback along the way. I honestly don’t want to cause more harm. Sometimes I feel at a loss…where silence would be harm, but where people will twist my words and intent so much that maybe silence would be better.
Fwiw, your participation is needed just as it is offered. There are LOTS of people who read the exchanges without commenting, and most of them are those who agree with you but are scared to speak up. That doesn’t mean I think you should comment more; I don’t. I think you are doing just fine.
The last back and forth (after the Romeo and Juliet reference) is interesting. I actually am quite intentional in my “I’m leaving” comments, since they tend to focus the discussion in a way that generic comments don’t – and I don’t mind being laughed at a bit for it. I mean it when I say I’m (in the process of) leaving (and I am done, finally, with the thread, since I know it will spiral dowward again – and I want to leave on a relatively high note), but it worked. Quimby calmed down enough to share a couple of reasonable comments without any hyperbole – although, if you notice, she never did admit I was right about how furious she would have been if someone had implied she was like a child abuser. That says a lot about her pride and fear of being wrong, which is the heart of her anger and emotion. She’s been told she’s wrong for so long that she can’t handle being wrong in any way now that deals with her identity (and I don’t mean sexual orientation by that) – and I understand that. I’d never say that to her, but it helps me remain calm when I deal with her.
Frankly, that’s a trait that MANY lesbians share – a visceral need to challenge authority. One of the main reasons you and I rub Quimby and lorian and (especially) djinn wrong is that we speak with an authoritative voice. They associate that with oppression and pain, so they lash out at it without stopping to read carefully what we are saying. It’s a little worse, actually, for you, since, ironically, they can see me as a “nice guy” who just doesn’t get it fully – but they feel betrayed by you (another woman).
Anyway, I hope that helps you understand them in some way. They still, in many ways, are vulnerable, scared little girls – and I don’t fault them for that. I’m sure they’ve gone through their own Hells because of their orientation, so I try to keep that in mind as I comment. Again, I’d NEVER share that with them, at least not in the foreseeable future and publicly, but it helps to know.
Ray, yes, I know they are in pain. I understand the psychology of it. Thanks for the reminder, though.
It’s just another example of how conflicted I am, and yet how strongly I have felt about holding this line. It’s nearly an impossible situation. I don’t know that they could ever hear anything but hate, even though I try so hard to have compassion for their pain. I CAN have compassion and still have my belief. How to really communicate that?
It’s impossible as long as the box is there.
very well said davidson!!!
I should say it is such an important discussion topic. Thanks Michelle for writing about this!!! I for one really needed it.
“I am . . . me, and that is enough.” I like it because it allows someone to be whomever and whatever they feel they should be.
Having said that, I think “who I am” depends largely on “who I want to be” – and that depends largely on “who I hope I can be” – and that depends largely on “who I believe I have the potential to become”. That’s why I like “I am a child of God” as the walls upon the foundation – since that makes the “I am me” foundation truly open-ended.
The “difficulty” arises when people disagree about how a child of God should act or who a child of God should be (when they don’t allow me to be my own vision of me) but the uinderlying belief/hope is empowering to me.
I just don’t think I have the right to demand that someone else be the same child of God as I am. I believe strongly in sharing my view of God and what it menas to be His child, but, in the end, I am me – and he is he – and she is she. That is something each person has to find and follow for herself, no matter what others think or would have her be.
Lovely, lovely post!!!
In answer to the questions, I came to really understand “who I am” in Young Women, with a little help also from Seminary. The daily study and constant repitition of the Young Women Theme engrained it all into my head, but it hadn’t really sunk in until a particular Sunday lesson when we were talking about our divine nature as spirit children of Heavenly Father. We had a lot of really good discussion. At the end of the lesson, my advisor handed out framed poems that she’d written out in calligraphy.
“I am a child of royal birth
My Father is King of Heaven and Earth
My spirit was born in courts on high
A child beloved, a Princess am I.”
Right then, it all clicked for me, and I suddenly knew and understood like I never had before.
She had us all read it out loud together and I was bawling my eyes out.
Tracy, my mom put a copy of that poem in the front of my baby book. Love it!
Thanks, all of you, for your insight and sharing your experiences.
(It’s late so you don’t get anything more profound than that tonight! :tongue:)
davidson, you post was so insightful and heartfelt. I appreciate your contribution.
I really want to say something about this part of your post, above. Please, PLEASE understand that I am NOT coming to you from the position of the perfect Molly Mormon who is looking down my nose at the horrible, awful, divorced mother. Suffice it to say I’ve never been the perfect Mormon. But I also come as someone whose mother was divorced (although not a mother) when she married my dad. And my dad was not just any guy. He was the oldest son, the only one to serve a mission (three years in Holland), the only one to go to college. The pride and joy. Do you get my drift? 🙂 I also come as the sister of a guy who married a divorced gal with a daughter two years ago–and we all adore her.
Yes, I’m so glad that my dad wasn’t deterred by my mom’s past marital status, because she was the perfect mom for me. And my dad still adores her and, in fact, would just as soon go on to be with her again, he misses her so much.
But all that said, I really don’t think that the attitudes you faced necessarily mean that people don’t believe in the atonement. I really, really don’t. Even when they are put to ME.
We all have to judge in order to move, live, survive. And it simply is true that our past means something. What it means exactly varies with the person. But it does mean something. My mistakes, problems, successes, whatever DO tell something about me–and those things may or may not be positive to others.
For example, I dated a guy who was divorced and had two kids when we were both at BYU. They lived in Pennsylvania with their mom. I really liked him and he said a couple of times he wanted to marry me. But… I was young and less direct than I am now. And I just couldn’t figure out why a guy would have two kids in another state that he never saw, never talked to, etc. I couldn’t figure out why he was at BYU living the life of a single stud instead of at Penn State so he could support his kids and father them. Although I never asked him directly, I think the biggest thought in my mind was that I wanted a dad for my kids who did things differently.
Of course that could have been completely wrong. Maybe there was a restraining order and he couldn’t live there. Maybe his ex was hiding the kids. I don’t know and it never got to the point of talking about that. But those things were unsettling to me and it wasn’t because I didn’t believe in the atonement.
Previous marriages and the issues that come with them DO impact a marriage. Kids from priors are HUGE issues. Much bigger issues IMO than the usual things we use to judge potential mates: height, weight, beauty, income, etc. So, in my opinion, those issues should be carefully analyzed–very carefully analyzed–before taking them on.
And wasn’t your current husband the perfect guy to do it? The other guys did you a favor! :bigsmile:
davidson, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those parents really wouldn’t understand. And maybe that some had closed hearts and minds.
But having dated someone who was divorced (with three kids), and experiencing my parents’ response, I can understand a little…just because of what Alison said. The problem isn’t always about accepting repentance; it is about recognizing that marriage is a challenge, and adding any extra factors can add more complexity. Second marriages, esp when there are children involved, just have unique challenges.
In the end, it was the LORD who let me know it wasn’t right to marry that guy. And had He told me otherwise, I would have put my parents’ responses behind me. But they would have been right that choosing to marry someone with kids would have been more complex for me and my life.
It’s not about YOU or that YOU were damaged goods. But it is realistic to realize that past divorce and children CAN add to the complexities that need to be worked through in a second marriage. Sort of in a going-in-with-eyes-open kind of thing.
But I’m sorry you felt like people judged you as a person. Divorced doesn’t and shouldn’t mean ‘less than.’
I also want to say that your #3 is profound. And I think that, ultimately, having your brain go somewhere else automatically is a gift from God, a ‘new mind.’ That is what I am waiting for in my life, and I know that I cannot achieve that on my own. It’s heartening to hear someone else who has been able to receive that gift after being where I have been. Thank you for sharing.
That is very well said, Michelle.
Another thing to consider is that being married and having children make us different people. We all have to be ready to come to marriage having some idea of what we are looking for and what we can accept. Being forgiven in the eyes of God for something doesn’t necessarily make us a good potential mate. 🙂
More to the point, I think, is how the child is affected in all this. I was very concerned whenever my brother dated women with children because I have some idea (from friends, etc.) about how strongly this affects the marriage/family, etc. The thing that most impressed me about the woman he married (before I met her in person) was that she was absolutely diligent and militant about doing what was best for her DAUGHTER. She was completely willing to be alone for the rest of her life if need be. It wasn’t about her romantic needs or personal fulfillment. It was about raising the daughter she brought into the world. And ONLY when it was clear (and after quite some time) that my brother would be good for her daughter AND for her, did she proceed.
That was the behavior that most strongly clarified to me what a great woman she was and relieved most of the concerns I had about their future as a couple and as a family. I saw that she understood just how important this all was and she was completely taking care of it.
The reason I’m mentioning it in this thread is because I DID have concerns and I think they were reasonable. (As did she!) But it wasn’t because I somehow thought she was “less” than my brother or anyone else. And I’m sure my sister-in-law’s concerns weren’t because she thought my brother was “less” either. Although I’m sure the fact that he was 46 and never married meant something as well. Just a different something.
I’m probably going to be quoting your last point, davidson, to my kids, if you don’t mind. We all need to learn that, don’t we?
Here is another side of the coin so to speak. What if a girl was dating a young man who has three kids and was a widower? Would our thoughts be different because of him being widowed instead of divorced? How would our thinking be altered then? I do think we do put labels on people and the worse is divorced. Would a set of parents feel kinder to a man who lost his wife to death than one who divorced or would it be the same. Sure makes me wonder.
Nana, I appreciate your point and I think it’s something to consider. However, I also think it’s comparing apples and oranges. There is a lot more to deal with if you marry someone who is divorced, and especially if they have children (namely, the ex is still living and will also be a part of your life if there are children involved). For me, it’s not that being widowed makes someone more worthy than someone who’s been divorced, it just adds additional challenges.
If you marry someone who is widowed with 3 kids, absolutely there is a lot to learn. Your parenting is probably going to be different than their mom/dad’s was, and any time there are children in the equation it complicates matters – not necessarily in a bad way, but it is an additional thing to work through. In a divorce you have all that PLUS dealing with an ex, who may or may not be in a friendly situation with your new spouse (i.e. there may be custody batttles, court trials, child support going to his “first” family after you have kids with your new spouse, etc.). It’s a lot to consider.
I would never call someone who is divorced, widowed, or for that matter who was raising a child out of wedlock as “used goods”. But we have to be honest in admitting that these situations bring challenges that your run-of-the-mill relationship may not. That will take work and not everyone is willing to put in the effort. Just my two cents.
I agree with Angie. All other things being equal, yes, being widowed is very different from being divorced. Being divorced means something. Sometimes it means that one person is a complete, total victim. But I’d guess in most cases it means more. In my mom’s case it was bad judgment of youth to marry someone whose walk didn’t match his talk. Sometimes it means stupid decisions, sometimes mistakes, sometimes sin, sometimes selfishness. Obviously it varies, but in all cases it’s a complication to some extent.
But widowhood also presents challenges that not everyone wants to deal with. Adding children to the mix ALWAYS changes EVERYTHING.
As for the widowed, this is particularly an issue for those who are LDS, what with the sealing issues and all. For example, a woman in my ward in Eagle Mountain was married in the temple. A few months after he wedding, her new husband was killed in a bullet bike accident. Within a couple of months, she was gone serving a mission. When she returned she remarried a great, worthy, returned missionary. Because she refused to break the sealing with first husband, she was only allowed to marry her second husband (never married) for time.
This is a great girl and I was so glad she could be married to a great guy. But I have to admit, had I been the boys mother, I’m not sure how thrilled I’d be to have him kind of on the outside looking in.
The bottom line is life experiences and circumstances influence relationships. Period. Understanding the atonement doesn’t require us to ignore those influences. Honestly, I could never have married a guy who had lived for a period of time as a homosexual or a drug dealer or had been to prison. Even if he’d repented and was clean before God. That isn’t a declaration of final judgment, it’s just an acknowledgment of the kinds of issues I’m simply not willing to put my entire future on the line for. Some people can’t/won’t deal with the ramifications of past marriages and children. Some can’t deal with physical disability or illness. Some can’t deal with huge education disparities.
Theses situation bring challenges that others may not, in ADDITION to the typical, rub-of-the-mill challenges that everyone faces.
The bottom line is life experiences and circumstances influence relationships. Period.
Yup.
I always worried about marrying someone in the armed forces because I simply did not want that lifestyle and the stress it causes to move a family around constantly. If anything, people in the armed forces have character elements that are positive (willingness to sacrifice, etc). But that was a complicating factors I just didn’t want to introduce into my life.
Now, had I really found the right guy and he happened to be in the armed forces…. I can’t say what I would have done. But I always dreaded that possibility.
Anyway, just as another example of life experiences and circumstances that could complicate things.
Another example — I dated a guy whose dad was a full-on anti-Mormon apostate. While that wasn’t THE reason I didn’t marry him, it surely could have complicated our life with children and all. And it was something that was on the table in my mind — it affected our dating relationship even.
Anyway….
don’t know if you happened to see the progress that djinn and I made on my blog. Not that I don’t think we may have run-ins again, but I was glad to have stuck with it long enough that she would realize that I’m not personally out to get her, and would actually also open up a little about where she is coming from.
Yes, that was nice to see.
It’s interesting, however, to see her new handle (…jerk) on FMH and Mormon Matters. She really is more than a little unstable emotionally.
I think alot of this also has to do with our own personalities and what we’re WILLING to deal with or tolerate. Some things that bother some people, don’t bother other people.
Michelle’s post is a good example. She brought up the military lifestyle where one is likely to move every 3 years and the stress that would entail.
However, I grew up in the military, moved every three years and LOVED it! My mother loved it. I was happy to marry into the military and was SAD that we had to get out. Clearly, this isn’t a “right” or “wrong” issue– it’s a “what works for me” issue–a “what I’m willing to INVITE into my life” thing. To Michelle, the thought of moving often is something that she dreaded– it isn’t something she wanted. But some people LOVE moving around and having the opportunity to live in different places.
ALOT of women wouldn’t. Women tell me that all the time– “Aren’t you worried all the time? I don’t think I could handle that.”
And it’s a very legitimate concern.
I LOVED the military life, and was happy to marry Bill while he was in the Air force. But, I wouldn’t tolerate being married to someone in the Navy, who
was gone at sea for 6 months at a time, only to come home for a short while, then go back out. Uh-uh, no way. For me, it’s one thing to “go off to war” on the rare occasion that actually happens, or to go on a month long TDY once in a great while– or the standard 1 year separation tour to Korea or whatever. It’s a one time thing, then it’s done. But to CONTINUALLY be leaving for months and months at time, and that’s his regular job? No thanks! I’d be like “I love ya babe– but you either have to find yourself another job, or another girl. Pick one.” 🙂
See, I love being married to a cop, and would have been ok with it if he had indeed joined the military as he had origionally planned. I don’t think that I could have married the first boy that proposed to me (one of my best friends from Highschool) because he was a computer programmer! I think that his work stories would have been a little too, umm, blech! I love hearing the funny (sometimes dangerous) stories my hubby comes home with. But there are ladies out there who find a computer literate guy quite heart warming.
Its all in what your personal tastes are, and what you want for YOU! you can’t rely on others to tell you who is right or worng for you all the time.
I’d missed that.
Yeah, she’s unstable. But at least she admitted that and explained it a little. So often, it’s always all the other’s fault, and that just isn’t right.
I think sometimes, too, she tests people — I sense she has major trust issues.
Sometimes ya just wanna go find a person like that and just hug them, so they can know not everyone is out to get them.
Really, I did. When I first read this post, I knelt by my bed and thanked God for caring friends who are willing to look closely at difficult issues with me. I have been quiet, not because I was offended, but because I needed to think before I responded (and I needed a few minutes at the computer when I could be uninterrupted, which is a little hard to come by.)
“But all that said, I really don’t think that the attitudes you faced necessarily mean that people don’t believe in the atonement. I really, really don’t. Even when they are put to ME.”
I wanted to comment on your statement, Alison, and try to explain how I feel. The Atonement is all about chances: chances to change, chances to be clean, chances for sins to be forgiven and forgotten, chances to move forward. In fact, one of the conditions for acceptance of the gift of the Atonement is the covenant to try to be just as forgiving, just as hopeful and helpful, just as merciful to others as He has been to you, or your own forgiveness becomes null and void. Who are the sinners? All of us, in one way or another. Whose sins need to be forgiven and forgotten? All of ours, in one way or another. I guess what I objected to was being labeled, “NOT WORTHY OF A CHANCE.” We are talking about parents who were not even willing to MEET me–or at least sons who perceived that their parents were not even willing to meet me, because of my circumstances and their preferences. I am not my circumstances. The preference to not give a person even a CHANCE to prove himself is the antithesis of the Atonement. Mercy for me, justice for you. I am worthy of a second chance; you are not. Can people who feel that way truly believe in and accept the Atonement? Isn’t it blind prejudice, the kind of prejudice that wounded you when you learned that there are people who are unwilling to adopt a child with red hair, sight unseen? Or the kind of blind prejudice that deems a black man unworthy simply because his skin is a different color, regardless of his qualifications? It is the whole Green Eggs and Ham thing. We are adamant in our vocalization of our dislikes, certain that we won’t be able to tolerate a thing, because we have never given it a chance. And only the few who do learn that there is a whole likeable world out there beyond their prejudices. Why this fear of complications? We avoid certain paths because we think they would be “more complicated”–but where is there a guarantee that other choices will be less complicated? Why this mad dash away from “complications”? This automatic shunning of the growth that comes from choosing a more challenging path? I remember studying inertia in high school. An object naturally follows the path of least resistance–and accomplishes nothing. This avoidance of complications just might prevent us from having the best experiences of our lives. What a pity, to go through mortality fearful and inert.
That’s a good point. We have to be careful of making sweeping judgments of entire groups of people. I also think, as parents, we need to be aware of where or when we *might* unknowingly give that impression to our children. I was afraid, and almost certain, that my parents would disown me when I was baptized. I knew that the life and religion I was choosing was 100% contrary to many things they taught me and directly in opposition to the lifestyle of my brother(whom they believed had no choice). But in the end, I had to do what I knew was right, even if it meant being separated for a time form my earthly parents, so I went through with it. . . and found that I had horribly misjudged my parents. Of course their love for me was unconditional. They *were* deeply hurt by my decision, but with time (and grandkids :wink:), they have come to accept what is good about our religion and ignore what bugs them. I think it is possible that many young adults have those misconceptions of things they are SURE their parents would disapprove of, when actually, their parents might be just fine or just concerned.
That sounds like a great FHE. . . I’m going to add that to my list.
That’s an interesting thought. We do need challenges to grow, but I don’t know that there is an immediate problem with saying “this is not something I am willing to deal with”. . . it’s far better than choosing to enter a difficult situation and whining all the way through it or using that same thing as an excuse for divorce later.
Serena, I am sorry for the experiences you had following your divorce. I am sure that there were (and still are) people who do not go out looking for this kind of challenge. It sounds like how they handled it was not the most Christlike way. However, the fact that you even got to the point with them that meeting the parents would be option tells me that the men themselves were at least willing to consider the possibilities by dating you. Whether their parents would have accepted you or not may have been a mis-perception on their part, or it could have just been an excuse because they had other concerns with the relationship. I know from experience that there are lots of men out there who are willing to take on this kind of responsibility in their lives, it’s just finding the right one. You apparently found one of those men in your husband. If I remember correctly, he knew you before your marriage, which was probably helpful in him giving you a chance post-divorce.
I have a cousin who married a girl with a baby. She was not in a relationship with the birth father for very long, and by the time she delivered he was not a part of her life at all. The baby was a few months old when she met my cousin. I’m sure there were some hesitations on his part at first, as he was just home from a mission and taking on a wife and immediate child can be overwhelming, I’m sure. But he loved her and was up for the challenge, they were able to marry in the temple and he has since adopted her daughter and they’ve had 4 more children. For my aunt and uncle, I’m sure they didn’t see it as an ideal situation at first, but they were supportive. Sometimes we think that our parents will react much differently than they really will. I learned this at a time in my life when things were really hard, and I told my parents some things that I thought they would “flip their lid” over. But they didn’t. I believe the spirit works in people to help them react to situations that may be outside the norm.
I have another cousin who had a child out of wedlock and was raising her on her own. Again, she met someone who loved and accepted her and her child and was able to take her to the temple.
My point being that it’s hard to judge how others will respond.
You make a point about avoiding the challenges in life. I’ll have to think on that one more – but my initial response is to say that isn’t that what the whole point of many of the commandments – to avoid the challenges (consequences) that not obeying them brings? We teach our children to obey the word of wisdom, because we don’t want them to invite the challenges of addiction or poor health choices. We teach our children to obey the law of chastity so that they don’t invite the challenges of teenage pregnancy, guilt, STD’s, jumping in to the wrong relationship too soon, etc. We teach our children to obey the laws of the land (wear your seatbelt, look both ways before crossing the street, use your helmet, obey road rules, etc.) because we don’t want to invite the challenges of losing a life, becoming maimed, or becoming injured or injuring someone else. So what if our kids disobey and do these things? We love them and forgive them, but there is still a consequence. Some things cannot be taken back. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the atonement for people who have repented.
While I was in the shower a minute ago, I did more thinking about this (I do my best thinking in the shower). 🙂
If my child brought home someone who had been divorced with a child, would my concerns be spiritual, or would they be practical? For me, I can’t think of a scenario where it would be anything other than practical.
Anytime a child is in a relationship, you are going to have spiritual concerns: Is this person someone who will bring out the best in my child? Will they be able to take my child to the temple? Are they going to keep the law of chastity? Will they raise my grandchildren in the gospel? Is this the best eternal mate for my child?
These are things I would worry about whether it was a general authority’s returned missionary daughter or the town floosy who had 3 children from 3 different men. I think it’s a natural thing for parents to think about and be concerned about these kind of things.
My concerns with someone who had been divorced or widowed (especially if they had children) would be practical concerns: How is my child going to financially shoulder these new responsibilities? How is my child going to respond emotionally when there are custody battles? How about when the children say, “I don’t have to listen to you – you’re not my dad!”? What about when my child is compared to the previous spouse – can he handle that? How is this new couple going to get to know each other as newlyweds with children around all the time?
Speaking for myself, and I think most people – I will leave the spiritual side (i.e. atonement) to the individuals and the Lord. If there was sin or poor judgement involved in the divorce, I trust that my child knows enough to be sure those things are taken care of before marriage. But the practical concerns are no small thing – they are things that will have to be dealt with from day one and probably through the entire marriage. You want to be sure as a parent that your child is ready to face that.
Thoughtful responses, both of you, and I appreciate your taking time to post. What good friends you are.
I think, Angie, that we teach our children to avoid challenges that have consistently PROVEN to be negative. I have never heard a person say, “I’m so glad I started smoking; best thing I ever did”–and the warning we give children about avoiding smoking is therefore justified, to my way of thinking. We teach our children to avoid illicit sex because (a) it could be harmful to their health or the health of another, and (b) the Lord has declared it to be sin. Even if it weren’t potentially harmful to their health, it is still sin, and we are justified in teaching our children to avoid sin.
There WAS a law that declared it adultery to marry a woman who had been married previously, but that is a higher law for a more perfected world. Marrying a divorced person is not considered adultery by our Redeemer here and now; if it were, no divorced person would be able to enter into the temple and be sealed to another. Certainly it is true that there is the possibility that marrying a person who has failed at marriage before could constitute failure of a future marriage, if the person learned nothing from the failure. My observation has been so different. I pay close attention to people who are marrying for a second time. I watch their marriages. Particularly in the Church, a previous failed marriage seems to provide strong incentive to have not just a good marriage, but an excellent marriage-right, Alison? Divorced people in the Church try harder the second time around, it seems to me. They are painfully aware of what unbridled choices can bring, and they appreciate more the value of a good marriage, since they have something to contrast it with. They work harder at it. Is it faithful or faithless, then, to teach our children to avoid being involved with people in challenging situations? Maybe they are the very people who will try harder and do better, because their experiences have taught them painful, dearly-held lessons. We learned, in all of our challenges, that the people who were the MOST compassionate with us in the Church were the people who had been through very painful things themselves. We can’t fault people for not having the wisdom that comes with difficult experience, but we can’t automatically hold them up as better choices for marriage, either. Inexperience can mean more disastrous consequences than difficult experience, possibly.
And the divorced-with-children thing. Such a challenge. Such a complication. But I have seen it be such a blessing. There is an exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally spiritual young lady in our ward who stands up frequently to bear her testimony. Their family was broken apart by ugly betrayals. She is now the step-daughter to a wonderful man, and although she loves her biological father, she lives with and loves and reveres her stepfather. She speaks often of how he has blessed her life, and he speaks often of how she has blessed his. He is a perfect father for her, and her difficult experiences at a young age have given her a real appreciation for a good and faithful and committed father in the home. It is heavenly there. What if he had said, “Nope, I’m not marrying your mom. Not taking on her five kids; I have six of my own. Too much of a risk. Too challenging. Too complicated.” He would have prevented the deeply satisfying, meaningful relationship he has with his stepdaughter and her brothers and sisters now, not to mention the eternal relationship he has with a wonderful wife, who just happens to be our Relief Society president. She is so compassionate, something she might not have been if she hadn’t known difficulty.
What if Joseph had said to Mary, “Nope, you come with too much baggage. Have your kid on your own. I’m outta here.” I think the Spirit guides willing people to look past the challenges and difficulties and complications and see great possibilities. I wonder who Jesus would have been without a Joseph in his life. If ever there were an underpraised, undersung hero, it is Joseph. Although He was the son of God, the scriptures convey the idea that Jesus was still in need of teaching and training. It was Joseph who taught Him to be the man He was, although He had great natural ability. I hope one day we know Joseph better.
I am so grateful for my own Joseph, who took the risk and loved me. I am grateful he loved and adopted my baby. Things aren’t perfect for us, but it is the nearest thing to heaven that I know. I am content.
I don’t really teach my children either way in that regard. I would never tell my child “don’t marry that divorced person. Divorced people are bad! They are used goods!”, because I don’t believe that AT ALL. Some divorced people are jerks, some married people are jerks, some divorced women are stupid about how they handle their lives, and so are some never-married women, etc. etc. On the other hand, I also don’t say, “Make sure you marry someone who is divorced with children because they will have gone through things that taught them a good lesson and they will work harder on this marriage because of it” either. I teach them to make wise dating decisions and marry someone who is worthy to take them to the temple. That doesn’t mean they were necessarily ALWAYS worthy, but they are at that point. Marry someone who can help you reach your eternal potential. That could be someone who has been married or someone who has not – it mattereth not to me whatsoever as long as what they are at that point in time is someone who is a good match for my child in all regards.
I have no problem with my child being involved in a “challenging” situation. I only want them to be aware and for other people to realize that extra challenges are just that: extra challenges. Marriage is challenging enough without the “extra” part. I’m not saying in the least that you can’t get through those challenges, only that you need to be honest with yourself in apprising your own situation and if you can handle it or not. Every situation is going to be different. It is my hunch (and just a hunch) that these men you are speaking of realized that they would be taking on a lot should they get involved with you, and they, as individuals, were not up to the task. It doesn’t mean they didn’t think you were a worthy person necessarily, just that there are circumstances there which are a little more to deal with. Not everyone can come in and raise someone else’s child, especially if there is an ex involved, and in my opinion they shouldn’t be faulted for that. They are being honest in admitting it’s not something they can handle.
As for people who have gone through things being more enlightened – well, I’m not sure I believe that has to be case. I think it can be the case, but isn’t necessarily. The person who has gone through “stuff” (for lack of a better word) might have a different perspective, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a better one.
I used to hear that argument a lot, especially in regards to word of wisdom choices. For example, I had a friend in high school who’s brother had been a drug user and then got cleaned up and went on a mission. The “you are going to be such a better missionary because of what you have gone through than someone who doesn’t understand” comments were endless, and incorrect I believe. He was not necessarily going to be a better or a worse missonary because of what he’d been through – what kind of missionary he was going to be was up to how he acted from that point on. In his case, he wasn’t a great missionary. Certainly not any better than the elder who had never kissed a girl or taken a sip of alcohol. Some people might overcome challenges and come out better for it, others may not, but it’s all in how you have learned from your experiences. There doesn’t have to be big challenges in your life to be empathic or understanding towards others.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to italicize that whole thing, but I can’t see how to fix it now…sorry.
davidson,
fwiw, my parents had seen someone go through this situation I was in and almost lose their marriage. So I suppose that was some of what they were bringing to their thoughts.
I don’t think it’s faithless, though, to consider potential challenges. As I mentioned earlier, Pres. Kimball has been criticized for giving recommendations about race and religion similarities in marriage…I think he was just acknowledging that marriage will be difficult, and that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing to want to minimize complicating factors.
I don’t think this justifies parents not even considering to meet a potential mate who might have been married first. I felt my parents were a little too abrupt with this whole reaction, to be honest, and I wanted the support enough to be able to have marrying this guy be an option. I didn’t always feel that, and that was hard. And so I understand a little of what you are saying, and agree that sometimes there are harsh and hasty judgments about those who have been married before. They had dreams for their little girl, they did.
But I’ll be honest. Had I married him, my life would have been very, very hard. He had three children. None in the church now. One took his own life. Would I have been able to have my own children with him…he was a decade older and his kids were only a decade younger than I? And I really do think there was some inspiration on my parents’ part. My patriarchal blessing told me to seek their counsel, and when I met my hubby, they felt right about it immediately. What can I say except that this was right, and that other situation wasn’t. (But there were plenty of other relationships that weren’t right for me either.)
Anyway, I think it’s important to be able to recognize that divorced or widowed people can be amazing spouses and parents, and we should not lump them all together. But I also don’t think there is something wrong in helping our children approach this decision of marriage (or career, or whatever) with their eyes wide open to the facts, so that they enter into whatever situation they choose with knowledge, and not just emotion. I don’t see teaching the practical with the spiritual as faithless, because in the end, we can still teach them to, above all, follow the Spirit. To me, that is all part of studying it out in the mind, which we are counseled to do.
I think we can celebrate those who have chosen situations like yours and made their home a little bit of heaven without having to say that it’s less righteous or faithful to want a first marriage with a spouse, or to consider with reasonableness that second marriages do bring unique challenges. That doesn’t mean they are BAD. But if my child were to consider such a marriage, I would not hesitate, unless the Spirit prompted me otherwise, to help that child recognize that there are unique challenges to such a situation.
In the end, though, I want them to learn to go to God to make decisions, and part of that, again, is to really be open to facts about situations, unless the Spirit just says go forward regardless (ours would be one of those marriages…engaged within a week. We will not recommend such a path to our children, and I think such a path is an exception. The general counsel is to study things out, to give it some time, to try out the relationship.
That’s what I’ll teach my kids…and there is plenty I will encourage them to think through. I don’t see that as faithless at all, but part of faithful choice making.
That doesn’t diminish at all the blessing of your marriage in my mind. But I imagine your husband didn’t go into this relationship blindly. And maybe he was just the right person to do it, and others weren’t. Who knows?
You and I are totally in agreement about that–“what kind of missionary he was going to be was up to how he acted from that point on.”. It really is a risk to marry a person who is divorced. It really is a risk to marry a person who isn’t divorced; in fact, one who has never been married. The risk isn’t in the divorce or lack of divorce; the risk is in the person you marry, who may or may not be a wonderful mate, and there is no way to determine that in advance. My only objections are to rejecting possibilities for good at the outset, and believing that the only worthy mate is one who has always been perfectly obedient and unscathed. We are silly to think we are safe marrying a person who has never been divorced, as opposed to a person who has been divorced. There is no safety in the unknown, period. A person who is suitable to marry before marriage can become a person who is unsuitable to marry after marriage because of poor choices made. There are no guarantees. Certainly we pray before we marry to know if it is a good choice we’ve made, and perhaps, at that particular time, it is. Just last week our wonderful new Relief Society president told us, in rather frank, uncomfortable detail, how she had married the man of her dreams in the temple after careful consideration and prayer and approval from her Heavenly Father, and how they had five wonderful children together. We knew them at that point in their lives, and we knew that they were considered an ideal family. Then the husband an affair with a woman in our ward whom he was assigned to fellowship and hometeach. His wife begged and pleaded with him to do whatever he needed to do to save their eternal marriage, and he informed her that he wasn’t interested in saving their eternal marriage; he wanted to be with the other woman. He was the ward clerk at the time, and I remember seeing him leave his seat on the stand, right in the middle of our Sacrament meeting, to do his “hometeaching.” The other woman was pregnant with his baby. It shook us all. Did the Lord know he was going to have an affair? Yes. Did He warn His beloved daughter that it would happen, and tell her that she therefore shouldn’t marry him in the first place? No. Did he prepare a second husband who was going to make her gloriously happy, and is she a better Relief Society president because she had lived through tough things herself? Yes. “Then learned (she) obedience by the things which she suffered.” We forget, sometimes, that the MAIN PURPOSE for our being here is to be tested and tried. Of course He wouldn’t shield us from the testing. It would nullify His purposes. And the Doctrine and Covenants tells us Christ himself went through the difficult things He went through SPECIFICALLY SO HE WOULD KNOW how to succor us in our weaknesses. He willingly took on misery for the sole purpose of gaining empathy. His assignment was different than ours; we don’t purposely seek misery. But we can recognize the phoenix rising from the ashes of misery, ours or that belonging to another whom we love. A person who has gone through difficult things may not emerge empathetic–but if a severe trial wouldn’t make him or her empathetic, nothing would. Then there are the wonderful, blessed souls who would be empathetic without any trial whatsoever; that is their gift. My point in saying what I said is that divorced people have certainly been given the brutal opportunity to rethink their ideas about marriage and decide what they should or should not do differently. People who have been badly burned have much more incentive to be careful with fire than those who have never felt that particular kind of pain. I am just saying I wouldn’t dismiss them out of hand. They may have learned their lessons especially well BECAUSE they chose to learn them the hard way.
Davidson said:
Agreed. I don’t think anyone here is saying that you should dismiss the divorced out of hand, or that your mate has to be perfect. Heaven knows none of us are.
Michelle, I liked the way you said what you did. Those are my thoughts as well.
Michelle, you posted while I was posting. Thank you for your response.
What will I tell my son or daughter if he or she wants to marry a person who is divorced, with or without children? I will tell him or her to do the homework. I will tell them to look at all the angles of the situation carefully, and I will try not to sway the outcome. I WILL suggest that his decisions be merciful, that he might ultimately obtain mercy for himself. Our Lord has asked us to do that. I will suggest that he not underestimate his abilities and decide prematurely that he would not be able handle a specific difficulty. My experience is that we handle difficulties when they come to us, whether we wanted them or not, whether we think we could or not. We aren’t the best judges of that, and we sometimes cheat ourselves of wonderful experiences through faithless fear.
Most of all, I would tell him that each of us comes to earth with a specific assignment that no one else can fill. I would tell him to ask the Father specifically, “Is this my assignment? Is this what Thou wouldst have me do?”–and then be willing to follow the answer he gets, regardless of what others, including his parents, think. The very worries we have for our children, born of love, may prevent them from following the path they were meant to take. How hard it must have been for Mary when the prophet Simeon told her, “A sword will pierce thine own heart also,” confronting her with the reality of the mission her son would perform. We should love them and protect them, but we must not stand in the way of any premortal assignments.
“Sometimes ya just wanna go find a person like that and just hug them, so they can know not everyone is out to get them.”
That’s a lot of what I try to do at FMH, mixed in with all of my corrections. *grin*
Oh, dear, nerds are much more than just heart-warming. 😎
I’m sure that could have been true. I’d bet, more often than not though that the guys were scapegoating their folks. It’s likely that THEY didn’t want to marry a divorced mom and it was easier to lay that on their parents.
I guess I don’t know what there is to “prove” on a issue like this, because I don’t think it’s about YOU. It’s about them and what they are looking for.
What I’m trying to get at is that we ALL have criteria for those we married. Right? I mean you didn’t just say, “Any guy who asks!!!” right? For example, did you want a guy who was temple worthy? Why didn’t you give someone not temple-worthy a “chance to prove himself”? In my case, I decided when I was really young that I would ONLY get married in the temple. There wasn’t any way for any guy with a different goal to change my mind.
I would guess MOST people (particularly those who had never married) would PREFER to marry someone on equal footing in that department. My dad, for example, didn’t go out looking for a divorcee. What he did was find a woman who made him reconsider what he already had in his mind. Her particular qualities OVERCAME his original idea to marry someone who also had never married. I really don’t think that kind of judgment is wrong–even if he had decided otherwise.
Like I said, if we have any criteria at ALL for marriage, looking at one’s past relationships and children would be a HUGE thing to look at.
No, I don’t. I don’t believe that looking at something I have zero control over (like skin color, hair color, etc.) is the same as looking at my past BEHAVIOR and situation. But even then, people DO look at physical appearance when choosing a mate.
Often the parents’ concern is that the children do NOT know enough! They are so swept up in the romance and fantasy that they do NOT look seriously at the actual issues involved. I have a handful of divorced friends who would tell you almost exactly the same thing. 😥 Listen to Dr. Laura for a couple of days and you’ll hear the same things repeated over and over ad naseum. The situations involving step-families are sadly predictable and yet no one seems to have thought through them before the wedding.
I’m not sure what your exact question is, davidson. Statistically second marriage fail at a greater rate than first marriages.
Well, I think he kind of did…until an angel explained the situation–which was unique in the history of the world. Jesse Jackson once equated Mary to single mothers, and I’m really uncomfortable with that.
I think SOMETIMES the Spirit does so. Sometimes the Spirit says, “keep looking.” Sometimes, “not a good match.” Sometimes, “Run!!!”
Well said, Michelle.
Taking an extreme point of view, such as “the only worthy mate is one who has always been perfectly obedient and unscathed” is a straw man. No one suggested any such thing, particularly about “worthiness.”
Marriage is a choice that includes all sorts of subjective judgment. While it’s true that there is no perfect way to determine who will be the best spouse “in advance” there are reasonable issues to consider. It is true that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. It is true that those with prior marriages divorce more often. It is true that bringing children into new marriages is a huge stress on both the children and the spouses. As we’ve discussed, there are LOTS of things that bring stresses. Religious commitment, lifestyle choices, culture, education, etc.
It would be stupid NOT to consider as many of those issues as we can. If you are going to deal with a KNOWN difficulty, you might as well acknowledge up front that it exists and consciously determine if you can deal with it appropriately.
Maybe the important question is to ask you what YOU think other’s could reasonably think about in choosing a potential spouse?
LOL! Amen, Alison. :bigsmile:
I’m sure that could have been true. I’d bet, more often than not though that the guys were scapegoating their folks. It’s likely that THEY didn’t want to marry a divorced mom and it was easier to lay that on their parents.
I wondered about this being a possibility. I think I actually scapegoated the Spirit a couple of times (I had many close-but-not-quite dating situations in my decade of dating)…where *I* didn’t really like the guy enough to marry him, and maybe I didn’t feel right about it because I, myself, didn’t feel right about it.
But then again, the contrast between what I felt with my hubby was so stark…. I dunno.
I also can’t help but wonder if parents in some situations may have their reasons. Parents *can* receive revelation for their children, even grown children. I think my parents, even as they may have overreacted a bit, may have also been trying to give reasons for their feelings which were spiritual, too. ?? I dunno. I see lots of things that could come into play even from a parent’s’ point of view. (Having talked to my aunt who married a divorced guy with kids, it almost was more than she could take, and I think my mom knew that. To generalize her experience was probably wrong, but I can’t blame my mom for her reaction given her limited but negative experience, ya know?)
dear davidson, I don’t think that anyone agrees with dismissing divorced people out of hand. And I hope you don’t feel dismissed here AT ALL in the discussion. This is a tender topic, and I hope we haven’t tread in a place that just hurts too much for you personally!
Please don’t misunderstand attempts at trying to address (from people who haven’t fully and personally experienced what you have) what seem to be reasonable things to address as personal toward you or your situation or your worth…or dismissive of your pain. Divorce, esp in the church DOES have a stigma, and it’s important to acknowedge THAT too. Our leaders, imo, are trying to help curb that problem in our culture.
But I don’t see this discussion as going to that place. Or to deny the power of faith in marriage and trials, or any of the other things you have said about the fact that all marriages will have their trials. And no one can predict all that the future will hold.
But one can go in with knowledge. To fully own one’s choice, one has to have knowledge. I have friends going through a lot of pain because they went into marriage either not fully realizing what issues their spouse brought, or not really feeling secure in their spouse’s decision to choose to marry THEM. I wouldn’t want anyone I care about to have someone choose him/her as a partner only half-cocked, or not really knowing what kinds of particular challenges one might have, or not being committed in spite of whatever quirks might be there. For example, I needed my hubby to know I struggle with some OCD. I needed to know he accepted my quirkinesses and chose me anyway. The support he has given me with that particular trial has meant a lot. Had he been in denial about the reality that OCD can bring some stress to a relationship, he wouldn’t have done me or himself or our relationship any favors.
Now, I’m not equating divorce with mental illness. But divorce does have some predictable things that are, imo, reasonable to address. Were I divorced with children, I would need the absolute assurance that the man I married realized that my life has its own quirkiness. I think marriage partners deserve as much safety and reassurance and conscious commitment from the get-go as possible.
For example, using my past boyfriend as an example, if I hadn’t considered things like, “So your dad is an apostate. What does that mean to you? How would that affect our future family if we got married?” I think I would have only invited more stress and frustration in the future had we married.
In reality, we all have baggage, whether we know it or not. We all bring challenges and quirkiness to a marriage. I think those who can go into marriage with as much knowledge as possible are all the more better off, and in my view, are making decisions that can be more anchored when times get hard, as they inevitably will. To not ask such questions imo could only invite surprise and denial and frustration for both partners in the future. (e.g., “But I didn’t really THINK about the fact that your dad being an apostate would affect family parties! Or that he would send letters to our sons in the MTC telling them how evil the Church is (he did this to his own children).
Had it been right to marry him (he was a great guy and I actually loved his family) I was ready to face this kind of stuff. But not considering that stuff in my decision wouldn’t have done either of us any good.
Don’t know if that helps clarify any of my particular thoughts, or only muddies the discussion. Again, I hope you can separate out the discussion of issues in a sort of rational way from your specific, personal pain that you experienced because of how you felt you judged and cast aside because of your divorce. That is NOT what is happening here. You are loved!
Well, I think he [Joseph] kind of did…until an angel explained the situation–which was unique in the history of the world.
And, in fact, the scriptures say that he was going to ‘put her away privily.’ He was, in essence, going to divorce her, until the angel told him to do something different.
Maybe there is support in that story for both sides of this issue? Practical or logical concerns (but she’s PREGNANT!) will sometimes give way to direction from God (and frankly, since we are all imperfect, at some point, they must, and all marriages will require faith to some degree). But Joseph wasn’t a bad person for considering the situation, and heading in the direction of avoiding what appeared to his mind something really difficult.
(He showed his kindness, though, by how he was going to approach it — without fanfare, gently and kindly in a way that would minimize Mary’s pain as much as possible.)
Hm. Methinks there can be much to learn from that story.
Thanks, Michelle, for your thoughtful comments and your understanding.
Thanks, too, Alison, for looking at the issue so carefully. I have come to understand that you pose questions in order to invite careful thought, not to belittle or antagonize, and I love you for that. In response to your question, I think I’ve answered it already. What question would I ask? The only important question, posed to the Father, would be, “Is this the path I should take, the work Thou hast specifically for me?” Because really, we can’t verify the answers to the types of questions you suggest we ask in contemplating marrying a divorcee, with or without children. The questions might include things like, “Would I be able to deal with this person’s past? Would I be able to raise children who don’t belong to me? Would they accept me? Would I be able to handle discipline? Would the spouse I am considering marrying repeat patterns of poor judgment? Will the ex-spouse take care of financial obligations, or will the lot fall to me? ” Any answers to those questions are merely guesses. We can ask all the questions we like, but the truth is, there aren’t accurate answers. Truth is, we DON’T KNOW in advance what we and others are actually capable of until they are given the opportunity to prove who they are and what they would do. I don’t like your statistic about second marriages because (a) it isn’t documented, 😉 and (b) it isn’t true, at least not for certain segments of the population–and actually the only segment of the population I’m concerned about in this discussion, the group of active LDS people who divorce, repent, remarry, and stay married, happily. A statistic quoted at lds.org says that active members of the church who marry and are temple-worthy have a much, much lower rate of divorce than the world at large–and I have to assume that “currently temple-worthy” trumps anything suspicious about a past. That’s why I speak about the Atonement in this discussion. There are many who believe IN Christ, but who don’t actually BELIEVE Christ, when He says we can change our lives, become new beings. To determine that someone is not a suitable candidate for marriage because of past poor choices and the likelihood of repeating them is to deny the efficacy of the Atonement–at least for some. Will divorcees who remarry divorce again? Maybe. Will divorcees who repent and remarry divorce again? Maybe. But maybe not. There can’t be a statistic because a statistic can’t prove whether a person has sincerely repented or not. A person who divorces and then sincerely repents of attitudes that led to divorce in the first place will not divorce again, at least not by his own choosing. His repentance reaches far into the future; his forgiveness is pending and hinges on what he chooses to do for the remainder of his life. No one is more poignantly aware of that than he is. Divorcees who sincerely repent develop a life-long belief that two people can do ANYTHING if one of them is God, and they go about MAKING their marriages work. It is a hard task, but incredibly satisfying.
Your second-marriage statistic belies what I’ve seen by simple observation. Perhaps your experience is different, but the dozens of LDS couples I know who are married a second time have stayed married, and they are happy. They have successfully navigated the challenges of adding children who are not their own. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t difficult. They’ve dealt with all the other issues. Honestly, among the dozens, I can think of only two couples who divorced a second time–and I don’t know the details, so I can’t with confidence say what the causes were.
We disagree on another point. Certainly Mary was a single mother, at least AS FAR AS WE KNOW. She was unwed at the time of conception, and she agreed to the conditions that brought about that conception prior to her marriage. She was betrothed, a binding legal arrangement of that day, but betrothed is not married. The angel announced to her that soon she would be with child, and she clearly stated, “Be it unto me according to thy word.” At that point, she didn’t know how the conception would be accomplished; she just agreed to it. If she had said, “No, thank you,” I doubt the angel would have chased her down and insisted. If there is one principle our God is firmly committed to, it’s agency. The huge difference between her and other unwed mothers is that her pregnancy prior to marriage involved no sin. She was a virgin mother, and there is simply no comparable situation.
There is the burning question. In the resurrection, whose eternal wife will she be? Is she sealed to Joseph, or was she sealed to our Heavenly Father prior to her conception? Will she be another wife of His? That is a detail left out of the scriptural account. I have to wonder. It is a “Did-Adam-have-a-belly-button?” type of question–not necessary to know to accomplish our own salvation. I can’t help wondering about it, though. It just does not make sense that a divine being so firmly committed to raising children within the bonds of marriage would conceive a child outside the bonds of marriage, by the traditional method or not. Even Jesus was baptized to fulfill all righteousness, to set the perfect pattern for us, though He didn’t need it Himself. I wonder why this difference in the matter of marrying and having children. Certainly He has the right to be the divine exception–but it didn’t appear to be the case concerning the matter of baptism. They made quite a point of explaining that Jesus was baptized to “fulfill all righteousness.”
I have an inexplicable feeling that Mary is keenly aware of (and empathetic to) the plight of the single mother. How I would love to meet her one day and have the opportunity to affirm the beliefs I’ve had about her my whole life. I imagine her as gentle and thoughtful and kind and patient, full of love and encouragement, solid as a rock in her commitment to the gospel.
This is a personal opinion. I’ve actually never had much respect for the decision, “I can’t or won’t, because it would be HAARRR-ARRDDD!” Worthwhile things are often hard. OF COURSE it shows a certain degree of faithlessness to announce to yourself or others, “I can’t do that because it would be difficult, and I don’t like and/or won’t do difficult things, even worthwhile things.” They don’t actually BELIEVE that “two people can do anything if one of them is God.” Rodney Turner talked about it; he called it “eradicable dross (removable waste) in our characters, rather than any real functional deficiency.” I thought that was an instructional phrase. We say we can’t, but the truth is, we probably could, if we only would. We are talented excuse-makers. I wonder if they realize the irony of it, the people who sit across the desk from my husband or the stake president and tell them they can’t take a calling because they are too busy or would rather not. They are talking to the busiest people I know, and often these protesters have made exactly the same covenants the priesthood leaders have made. These are men who spend their hours and minutes in the Church doing things they really would rather not do, but for their love of God. I wonder how the priesthood leaders keep from laughing (or screaming) in frustration. Had to smile about the woman who told us she couldn’t help us move her things into another apartment because it “would hurt her back.” She wanted the ward members to do it, men and women. The day after my husband moved her couches and beds and appliances out of her house, his back was so sore he couldn’t stand up straight. The real servants in the kingdom are so quiet about their sacrifices, and so willing to make them. Just an observation.
I guess I’ve said what I had to say about this issue of marrying divorced people. We will probably continue to see things a little differently–and that’s okay. Thanks for your input.
Interesting thoughts about Mary, davidson.
I read your last paragraph and don’t think that people who choose not to marry divorced others should be judged too harshly, as though they are simply avoiding what is hard, as though they didn’t prayerfully get an answer that that situation wasn’t right for them. Or as though considering possible complicating factors (in any way)n is somehow always a sign of weakness or excuse-making. Maybe that is not what you are saying, but your comment could kind of be interpreted in that way, imo.
I continue to think that considering all factors is wise, not wimpy. And I think there is general counsel (prophetic and otherwise) to support that approach.
LOL I don’t think I ever did that, but if *I* didn’t like the guy, I’d have to have serious spiritual intervention to even consider it. 🙂
As for parents, I agree, Michelle. I dated a guy for years. Not exclusively, but consistently. My parents did NOT want me to marry him. They didn’t do anything drastic, but I knew what they thought. It wasn’t until he (finally) went on a mission (at 23–when I expressed firmly enough that I wasn’t going to marry him until/unless he went) that I had the emotional distance from him to see what a huge, massive mistake I had made. There are all sorts of reasons that being married to him would have been miserable for ME (manic depression not the least of the problems), but I couldn’t see that with him staring me in the face. My parents could.
Amen. It makes me no end crazy when people marry someone with children and then get all bent out of shape because the CHILD is complicating their lives. It’s almost as if they didn’t notice the child until after the wedding. And I’m thinking, “Yea, you married a guy with three kids. Did you think they’d disappear so you could sail off on your endless honeymoon?” or “Yea, there is an ex-wife with different house rules. Did you think she’d get your approval about how to raise her kids?” or “Yea, your husband has to take some of “your” money and give it to the kids he had before you came along. Did you think they’d support themselves?”
Absolutely. We ALL have a past. We all have issues. Finding a good match means, I think, finding someone who we fit well with EVEN WITH those things accounted for.
I guess you and look at things differently and that’s OK. For example, when I was in college, I didn’t look out over BYU campus and say, “Who should I marry?” (not saying you did, stick with me here). And when I was dating, I didn’t come home at night and pray about whether or not each guy was God’s path for me. I dated. I got to know people. I looked at issues and compatibility. *****IF**** I got along well with a guy, liked him and was attracted to him, he seemed compatible in the areas that were most important to me, we had fun together and liked being together, he was smart and interesting and engaging, he was a good, upstanding, returned missionary with similar life goals, AND he happened to be feeling the same things toward me AND things were getting to the point of maybe making a decision THEN I would ask for guidance about him. But long before I ever asked, I had already done some serious thinking, weeding out, etc. In other words, I’d already asked a bunch of the questions myself and made the best decisions I could.
Hopefully if there was a guy who was perfect for me and I really wasn’t interested, I would have listened to the Spirit. But, honestly, I think if God really wanted to direct my marriage specifically, he’d be more likely to help me FIND interest in “the one” (which is a concept I rarely believe in) than he would be to send an angel to say, “I know you don’t like him. Marry him anyway.”
No, we don’t have crystal balls, davidson. But we do have behavior. And it is indicative. If you marry a guy who used drugs, you’re more likely to be married to a drug addict than you are if you marry a guy who has never used. If you marry in the temple, you are more likely to die married in the temple than if you marry out of it.
You’re kidding, right? I assume that’s what your winky means, because it’s really well-documented. Church statistics are better in most arenas (of course, depending on your definition of “better”) but they follow the societal norms. Check the National Center for Health Statistics, for one source. Divorce after remarriage with children is higher than without (likely due to the exponentially greater “complications” involved.)
You’ve gotta be careful in reading statistics. Yes, those who marry in the temple (btw, I don’t assume that everyone who divorces needs to repent) divorce less than those who don’t. That isn’t the issue here. It’s whether or not those who marry in the temple AFTER A DIVORCE will divorce more than those who marry in the temple WITHOUT A DIVORCE. And SUBSEQUENT temple marriage still end MORE OFTEN the FIRST temple marriages do, statistically.
This may be true in SOME cases, but as both Michelle and I said, it’s the idea that someone using a criteria (in this case, previous marriage/children) to decide who is a good match is NECESSARILY an indication of ignoring the atonement is a canyon too far.
davidson, I understand this is personal to you, but it’s a principle that is important. If God expects us to make decisions that require judgment (and he DOES), then how do you think he intends we do it? How do you suggest that we do the work we are told to do BEFORE taking things to the Lord? You’ve basically said that since we can’t perfectly predict the future, we are WRONG to use the information before us to make reasonable decisions.
Do you wear a seatbelt? Why or why not? Do you bury your kids in the backyard? Why or why not? Do you leave open bottles of meds out by your grandchildren? Why or why not?
If you use experience, wisdom, and discernment to decide how to store medications, why in the heck would you NOT do so in deciding who to marry???
Yes, davidson, but can we agree that she wasn’t out screwing around with guys just because it felt good or because she wanted to feel loved?
Exactly. Which is why I’m more than a little uncomfortable equating her with the average single mother.
I think the real “plight” is with the children born to single mothers. I am one. Thankfully my single birth mother had the guts and compassion to give me a home.
As someone who’s trying to lose weight, this is an interesting statement. I have never seen you, davidson, but are you really fit and slim? Or do you look like the sad majority of us middle-age-ish moms of many kids?
I’m asking because I think it’s a simple example of what we’re talking about. Assuming that you aren’t as fit as you could be, why not? For most of us, it’s because being in shape is tough, and the older we get, the tougher it is. I’d guess about 99% of humans who are thin are those for whom thinness is genetically natural. There are so few people who are willing to do the hard work to be physically fit and healthy when their body naturally goes the other way–even though few of us would say it’s not the better path.
In my efforts, should I use what I can from the latest research to lose weight officially? Or should I use out-dated information? Should I get one of those hip-jiggler machines that was popular in the 60’s? I mean, that would be a REALLY HARD way to lose weight, right?
My point is that I rarely see “hard” as being intrinsically good. I ran a marathon because it was the hardest physical thing I could think of that was reasonably accessible to me–and doing something physically hard WAS a goal I had. Other than that, I can think of few areas in my life where “make it hard” was anywhere on my radar. And I certainly didn’t start looking for a spouse with the idea that “the harder the better” was a worthy goal.
I have undertaken to read difficult books. Not because I have a goal to read hard books, but because I wanted the information to be gained from the book, which happened to be a challenging read. I have learned new skills even when it meant losing sleep. I have done all sorts of things that were uncomfortable and challenging. But I didn’t do them BECAUSE they were hard. I did them because the value I saw in them was greater than the difficulty.
As I said with my dad, he wasn’t looking for “hard” either. My mom was just so great that EVEN WITH the divorce behind her (and the complications that brought to the relationship), she was THE BEST woman in the world for him. NOT the “hardest wife” in the world.
Michelle, I agree with the way you stated things in your third-to-last comment, including this to Davidson that I echo:
Your comment also included this:
I think that is an important aspect of this discussion – no matter what it is, everyone has baggage. Marriage is about learning to live together in love and harmony, and about learning to deal with the moments when there are differences of opinion and challenges and quirkinesses that can be perceived to threaten that love and harmony. Personally, I think understanding and accepting your own identity – as an individual and as a couple – makes it easier to strengthen your marriage.
Just a matter of clarification— but we’re talking about the mother of the Savior here and I think it’s important. There’s a big difference between a virgin mother and a single mother.
Mary was not a single mother. She was betrothed then married to a man who was chosen by God himself, to help her raise Christ from day one, and who very faithfully fulfilled the role of earthly father. She didn’t raise him alone or without a father, nor was she divorced, essentially raising the Lord on her own, with Joseph showing up every other weekend to take him to take him to a restaurant and a movie.
Heavenly Father knew EXACTLY what He was doing when he chose Joseph to raise His only Begotten Son.
(And if my last comment came across as abrupt, I’m sorry. I haven’t had a lot of time today and was in a hurry when I wrote it.)
Face, thank you for saying that. I think Mary is as far from being a single mother as anyone could be. In the literal sense she may have been single at conception, but as you say, Joseph was with her from the beginning. Not only that, but she also had her Father in heaven parenting with her as well.
Stats aren’t the only thing, by any stretch, but they are important. Below are the latest stats of which I am aware about Mormon divorce rates, along with my commentary. They don’t apply directly to second marriages, since I haven’t found stats on Mormon second marriages, but I think they make the point that stats are important to consider when they show a radical change in future results. The following results are relevant to the question, “Should I marry a non-Mormon?” Again, they don’t mean it’s NEVER right, but they definitely mean it’s not a good idea without direct and certain revelation – and that there is an inherent risk even then.
Should I site stats to say that nobody ever should marry a non-member? No. Sometimes it works and becomes a temple marriage. Should I site stats to say that marrying a non-member usually doesn’t produce a temple marriage – so everybody should be very careful and prayerful about doing so, recognizing that the deck is stacked HEAVILY against it working and turning into a temple marriage? Yes. It usually fails – and I can say that because I have seen the stats.
:brokenheart:
daivdson, I hope that emoticon doesn’t represent how you actually feel. If so, :brokenheart:
davidson, I, too, am sorry if you feel that way.
davidson, we haven’t had a lot of discussion, but the same thing keeps happening here and I’m saying this because I really hope to help. I’ll apologize before I say it if I need to because I’m really trying to help.
I see these posts on interesting and challenging subjects come up and you post very strong opinions. This is a good site for strong opinions and I don’t have a prolbem with that at all. But when someone else has a strong opinion that is different lots of times you really don’t seem to listen to what is said you just say the same thing and then do the “you hurt my feelings” thing.
I think it’s good to have opinions, but nobody was mean to you. Nobody attacked you. They just expressed their opinions clearly. mlinford and Allison just discussed things like statistics and you don’t like them because they don’t support you. Nobody put you down. Why is your heart broken? Because second marriages really do end more than first ones?
I guess I think the playing victim thing makes it hard to have a conversation. You aren’t a victim. If you have something to say that shows your point or that shows other points are wrong, say so. If you don’t maybe you can accept what is true or make some other point. But as someone who mostly reads on this site it is frustrating to see this over and over again. Interesting conversation going on, I’m learning a lot, oh but now it has to stop because someone decides to say they are being hurt and so all the mean people have to stop answering or they have to apologize for nothing or they will get attacked. I think that claiming to be a victim is the real attack because no one did anything.
Sorry I’ll get off my soapbox. I just would like to read adult conversation without this.
Serena can speak for herself— but I thought her “broken-heart” emoticon was in reference to her sadness at reading the statistics Ray posted about divorce in the church, not that she, herself, was feeling attacked or hurt by anything anyone here said to her.
I thought exactly that, face, which is why I asked the question.
Sorry if I didn’t get it. Really didn’t mean to start a problem.
Back to my hole.
Ray, good info. I have an ancient quote somewhere–I think by David O. McKay–that says (if I remember the numbers correctly) that a member marrying a non-member has about a 700% greater chance of choosing complete inactivity than s/he has of ending up with a temple marriage.
Again, that doesn’t determine an outcome, but it is sure something to think about.
The more I think about the atonement angle on this the more it explains some behaviors that seemed inexplicable to me. I’ve seen married women stay married to adulterous spouses, pedophiliac spouses, abusive spouses. I’ve heard about women marry men in prison, even those on death row. I even have one friend whose husband was convicted twice of raping a minor. She stayed with him the first time–through his prison sentence and excommunication–because he had “repented.”
Believing in the atonement does not require us to commit our lives (and eternities?) to anyone.
Sadly, I’m afraid that the fact that Serena hasn’t commented again means that she is, in fact, upset at some of us, not the statistics. Just my guess.
The more I think about the atonement angle on this the more it explains some behaviors that seemed inexplicable to me.
I think the idea of “unconditional love” may explain that even more. Which I suppose could somehow be wrapped into the atonement doctrine, but it’s all not really fully understanding how God’s love works.
I think sometimes fear can play into it all, too…fear and manipulation that leaves one rather blinded to reality. In other words, I don’t know that women in such situations can always be blamed for not seeing what others see.
Doesn’t change the truth that God doesn’t always expect someone to endure endless abuse in the name of Christian love.
I agree, Michelle. It has just never occurred to me people might stay in really bad situations because they felt obligated by the idea that if someone repents, they must forgive, and forgiveness means something like “pretend it never happened.”
Frankly, I don’t much care what people choose to do if it’s just THEM. If someone wants to marry a pedophile, well whatever. But when they bring kids into the marriage and or have more kids with a pedophile (or drunk or druggie or abuser or whatever), I want to scream. I don’t care how many temple trips the person has been on.
OK, I need to ask you for clarification on how you feel. You were quoted on fmh, and this topic has never really sat well with me.
In my mind, as long as people are motivated primarily with the notion of wanting to change another person, or the Church, it will be next to impossible for them to be humble. (Says someone who has at times been motivated to change other people by her comments. And I realize that in the end, that isn’t good! And maybe I’m just doing that very thing here, and if so I am sorry, but this to me seems to be a really important issue that deserves some careful thought and clarity.)
I believe that God needs all who are willing to embrace His gospel, differences and all. But that’s the key — to be truly willing to embrace His gospel means being humble enough to realize that ‘the change you desire’ is very likely a short-sighted thing. I have on so many occasions seen how little we as members really know and understand about how decisions work at the top levels. I am not stupid enough to think that mistakes are never made. But I have seen enough to think we can trust them a whole lot more than those who want to change the Church seem to be willing to trust them.
“Well, they can always be wrong, so we who believe they are need to stick together and stay so that we can change things” just doesn’t seem like good foundation roots to keep one really moving forward in the Church and really being able to stay.
I don’t WANT people to leave, but I think this kind of motivation is really risking leading them down the wrong reasons to want to stay.
I also don’t think that any interpretation of why things changed is as simple as people want to make it out to be, e.g., blacks and the priesthood. To credit ‘faithful dissidents’ for that revelation to me seems way too linear and simplistic (and possibly lacking in truth). I think interpretations of changes with birth control are equally simplistic and actually miss the reality that the underlying doctrines have really remained the same — and that even when birth control was mentioned, it was less about methods and more about attitudes, imo.
Sorry for dumping and for being so blunt, but you know as well as I do that people won’t listen to me on a topic like this. So I’m wondering if you really believe that we should encourage those who struggle in their faith to stay in the mode of thinking that ‘the church will be better when…’ rather than learning to ‘condemn it not’ or think that they know how it should change. In my mind, it’s sort of like human relationships…as long as we are in the mode of thinking ‘I’ll love this person when he/she changes’ and we expend our efforts toward changing that person, we will never be happy, and they will most likely not change. It is only in true love and humility that true peace and change will take place, no?
Or no?
Hey woman– don’t go back in your hole. It’s a nice day out– and besides– I like your posts. 🙂
I agree with pretty much everything you say in your comment, Michelle, with one clarification:
If everyone left who thought that they believed differently than everyone else, the Church would be a lonely, boring, sterile place – and the vast majority of them would be wrong in their assumption. You mention that it’s wrong for people to stay in the Church in hopes of changing other members, but isn’t that part of why ALL of us are active in the Church – to help those who are struggling in some way to change and grow and become strong and come to accept what we accept?
You participate at FMH to share a perspective that MAYBE, somehow might help others change their minds about “conservative, faithful” members. How is that any different than what FD said at heart in her post? I know the conclusions about individual issues are different, but how is the core focus any different? It’s different because you believe you are right and she is wrong about the conclusions about individual issues. You are the flip side of her.
What I’m saying is that the Church should be a place for individuals who share a common, core faith to work through their difficulties and differences in love and unity – and that can’t happen if the “minority groups” in it leave. There is a scary aspect of homogeneity that too often leads to harshness and intolerance, just as there is the counter aspect of diversity that can lead to the breakdown of all rules and standards.
I don’t get involved in Utah bashing, ever – especially since I loved being raised in rural, central Utah. However, there is an element of truth to the standard criticism. When everyone thinks alike about something, humility and openness to change can be much harder to find than when people are forced to deal with different viewpoints and beliefs. Silencing those who see things differently, even core things, is not something I can accept – especially if they disagree in a faithful, considerate, reasoned, meek tone.
Bluntly, I don’t want djinn in my ward or stake; I’d love to have Faithful Dissident. I don’t want Lorian; I would love to have MikeinWeHo. I don’t want Kimberly (I think she’s who I mean.); I would love to have Tatiana. It’s not the fact of the disagreement; it’s the tone of the disagreement and the attitude it shows.
Finally, I believe that as long as someone is holding onto the fundamental element of their testimony of the restored Gospel, they should stay active in the Church, since church activity is an important element of righteous growth – and that type of growth is what those members need desperately. I don’t want them to leave until they get their heads and hearts together and see things the way I see them, since too many who try to do that never come back; I want them to stay and get their heads together where I can influence them and they can influence me and we can be edified together. (Often, there hearts are in the right place; it’s just their heads that need fixing.) There are things they can learn from me, but there are things I can learn from them – and I want that opportunity to learn from them badly.
One more thing. You said:
That’s exactly what I’m saying, but I’m saying it to you. Please think about that.
An example:
Jon just wrote on FMH:
That opinion is incredibly scary to me. It is hard to make when you realize that even apostles and prophets disagree about many things – but it is much more common in a society where everyone agrees on almost everything than in a society where those around us disagree, as well.
That’s exactly what I’m saying, but I’m saying it to you. Please think about that.
Please note what I said at the beginning.
I hope that you could see past my own weakness and imperfect heart here to understand WHY I am concerned and be willing to engage me a bit, even if we don’t fully agree on some things (although I think we do pretty much on everything). I also wanted to understand more where you are coming from, because sometimes I don’t, and sometimes I feel a bit like we counteract each other in our commenting even when I am not sure we do at the core…and that frankly confuses me. (I feel this weird teamwork thing, since we are two of the most vocal people on the nacle (please let Michelle know I said this…I’m not trying to forge some bond with you that is in any way inappropriate).
I feel like you and I are working toward similar goals and share similar concerns (we want the church to be a safe place even for those who struggle, we believe in God’s mercy and in the process of line upon line and how that will be different for each person, and of the power of love to help people find God), and so I wanted to ‘counsel’ with you a bit — to share some of my thoughts and get some of yours. If I’m just annoying or frustrating you or you think I’m out to lunch, then just ignore. 🙂
If you are still reading, let me try to explain a little more so you can understand my thoughts a little more. Some of your comments seem to suggest that you think I disagree with the idea that diversity can be an important element of the Church. I don’t WANT us all to be cookie cutters, nor do I expect that or think it should be. I also rejoice in what people feel they CAN hold onto, so I am not out to reject people simply because they don’t see things as I do.
Now that that is I hope very clear….
Some thoughts:
At one end of this spectrum that concerns me, that I think hurts our culture and hurts individuals is someone who thinks that he/she is uber-faithful, has it all figured out, and that the standard answers with no nuance or compassion are IT. That’s more on the edge of Pharisaical attitudes, where the law is perceived as standing alone, and there is no room for mercy or line upon line in anyone’s life. It’s either all or nothing. You and I both know that that’s a delusion, and is unhealthy to our culture and to individuals who possess that notion.
I’m as much for gently wanting to help people try to open their hearts and minds on this end of the spectrum as I am on the other. I understand it may be easier to do with those who are so firmly in the Church that they can’t fathom someone who isn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that they need love, compassion, patience, etc.
I DO raise my voice in that way as well. I have on many occasions, online and elsewhere. But you know, you can’t fault someone for perhaps not having the experiences that breed a more open mind and heart. And you gotta appreciate people who are dedicated to a fault. There could be worse faults, and God can work with these people if they keep trying. (I know because I think I used to be one of those people, and in many ways I probably still am. But I feel God is helping me change, and that is enough for me to keep trying.)
But there’s another extreme, and this is what I am concerned about here. Those who think they “know better” and are clucking their tongues at the church (and, imo, viewing the past through an incorrect or at least incomplete lens — reductionist, as the first commenter said — as though we can praise ‘dissidents’ as the ones who made the change happen or possible or even had any role at all), who make “faith” about the motions, and who somehow think it’s their job to save all those other poor souls from the Church…(I don’t know where Faithful Dissident is on this line, so I’m trying to keep it general here), or who hold the doctrine (and those who believe in it) at bay…well, there is the real potential of delusion there, too, and I think it’s really easy for this online community to feed that delusion.
Just like it’s easy for the real-life community, with discussions that are perhaps too safe and too simplistic at times – to feed the other.
I can’t know any individual’s heart, and don’t pretend to, but I don’t think it’s completely out of the realm of reason to be concerned about focusing too much on the side of dissention as a virtue in and of itself. To rejoice in individuals choosing to stay in the face of struggle? Sure. I’m there. To encourage people’s dissention in and of itself? Nope, I don’t think that is a good thing (I imagine that is not what you meant in the first place, but I feel like how your quote was used in the post. or could be perceived).
IMO, we (the royal we) don’t do anyone any good without being honest about how extremes in either direction are wrong, and can hurt the church culture and can hurt individuals. I sometimes feel that in our online world, we are so worried about offending that we won’t just draw some lines in the sand. It’s all too easy to condemn “those self-righteous people” at one end of the spectrum, but we won’t acknowledge that there is another extreme…all for the sake of celebrating diversity.
MAybe I can capture my concerns with this from Elder Holland:
I think there is a tension here where it’s important to be generous, to be open, to be accepting. But I think it’s also important to help the Church maintain an identity, and sometimes I feel that online, that identity is sacrificed for openness.
I’m interested in both. I am not in the business of final judgments or membership issues, so don’t misunderstand. But I am concerned about not letting everything become so mushy and free-for-all-ish that the Church can mean anything someone wants it to. And I think sometimes (note, not all the time) discussions that focus more on championing doubt and dissidents and differences can head in that extreme.
I don’t think you disagree. I just felt that the way your quote was used, it could be USED toward that end. That’s all.
And maybe you think I’m out to lunch. And that’s ok, too. I may be. But then you have to love me anyway. hehe
Dear Michelle,
Just to be on the up-and-up, I am trying to sort through some thoughts on a recent discussion with Ray, and asked him to let you know about it. I just figured I might as well tell you about it. While I think (hope) you know my heart, I don’t want anything that I’m doing to be seen as inappropriate in any way.
I also just want to say that I have felt quite a kinship with you…like we seem to share some similar struggles in our journey. And I just want to say that from where I sit, you have such a good, pure heart, and I respect you a GREAT deal.
I would rather have you be honest with me if this kind of discussion (which I hesitate to take public because I feel I am often misunderstood, although I am considering a post on the topic) in any way makes you or Ray uncomfy. I respect you both and don’t want to do anything to offend.
—-
That’s exactly what I’m saying, but I’m saying it to you. Please think about that.
Please note what I said at the beginning.
I hope that you could see past my own weakness and imperfect heart here to understand WHY I am concerned and be willing to engage me a bit, even if we don’t fully agree on some things (although I think we do pretty much on everything). I also wanted to understand more where you are coming from, because sometimes I don’t, and sometimes I feel a bit like we counteract each other in our commenting even when I am not sure we do at the core…and that frankly confuses me. (I feel this weird teamwork thing, since we are two of the most vocal people on the nacle (please let Michelle know I said this…I’m not trying to forge some bond with you that is in any way inappropriate).
I feel like you and I are working toward similar goals and share similar concerns (we want the church to be a safe place even for those who struggle, we believe in God’s mercy and in the process of line upon line and how that will be different for each person, and of the power of love to help people find God), and so I wanted to ‘counsel’ with you a bit — to share some of my thoughts and get some of yours. If I’m just annoying or frustrating you or you think I’m out to lunch, then just ignore. 🙂
If you are still reading, let me try to explain a little more so you can understand my thoughts a little more. Some of your comments seem to suggest that you think I disagree with the idea that diversity can be an important element of the Church. I don’t WANT us all to be cookie cutters, nor do I expect that or think it should be. I also rejoice in what people feel they CAN hold onto, so I am not out to reject people simply because they don’t see things as I do.
Now that that is I hope very clear….
Some thoughts:
At one end of this spectrum that concerns me, that I think hurts our culture and hurts individuals is someone who thinks that he/she is uber-faithful, has it all figured out, and that the standard answers with no nuance or compassion are IT. That’s more on the edge of Pharisaical attitudes, where the law is perceived as standing alone, and there is no room for mercy or line upon line in anyone’s life. It’s either all or nothing. You and I both know that that’s a delusion, and is unhealthy to our culture and to individuals who possess that notion.
I’m as much for gently wanting to help people try to open their hearts and minds on this end of the spectrum as I am on the other. I understand it may be easier to do with those who are so firmly in the Church that they can’t fathom someone who isn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that they need love, compassion, patience, etc.
I DO raise my voice in that way as well. I have on many occasions, online and elsewhere. But you know, you can’t fault someone for perhaps not having the experiences that breed a more open mind and heart. And you gotta appreciate people who are dedicated to a fault. There could be worse faults, and God can work with these people if they keep trying. (I know because I think I used to be one of those people, and in many ways I probably still am. But I feel God is helping me change, and that is enough for me to keep trying.)
But there’s another extreme, and this is what I am concerned about here. Those who think they “know better” and are clucking their tongues at the church (and, imo, viewing the past through an incorrect or at least incomplete lens — reductionist, as the first commenter said — as though we can praise ‘dissidents’ as the ones who made the change happen or possible or even had any role at all), who make “faith” about the motions, and who somehow think it’s their job to save all those other poor souls from the Church…(I don’t know where Faithful Dissident is on this line, so I’m trying to keep it general here), or who hold the doctrine (and those who believe in it) at bay…well, there is the real potential of delusion there, too, and I think it’s really easy for this online community to feed that delusion.
Just like it’s easy for the real-life community, with discussions that are perhaps too safe and too simplistic at times – to feed the other.
I can’t know any individual’s heart, and don’t pretend to, but I don’t think it’s completely out of the realm of reason to be concerned about focusing too much on the side of dissention as a virtue in and of itself. To rejoice in individuals choosing to stay in the face of struggle? Sure. I’m there. To encourage people’s dissention in and of itself? Nope, I don’t think that is a good thing (I imagine that is not what you meant in the first place, but I feel like how your quote was used in the post. or could be perceived).
IMO, we (the royal we) don’t do anyone any good without being honest about how extremes in either direction are wrong, and can hurt the church culture and can hurt individuals. I sometimes feel that in our online world, we are so worried about offending that we won’t just draw some lines in the sand. It’s all too easy to condemn “those self-righteous people” at one end of the spectrum, but we won’t acknowledge that there is another extreme…all for the sake of celebrating diversity.
MAybe I can capture my concerns with this from Elder Holland:
I think there is a tension here where it’s important to be generous, to be open, to be accepting. But I think it’s also important to help the Church maintain an identity, and sometimes I feel that online, that identity is sacrificed for openness.
I’m interested in both. I am not in the business of final judgments or membership issues, so don’t misunderstand. But I am concerned about not letting everything become so mushy and free-for-all-ish that the Church can mean anything someone wants it to. And I think sometimes (note, not all the time) discussions that focus more on championing doubt and dissidents and differences can head in that extreme.
I don’t think you disagree. I just felt that the way your quote was used, it could be USED toward that end. That’s all.
And maybe you think I’m out to lunch. And that’s ok, too. I may be. But then you have to have Chrislike love for me anyway. hehe
Just to give some context…
ME:
OK, I need to ask you for clarification on how you feel. You were quoted on fmh, and this topic has never really sat well with me.
In my mind, as long as people are motivated primarily with the notion of wanting to change another person, or the Church, it will be next to impossible for them to be humble. (Says someone who has at times been motivated to change other people by her comments. And I realize that in the end, that isn’t good! And maybe I’m just doing that very thing here, and if so I am sorry, but this to me seems to be a really important issue that deserves some careful thought and clarity.)
I believe that God needs all who are willing to embrace His gospel, differences and all. But that’s the key — to be truly willing to embrace His gospel means being humble enough to realize that ‘the change you desire’ is very likely a short-sighted thing. I have on so many occasions seen how little we as members really know and understand about how decisions work at the top levels. I am not stupid enough to think that mistakes are never made. But I have seen enough to think we can trust them a whole lot more than those who want to change the Church seem to be willing to trust them.
“Well, they can always be wrong, so we who believe they are need to stick together and stay so that we can change things” just doesn’t seem like good foundation roots to keep one really moving forward in the Church and really being able to stay.
I don’t WANT people to leave, but I think this kind of motivation is really risking leading them down the wrong reasons to want to stay.
I also don’t think that any interpretation of why things changed is as simple as people want to make it out to be, e.g., blacks and the priesthood. To credit ‘faithful dissidents’ for that revelation to me seems way too linear and simplistic (and possibly lacking in truth). I think interpretations of changes with birth control are equally simplistic and actually miss the reality that the underlying doctrines have really remained the same — and that even when birth control was mentioned, it was less about methods and more about attitudes, imo.
Sorry for dumping and for being so blunt, but you know as well as I do that people won’t listen to me on a topic like this. So I’m wondering if you really believe that we should encourage those who struggle in their faith to stay in the mode of thinking that ‘the church will be better when…’ rather than learning to ‘condemn it not’ or think that they know how it should change. In my mind, it’s sort of like human relationships…as long as we are in the mode of thinking ‘I’ll love this person when he/she changes’ and we expend our efforts toward changing that person, we will never be happy, and they will most likely not change. It is only in true love and humility that true peace and change will take place, no?
Or no?
RAY:
I agree with pretty much everything you say in your comment, Michelle, with one clarification:
If everyone left who thought that they believed differently than everyone else, the Church would be a lonely, boring, sterile place – and the vast majority of them would be wrong in their assumption. You mention that it’s wrong for people to stay in the Church in hopes of changing other members, but isn’t that part of why ALL of us are active in the Church – to help those who are struggling in some way to change and grow and become strong and come to accept what we accept?
You participate at FMH to share a perspective that MAYBE, somehow might help others change their minds about “conservative, faithful” members. How is that any different than what FD said at heart in her post? I know the conclusions about individual issues are different, but how is the core focus any different? It’s different because you believe you are right and she is wrong about the conclusions about individual issues. You are the flip side of her.
What I’m saying is that the Church should be a place for individuals who share a common, core faith to work through their difficulties and differences in love and unity – and that can’t happen if the “minority groups” in it leave. There is a scary aspect of homogeneity that too often leads to harshness and intolerance, just as there is the counter aspect of diversity that can lead to the breakdown of all rules and standards.
I don’t get involved in Utah bashing, ever – especially since I loved being raised in rural, central Utah. However, there is an element of truth to the standard criticism. When everyone thinks alike about something, humility and openness to change can be much harder to find than when people are forced to deal with different viewpoints and beliefs. Silencing those who see things differently, even core things, is not something I can accept – especially if they disagree in a faithful, considerate, reasoned, meek tone.
Bluntly, I don’t want djinn in my ward or stake; I’d love to have Faithful Dissident. I don’t want Lorian; I would love to have MikeinWeHo. I don’t want Kimberly (I think she’s who I mean.); I would love to have Tatiana. It’s not the fact of the disagreement; it’s the tone of the disagreement and the attitude it shows.
Finally, I believe that as long as someone is holding onto the fundamental element of their testimony of the restored Gospel, they should stay active in the Church, since church activity is an important element of righteous growth – and that type of growth is what those members need desperately. I don’t want them to leave until they get their heads and hearts together and see things the way I see them, since too many who try to do that never come back; I want them to stay and get their heads together where I can influence them and they can influence me and we can be edified together. (Often, there hearts are in the right place; it’s just their heads that need fixing.) There are things they can learn from me, but there are things I can learn from them – and I want that opportunity to learn from them badly.
One more thing. You said:
It is only in true love and humility that true peace and change will take place, no?
p.s. I copied your sweetie on the conversation so she knows that I am not doing this privately to do anything but avoid public misunderstanding and noise.
And one last thing…
I agree, and that is a key reason why I blog…because I know that my personal experience differs so much from theirs, that blogging helps me gain compassion. Believe it or not, I’m not just motivated by a ‘desire to change’ others.
Like I said before, I think, I AM also concerned, however, about those who wonder about us and see mostly faithful dissidents and process Church doctrine through their eyes. I think we HAVE to help them understand more about what the teachings are to help them make their own judgments, rather than assume they can process things through the eyes of pain and struggle of people who take their struggles online. I’m glad they can sort through them, but I don’t want the Church to be defined by them (Even though I realize I don’t have the full picture or understanding either).
Thanks for ‘talking.’
Just so you know, I ask Michelle to log-in as me occasionally so she can read these conversations – strictly because I think they are enlightening, and she can learn as much as I can from them.
Fwiw, I agree with everything you said, so I definitely don’t think you are out to lunch. Like I said earlier, my main focus on FMH is to avoid the issues that require I take a hard line stance and comment on those where I can be the voice of moderation. I really don’t care much about having calm, quiet members who think they can change the Church; I tell them to stay, since I think the sincere ones will realize down the road the error of their ways and end up changed by their activity. I also think there really are some areas where they (the “minority members”) actually are “right” – at least in the sense that their perceptions are legitimate, and I don’t want to miss the chance to be exposed to those insights.
I am a moderate by most standards. I am very conservative on some things; moderate on some; quite liberal on some. It’s pretty funny sometimes, since I am seen as a raving conservative on some blogs, a moderate on some and a raving liberal on others – or would be seen as a raving liberal on some if I was totally open about some topics. (Honestly, I bite my tongue quite often here when the talk turns to politics. It’s not worth the arguments that would ensue. Even though I tend to vote Republican, there are and have been enough Democrat apostles that you’d think members would recognize political affiliation isn’t a factor in righteousness. End of rant. *grin*) The interesting part is that I’m as “mainstream Church” as it gets when it comes to activity and dedication and belief and appearance.
Thanks, Ray.
As to your last paragraph, SilverRain and I used to talk about that funny dynamic…where on an fmh, we’d be seen as raving conservatives, but here we could be seen as pushing more liberalish boundaries…or at least not towing the line enough. 🙂
Michelle, Thanks for your whispered info, for keeping things on the “up-and-up.” Nothing is out of line in your conversations with Ray. I think it is good for both of you to get feedback on how you feel and how your comments on certain sites are perceived. I think it is helpful for you to feel that Ray “has your back” when you are unfairly “attacked” during some of these conversations.
I was reading the first comment wondering if it was the fmh threads to which you were specifically referring, and the second comment clarified that it was. I avoid fmh because I disagree so vehemently with so many of the views and the way they are shared. It raises my blood pressure and emotions to an unhealthy level. I just avoid it. Ray reads and comments selectively when he feels he can be a voice of reason. I agree with Ray that those who question in this way have their place in the church, and that there are things to learn from each other. Too often, however, I have found those who voice their opinions so strongly on this type of site to be those who think they are right and if you agree with them, everything is fine. But if you disagree, you are just brainwashed, robotic, unthinking members. It is better for me to let those like Ray and you try to balance those discussions. I would too freely give and take offense. Honestly, I have enough stress in my life, why should I add more?? And that’s what I get from fmh. So I choose to avoid it, though every once in a while Ray will tell me to read a particular post or comment.
You said:
Thank you. Please know that I agree with this sentiment about YOU. I also sense that there are similar struggles. I learn so much from your comments here and on your blog. I love the way you word things, and how compassionate you are in your comments. I consider you my friend, and have great respect for you.
Look, don’t worry. I had to walk away from this thread because it was dredging up some really old, really painful feelings, and now that it is an issue that is finally settled in my heart, I don’t want to keep repeating that awful process. You have been discussing this issue with a casualness that comes from your never having been in that particular pair of shoes. Watching somebody else wear them, even if it is someone close to you, isn’t the same as wearing them yourself. I can’t fault you for that, because I wouldn’t wish that experience on anybody. Certainly you’ve made some serious mistakes somewhere in some aspect of your life. Certainly you hope to move on and not be constantly reminded that you have the potential to be an eternal screw-up.
I BELONG to that loser category, that bad-risk statistic failure group you have been so casually discussing. My marriage is fine; in fact, it’s good. In fact, it’s better than many, but that’s neither here nor there.
Chan Jo, I have noticed that you only emerge from your hole to kick me when I’m down. The vast bulk of your participation in these “adult” conversations is to rail on ME when you just can’t stand it any longer. Not anybody else. Now, that’s “adult!” I suggest you knock it off. If you want to contribute to the discussion, do, but you’re not “helping” in any way by continually charging out of your hole solely to tell ME my faults. I’ve tried to be patient with it, but I’m through being patient.
FWIW, I agree with Davidson:
While not intentional, the casual disregard in this discussion is disheartening. And we are being casual! It’s not about stats; it’s about people. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone tries to find their own ways of dealing with them. (For some that is trying to ignore or deny them; for others it is repenting and changing – with a multitude of variations in the middle.)
How about returning to the original post and how we learn to identify ourselves appropriately. Surely I am not the only one (and I know I’m not, based on Alison’s post on hair and many other situations) who has dealt with issues of childhood hurtful comments that skewed my view of myself at that age, and who is learning to see herself more kindly and truthfully.
Thank you, dear. And I must apologize. I really am the one who led people away from discussing your thoughtful post. I guess I discussed divorce because issues surrounding my divorce were the things that really prevented ME from finding my true identity. It’s not a situation others here have dealt with, so it probably didn’t justify the almost total threadjack.
FMH is often that kind of place for me, too. I should probably avoid it more than I do, but I just hate the fact that people who struggle will often get to define the Church for the rest of us.
That’s part of why I created MW…so there is another site out there that has a different voice that can be found when Googling Mormon women. We are on the front page of the searches I do!
I hope that someday we can meet in person. Know that I care about you and am here if you ever want to ‘talk.’
Much love,
Michelle
I agree that there is NO way we can understand your shoes, davidson, and I admire you for being able to walk away from a discussion that wasn’t healthy for you.
I just wanted to reiterate, though, that even in the casualness I hope you can feel that there was much effort to try to reach out to YOU in the process and NOT to generalize the thoughts toward YOU. NO ONE ever said anything about being a LOSER. The extreme feelings are understandable, but in my heart of hearts, I tried SO hard to separate out the general (casual, perhaps) with your personal pain. I’m sorry if that was inadequate, but again just really wanted to reiterate that what you HEARD in your pain was not what we were SAYING.
Hugs your way.
And I like the idea of getting back to the original post.
When the new year rolled around, my resolution was simply to be more gentle with myself. Haven’t done so well so far (these last few weeks have been hellish for me) but it’s good to remind myself of this.
That’s a great resolution, Michelle! I need to be gentler with myself, as well.
Davidson, I never thought you threadjacked this. I just think it’s time to move back to the discussion of identity in general, rather than the specifics of divorce. That doesn’t undermine what your divorce did in defining yourself. For me, it’s just a recognition that others – including your MM friends – shouldn’t be defining you by it, especially because it is in the past. To me, your divorce has defined you – but not determined who you are now. IOW, you have changed from the person you were then in a variety of ways. I consider myself blessed to know you and wish it could also be IRL.
I don’t go to MW as often as I should… and I should probably change that!
Thank you for being willing to listen. When I am ready to dump, I just might take you up on it! I do have Ray and some really good IRL friends who are always there for me. Thanks for your friendship!
And davidson, fwiw, I had totally forgotten that you had been divorced. It’s not what I think of when I think of you. I think of someone who maintains faith in spite of many struggles (when I am mad about my health struggles sometimes I think of all you have been through), a woman with deep desires to do what is right, someone passionate about the gospel.
Don’t let MW be a ‘should’ but we always love visitors (and submissions!) 🙂
Even just links and traffic help. You know, like email broadcasts to all your friends. hehe
We will be part of a booth at BYU Women’s Conference, so the more exposure we have before then, the better it will be.
Thank you, Michelle and Michelle. I do recognize and appreciate your kindness, both of you. I have worried about you, mlinford. Little hints tell me that you have been going through a difficult time for awhile, at least since Christmas. It know it isn’t easy for you to talk about it. I am praying for you, and I hope things get better soon.
On the topic. A sweet bishop’s wife in our stake spoke at the evening session of our stake conference last week. She was assigned to talk about this very subject. She mentioned how women dismiss themselves a lot of the time because they feel so inadequate, even though they are actually doing much better than they think they are. She said she finally learned that while she couldn’t be perfect at many things, she could be perfect at one thing: she could know perfectly that Heavenly Father loved her perfectly. Every time she felt doubts creep in, she could remind herself about her Heavenly Father’s love for her, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME. Boy, that was a new thought for me, and I’ve been chewing on it all week. A person can become perfect at feeling secure in His unconditional love.
That’s awesome!
davidson, I love that.
And you are perceptive. Things are very hard for me right now. Your prayers are greatly appreciated.
OK, I had to do a search because I thought Oregonian was the one you thought only attacked you, davidson. In a quick scan of all her comments back to July, I can see only one that is saying anything negative about you. And that’s the once you just called her out about.
Frankly, I’m confused about the “controversy.” I didn’t see any posts discussing divorce that called anyone a “loser” and I didn’t see any that discussed it in a “casual” way–although I’m not sure what that means in this context or how it would be deemed offensive. I don’t see a “victim” here.
When we have public discussions that will be available to anyone with internet access for years to come, I think it’s crucial (particularly when I provide the forum and am, in some sense, responsible for its content) that certain things be completely clear. I was very uncomfortable with the presentation of the idea that someone who USES SOME CRITERIA to choose a spouse is somehow IGNORING THE ATONEMENT–because it’s completely wrong. I do not want that sentiment to stand here unchallenged. I’m not trying to inflate the importance of Mormon Momma, but who knows who will read is and who might be influenced by it? So if I see something that I think misrepresents the church’s position, I will usually say so.
I haven’t attacked davidson or anyone else. I’ve tried to present some information and ask questions to clarify my ideas. Most have gone unanswered.
davidson, I understand that the particular issue of divorce/remarriage is personal to you and only peripherally personal to me. Frankly, that doesn’t make a position less correct, in fact, sometimes adds clarity rather than detracts from it.
Do you remember the presidential debate with Dukakis? His answer completely doomed his run. Let me tell you why. He SHOULD have said, “Of course I would! I someone murdered my wife, I’d carry out the death penalty myself. But we can’t make policy based on my feelings. We have to make policy based on calm, reasoned, logic. That’s what I’ve tried to do with my position on the death penalty.”
I don’t have to PERSONALLY murder someone to reasonably discuss the problems with murder. Do I? Otherwise only convicted criminals could make criminal policy. Sound like a good idea to you?
Another thing I’d like to add is that often people assume that other’s positions are made out of inexperience. This isn’t always the case and shouldn’t be for anyone who is being intellectually honest. For example, when I’m speaking to someone about political views, the idea has often been presented that, “Of course you’re a conservative because you are ‘rich.'” (That’s all relative, of course.) But the truth is, I was a conservative when we had two kids and lived below the poverty level, just as was when we had six and lived in “the mansion.” It has nothing to do with how much I make–or how much a particular system might personally benefit ME ME ME–it has to do with what I think are correct principles of governance.
So, while it’s true I’ve never been divorced, there have been many times when commenters have very erroneously assumed that I take the positions I do because I “don’t understand” because I’ve “never been there.” Truth is, lots of times I HAVE “been there” I just choose not to publish every single aspect of my entire 44 years online.
To me a principle is a principle and logic and common sense are what they are. They don’t change just because I will look better, feel better, get a benefit, or have my guilt assuaged.
So, in the context of this discussion, I can promise you that I’d have the same position on divorce/remarriage even if I had been through it myself.
Thank you!
davidson I don’t even know what you are talking about. :sad::neutral:
Hey ChanJo, I just wanted to say that I appreciated you saying something to Davidson that needed to be said. You did it in a nice way and have nothing to be upset about. She has a habit of saying outlandish things here, then getting offended if anyone disagrees, and then sulking, and then coming back and telling us all why we were wrong – and then everyone apologizes and kisses her bum. It annoys me.
I appreciated your response and Alison’s. I think Davidson can be a very sweet person, but she also has some really erroneous thinking. Keep posting.
Alison, your comment helped me understand more about how invested you are in the content of these discussions, and why. I think it helps me understand your passion for principle all the more. (I have felt that way so often online in general…I don’t want people’s pain to define the Church for others, and sometimes it does.)
As logical as all of your thoughts are, and as much as I agree with all the content, is what has happened in this discussion really all that confusing? It’s actually pretty normal…human nature is often to react to situations through the lens of experience. Pain can make the lens even more focused on certain elements. Often, that will increase the possibility of distortion or misunderstanding. But that reality is predictable, no? We all do it.
I think it’s important to both sift out the truth in the principles (again, I agree with your logic and totally think it’s important to be clear about truth), but also acknowledge the reality that we all react through lenses of experience, and as such, I think we ought to cut those who react in pain some slack.
davidson, I hope you can go back at some point and see that really and truly, no one has been attacking you. (Go back and read ChanJo…in reality, I heard her trying to help you see that the pain you felt here was not reflecting what was intended).
As a general comment, though, I just want to ask that we not be impatient if someone isn’t in a place to address all that has been thrown at her/him. Sometimes when I’m in pain, addressing logical questions on demand sometimes is more than I am ready for. We all know that overcoming pain takes time and the right context, and this may not always be that place, and sometimes it takes a charged discussion for someone to realize that.
Do you folks really think that? I do not. I taught a Relief Society class recently on how the Spirit works, from the PREACH MY GOSPEL manual, and it seemed very, very clear that we can only receive revelation for our stewardship.
I believe that parents of grown children *can* receive revelation as to what counsel THEY SHOULD GIVE to their grown children. That is within our stewardship, to give parental counsel. But the Lord may want us to give that counsel simply so our children will consider that advice, even though they may choose otherwise. It is NOT revelation for our children, it is revelation for US, in our role as parents.
I honestly don’t think I am entitled to know who my child should marry. Only they and the other person have the stewardship for that.
I also went to BYU as a single mother, and Davidson described much of my experience. Except I was even worse than Davidson. I had never been married. So I was far below the divorced moms on the righteousness hierarchy, as they reminded me regularly.
But I agree with the doubts about the atonement. Because in my case, that had all happened BEFORE I JOINED THE church. If we really believe in the atonement, then I ought to be a member in good standing, period. And it wasn’t just the concern of potential suitors (I do understand the complications) but the shunning reactions of many, as is they could catch my disease.
One single student neighbor perkily explained to me, “Well, we can’t be too nice to you, because then it would make it seem like what you did was okay.” But here’s the thing: Nobody ever asked me about how I came to have a baby. A rape victim who had chosen to keep the product of the crime gets treated that same way by them (and this was before the blessed morning-after drugs that eliminate that consequence nowadays).
I was amused at the male classmates who would come visit me only after dark. They clearly enjoyed talking to me, but would only come when nobody could see them.
When I came up on the waiting list for less-expensive family housing (it was called married student housing back then), an administrator insisted that I come in for a special “worthiness interview” to make sure I would not be a bad influence on my neighbors. This blew me away, because I would think that my BYU application interview would have covered it. I couldn’t come in because I was leaving for a school field trip, so I lost out on that, which would have helped my budget a lot. When I did move into that housing, we had a neighbor who beat his wife regularly (loudly, in a way that disturbed our entire stairwell), but since he was married, he didn’t need that extra interview.
My in-laws were not supportive when their returned-missionary son married me. They cried a lot, and it wasn’t joy. Two years later, we returned to his home ward for a visit, and a little old lady said, “I remember you. You married that Naismith boy. Aren’t you divorced yet?”
A few years later, when my husband graduated with his doctorate, his parents got on the phone and apologized and said they were sorry for their earlier coldness, they could see now that I was the best wife for him. I kinda wish they had not confirmed my suspicions. Not only did they not trust the atonement, but not even their own son’s judgment?
As a single mom in Utah, I also never had a calling, never spoke in meetings, and rarely had home teachers come to visit (because some wives were uncomfortable). I tried to mitigate that by getting to know the wives, but it should not have been my job to fix that problem. And I understand that they were perhaps trying to be helpful by not burdening me with a calling or assignment, but I felt deemed unworthy.
However, I have to say that when I was at BYU, a typical BYU coed came up to me one day while I was eating lunch on a bench, and said, “I know people treat you badly and it is hard, but I had an abortion when I was pregnant, and I admire what you are doing and wish I had your strength.” That kind of kept me going through the worst parts. And I so much appreciate her sharing, because she seemed so perfect on the surface.
As far as marrying non-members, BYU professor Brent Barlow did his dissertation on LDS women who married non-members, and I found his research also described areas where I have lived. I think marrying outside the temple is a risky thing, period, and is the biggest difference from a temple marriage between two believers.
But have you heard the term “petticoat branch”? That’s a branch where women married to non-members rely on missionaries for leadership for a few years. But then their sons grow up and take the leadership roles, and the church thrives and grows. It would not have happened if those faithful sisters had remained single. And I’ve seen that play out in at least two stakes where we have lived.
Also, I have a friend who gets to serve in all kinds of leadership positions in the ward and stake because her non-member husband is so supportive, and she never has to worry about supporting his callings. I don’t know if those anecdotes translate into statistics (even the Barlow dissertation was light on quantitative, as I recall), but I’m much more worried about my children marrying in the temple than who they marry outside of it.
Naismith, I do agree with you about the receiving revelation thing. I definitely think you can receive revelation as to counsel you might give as a parent. But with adult children, it really isn’t your stewardship any more to receive revelation FOR them. Perhaps it’s semantics, but it’s an important distinction. I didn’t really take the “for” part of that statement literally, I guess. Our revelation would be for our own selves, not another person.
Now, as for the divorced mom/single mom being ostracized thing. Don’t you think sometimes you (speaking in the collective you, not to you directly) are sometimes hyper-sensitive when a situation affects you? Like when you have a bad hair day, and you think everyone is staring at your hair wherever you go – when really they couldn’t care less. I think it can be that way with people who are outside the LDS “norm” – they may have a tendency to look (although most likely subconsciously) for people who aren’t being Christlike towards them, and perhaps to interpret things differently than how someone meant them. Some of the things you mentioned I have a hard time believing even happened – but if you say it did, it did. But I only know from experience with unwed mothers in my own life that in general they were NOT treated this way. Does that mean every guy who came along wanted to marry them? No, but not every guy who came around wanted to marry me either. I know many, many women who have been married after a situation like this (including you and Davidson) so obviously there are men out there who were willing.
I think my whole point in all of this is, isn’t it just as bad for you (collective you) to judge another’s motives or belief in the atonement as it is for others to judge you for your situation?
That sounds right to me, Naismith!
On the other hand, I don’t think there’s any doctrine stating that there’s some magical age where all of sudden parents no longer have that kind of stewardship. Legally, adulthood is 18. But it’s not like on the kid’s eighteenth birthday the parents are suddenly shut out from any revelation for their children.
I’m not exactly sure where the line is drawn. It makes sense that a parent wouldn’t receive revelation for children who truly are autonomous adults.
But I think most would agree that an 18 year old isn’t generally an “autonomous adult” , whether or not they’re living at home. And parents are ALWAYS parents– despite a child’s age, a parent still holds the stewardship of parent/teacher/leader/guide, etc — they just aren’t held RESPONSIBLE in the same way.
Maybe it’s a spiritual maturity thing. Maybe parents are given that mantle until their child is spiritually mature enough to honestly seek divine revelation for themselves. Don’t know… just thinking outloud here. It’s an interesting thing to ponder.
I guess some of the question I would have is what a stewardship means. I don’t think parental stewardship somehow magically ends because one has grown children. (Bishops can receive revelation for adults in their ward, no?) To try to FORCE an answer or inspiration or revelation on a adult is of course out of line (to do so with younger children can be, too). But is it impossible that a parent could receive revelation about a situation of an adult child? I don’t believe so at all. Knowing what to do with that revelation requires revelation, too, (it may not always be something that should be shared, for example) but I don’t agree that receiving revelation would be completely out of order.
I’m thinking out loud a little here, too…. Why would I look to my dad as a patriarch of my family of origin without recognizing that he still has some kind of stewardship with our family?
Think of scriptural examples, Lehi for example. Nephi went to his father, for example, about where to go for food, no? Lehi received specific warnings from God about his family through the vision of the tree of life.
I dunno, ladies, I am not so sure it’s that clear-cut.
The other question, though, is what do we mean by revelation? To me, revelation is not just about major life decisions (career, marriage, etc.) but is often simply about counsel, guidance, direction. Even God rarely gives us outright “Go this way and take ten steps and then turn left” kinds of guidance. He often nudges and lets things unfold, etc…and I really think parents can play a role in that process and can receive revelation (guidance, counsel, direction) to add.
Revelation has never meant license to control or to violate agency or to step in and do what children can do. But if a teacher in a church class can “receive revelation for” the class (specific needs that might exist, for example, might come to a teacher’s mind), if a bishop can receive revelation to guide the ward he leads (e.g., get knowledge and guidance about specific problems or needs or future problems where warnings are necessary or insight to help him give counsel), why not parents for their children, even when they are adults?
Food for thought, Michelle. I don’t know what that magic age is either. 16? 18? 20? I don’t think there really is one.
As for receiving revelation for others. Yes, a bishop can receive revelation in some areas for members of his ward. I don’t believe that’s in every area though. Say I have a big decision about a career coming up – is it going to be my own inspiration that helps me decide what to do (sure, counsel from others is great, but not the same as them receiving revelation about it), or am I going to wait for the bishop to tell me what I should do?
I think of the mom a few years back who “kidnapped” (for lack of a better word) her adult daughter so that she would miss her wedding. I’m sure this mom felt she had revelation that her daughter should not marry this guy – and she very well may have been right. However, this daughter is an adult and has to make her own decisions. Her revelations trumps her mom’s revelation for her.
Even with younger children, I don’t think it’s necessarily true that a parent can or will get revelation for a child in all areas. This is why we teach our children from a young age to pray and to listen to the spirit – because the spirit will speak to them. So what if what we feel and what our child feels are different? I don’t know.
I agree with you about the receiving revelation about how to counsel. I think generally that’s the inspiration we would be entitled to as parents – how to approach a topic or give advice without overtaking the agency of our child and without negating their own revelation.
As I said, food for thought. I care deeply about what both of my parents think/feel/have inspiration about. But in the end, I am entitled to my own revelation on important topics, and we may not always get the same answer.
I agree that we are only entitled to receive revelation within our stewardships. I’m not sure, however, when our stewardship for our children ends. 18th birthday seems a bit arbitrary to me. (I started this post yesterday and see others have addressd this.) But I simply try to back off as they get older and more capable–and more independent.
Being a “member in good standing” is not synonymous with being “a good potential spouse.”
I’m not sure if you’re saying you were a rape victim or not, but let’s explore that. In a world of utterly imperfect (yet still necessary) judgment, it’s sensible to assume someone who has an out-of-wedlock baby is not a rape victim, since that is almost always the case. In particularly cases it will be wrong, but most of the time it won’t. Since the usually correct assumption carries a moral stigma (even among many nonmembers), it would make sense–if you want the standard assumption to fall–that you would simply explain.
That said, what is left? Does it mean something to choose to keep a child that results from a rape? Sure it does. Some might be seen as positive, some negative. Of course a marriage prospect can determine what HE thinks about that decision and how it might fit into his future. Is he supposed to ignore it? What else must he ignore in order to be “believing in the atonement.”
Is it possible that YOU could be making assumptions about their motives? If all of them actually said, “I like talking to you but don’t want to be seen with a hussy.” then I wonder why you would continue to see them. If they didn’t, they maybe you’re wrong.
So what? Sincerely, Naismith, so what? There are stereotypes and, often as not, they exist for a reason. A single woman living in married student housing might be a problem. A single woman with a baby might actually be a negative influence, depending on all sorts of circumstances. So, realize the situation is unique and dispel the concerns.
Or maybe he did, and he lied. Or maybe MOST married husbands at BYU don’t beat their wives. Or maybe the neighbors who heard it called the police. I don’t even get the implication here. That because a unique situation might require an interview EVERYONE should?
Sorry, but you’ve gotta make the atonement connection for me. I still don’t get it.
BTW, if you were a rape victim, what does the atonement have to do with it anyway? What did you need to repent of?
Could you clarify what you mean by this?
Again, to me the real question is, “Can we use any criteria to judge a potential spouse? If so, what criteria is acceptable?” I’d particularly like davidson and Naismith to address that.
Naismith, I wish I could reach back through the years and sit by you on that park bench and put my arm around you and tell you how proud I am of you for your courage to repent and seek a better life. That takes a great deal of courage and almost ensures being misunderstood at some point. I wish I could wipe away all the tears you shed and all the hurts you felt because of unthinking or uncaring remarks made by people who haven’t worn your shoes. Angie, I love you, and I wish I could agree with you that it was a simple case of hypersensitivity on our part; that is so reassuring to believe. Naismith and I know that rather than being an exaggeration, it would be more accurately an understatement, the brief mention of the difficult experiences we had with members of the Church as we went through the process of getting our lives back in order. I am certain that you yourself are very understanding of people in difficult situations, as you have proven to be an understanding person in the past; I am also certain that at your husband’s agency, unwed mothers are treated with kindness and courtesy and given a great deal of help. Because of their training, the professionals there are probably keenly aware of what to say and what not to say. Because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, though, the painful comments made quietly to individuals who are struggling to rise from their own personal ashes. It was astonishing, wasn’t it, Naismith. I wanted so much to give commenters the benefit of the doubt–until it was no longer possible to offer it, when it became very clear that their comments were either intentional slams, or revelations of their true character, their patterns of thinking, and their inattentivity to the pain they cause. I’ll never forget meeting up with an old boyfriend in the temple. He was aware of my sordid past; he had one, too. When he saw me, the smile dropped off, and he got an unmistakeable look of alarm and astonishment and anger on his face, and he said loudly, “What are YOU doing here?” It was apparent to all in the vicinity that he didn’t approve, and I saw the looks of discomfort on the faces of the people near us. It was awkward. So interesting. He was guilty of the same crimes as I; in fact, they had been committed WITH HIM. But he could repent and be forgiven and come worthily to the temple; I couldn’t, at least in his mind. He was worthy; I couldn’t possibly be. Mercy for me, justice for you. How I appreciated a Heavenly Father who kept trying to give us opportunities to mend our past. That man had moved into my stake. I was serving in the stake activities committee, and he was serving in his bishopric. After our temple encounter, we were assigned to work closely together on a 24th of July celebration for two thousand people, and we had to cooperate. I don’t know if he came to see that I was currently active in the Church, committed to the gospel, and that even a former wretch can be useful in the kingdom; his attitude toward me seemed to grow respectful, and we parted as friends. It doesn’t change the fact that he was one of the many who wounded me with his unfortunate words. I hold no ill will toward him; he is a wonderful man, and I’m glad his life is happy and clean now. He is serving well and faithfully in the Church.
I’ll never forget the woman in my mother’s ward who informed my mother that she just KNEW I was pregnant when I got married, because she had done the math. Truth was, I married at seventeen, got pregnant a few weeks later, and my baby was born six weeks early. I wasn’t pregnant when I got married–but she knew better. She could count to nine, and she had done the math. Never mind that my baby weighed 4 1/2 pounds, a good indication of prematurity, and had to stay in the hospital ten days until she was big enough to come home. It made me sensitive to the gossip women encounter when they ARE pregnant out of wedlock. Thinking people are watching. And counting. And tsk, tsk, tsking. It hurts.
Maybe you encountered this, too, Naismith. After my divorce, my bishop sent me to BYU to “find a good husband.” Can’t tell you how many returned missionaries at BYU invited me on “dates.” Their idea of a date was to drive up the canyon, park, and see if they could persuade me to get cozy. They knew I was married and divorced and had a baby. They did the math. They knew that “married” meant I had been formerly sexually active, and that seemed to intrigue them. I wish I could say that had happened only a few times. It was disheartening, how often it happened. It made me bitter and suspicious. Well, in retrospect, I let it make me bitter and suspicious. I finally determined that I wasn’t going to date any more. Ever. Men were jerks, I was sure. When they called to ask for dates, I firmly told them no. I finally agreed to go out with one young man who had just returned from his mission, and the only reason I consented to date him was because we had dated in high school, and he had never had the courage to even try to hold my hand. He was so respectful of me. He gave me a copy of the song, “Three Times A Lady.” He treated me like the lady I so desperately wanted to be, and I felt he would be safe. He was. He kissed me for the first time when we had been engaged four months, and that was only after receiving my permission. It was his first kiss. That sounds extreme, but he was aware of how important it had become to me get and stay morally clean. We married in the Idaho Falls Temple, and I have never forgotten how it was to be worthy and FINALLY THERE. I couldn’t quit crying for the joy of it. I was gloriously happy.
It has been 25 years, and he still treats me like three times more the lady than I could ever be.
After we married, we moved into the ward in which he grew up. Many of the ward members didn’t approve of me, including the bishop’s wife. They thought he, a returned missionary, could do better. I tried so hard to be friendly to them, and I was met with constant coldness, if not rudeness. It wasn’t my imagination; I didn’t say anything about it, but my mother-in-law voluntarily apologized for the way I was being treated. It was pretty obvious. After twenty-five years of watching me, those same people are now very friendly toward my husband and me when we visit their ward. They learned that it can work out, and their fears for us were probably not as valid as they once thought. I am so glad to have them for my friends. The earlier experience wasn’t wasted; it served its purpose. Now I am keenly aware of the feelings of people who come to the ward with situations out of the norm, and as a bishop’s wife, I do my best to welcome them and help them feel they belong. People often comment about how warm and friendly our ward is–and that’s the way it ought to be, in Christ’s true church. I can’t stand to think that someone might suffer the pain I felt.
It seems that I am being admonished at this website for being too sensitive. After all, adults extract their feelings and have “real” conversations. Yesterday I got to teach 14 year-olds that the Holy Ghost speaks to their minds and their hearts, that divine communication is accomplished through thoughts and feelings. The objective of the lesson was to teach people to be sensitive to the feelings of their hearts, to pay close attention to them instead of ignoring them, to let them shape the way they behave. Not every feeling is a communication from the Holy Ghost, but neither is it always a thing to ignore or brush off or pretend it doesn’t exist. My guess is our conversations are ALWAYS shaped by the way we feel, and the way we feel is shaped to a large extent by the experiences we’ve had.
You are giving me conflicting advice, telling me to walk away from threads that are painful for me, but berating me for not continuing to answer your questions that are designed to make me “think”–as if thinking about the subject from many angles was not something I was bright enough to have accomplished on my own. Concerning these painful matters, I have spent years trying to cover the angles, trying to put it to rest so I can move on. It’s not as simple as it seems. I didn’t mention my divorce with the intent to start a whole conversation about divorce; I mentioned it, as I said, because Michelle asked about things that had shaped our identities over the years. My mistake was to continue to share my experiences and my feelings about those experiences, even though I knew that most of you had never divorced, repented, and tried to recover. (By the way, General Authorities have said that no divorce is entirely the fault of one party or the other; in a divorce, there are always things to repent of on both sides of the equation. It takes two to tango, so to speak.)
I do owe you an apology, ChanJo. I apologize for growing impatient with you. As I sat in our Sacrament meeting yesterday preparing to take the Sacrament, I asked the Lord to help me remember things from my past week for which I needed to repent. I am grateful for that regular help. He reminded me that I had been impatient with you, and my impatience had been unwarranted. That doesn’t mean I am not still puzzled at your seeming dislike of me and my ways; it just means my impatience with you was unwarranted, as is most impatience.
I will also submit that jumping to conclusions is a problem at this website. I get my exercise jumping to conclusions. I am firmly aware, however, that I am not jumping alone; we are all getting plenty of exercise. Jumping to conclusions is a problem, but so is denial. It is so much easier and more comfortable to deny the implications made by our comments than to own all the ramifications of our conversations. We may be wrong when we draw a conclusion about a person’s motives here–but sometimes we are right, and the person giving the offense would be the last to admit it or even believe it, because after all, it would make him look bad, maybe even only to himself. We don’t want to believe bad things about ourselves, and so we don’t. I know people here have assigned motives to me that surprised me. I am also absolutely certain that I have assigned motives to people that surprised if not hurt them. Human relationships are messy. My apologies for my contributions to the mess. But for as long as we have discussed matters, and as often as we have shared our hearts, we DO have relationships here, and we can’t pretend they don’t exist for the sake of rational discussion of the matters at hand. It is not probable or possible that we could remove all emotion from our interaction with each other. Not desirable, either, to my way of thinking.
A few more comments, and then I’ll quit so you can stop being uncomfortable. Mary WAS a single mother. She knew intimately what it is like to be pregnant and unmarried, and she was subject to all the same speculation that unwed pregnant women experience through lack of understanding. Nazareth was a relatively small town. She dealt with THE SAME GROUP of people, these fellow Nazarenes who declared that Jesus Christ could not possibly have been a prophet; they had known Him personally while He was growing up. She was a single mother at the beginning; she was a single mother again at the end, amongst that very group of people. There was apparently not a Joseph in her life when the Savior was hanging on the cross, and some of the last, excruciatingly difficult words He uttered were out of His concern for His single mother. Jesus was her oldest child, and we know she had several children after that. We also know that some of her subsequent children were disaffected with Jesus; possibly they were with her, too. Why else would Jesus make the painful effort to be certain her care was ensured? Where were the other brothers and sisters? Not at the cross. I wish there were more in the scriptures about the kind of care Jesus’ single mother received at John’s hands. I’m sure he took the assignment seriously. I think Jesus knew intimately what it was like to have troubled family relationships, in spite of his best efforts. We know, too, that some of his siblings repented of their feelings toward him. The very James who so inspired Joseph Smith with his “if any of you lack wisdom” invitation was none other than the younger stepbrother of Jesus himself, who once had some difficult feelings about being Jesus’ brother. I would have loved to see the reunion between Joseph Smith and James, the younger brother of Jesus Christ. I love the book of James. That man was full of thoughtfulness, and his teachings are some of the most beautiful in all scripture.
About revelation. Yesterday in the lesson I taught (number six in the Gospel Doctrine manual), I was happy to find this clarifying quote by John H. Groberg concerning whom to marry: “I would caution you that you cannot receive a one-sided revelation from God in regards to an eternal marriage. Only as both parties feel the same way can you have the assurance that it is from the Lord. Those who try to force another’s free will into their supposed-revelation mold are doing a great disservice to themselves and to their friends.”
I also think that eliminating revelation one might have had by being more open-minded is doing a great disservice to self and friends. I thoroughly understand that saying “I will only marry in the temple” is a worthy goal, sanctioned by prophets. Saying “I will only marry in the temple to someone who has never been divorced or had a child” is not a worthy goal and not sanctioned by prophets. It eliminates some righteous possibilities. Certainly it would be wrong or at least unwise to say, “Oh boy! I’m going to go out and find a divorced person or unwed mother to marry, because I really believe in the Atonement!” Certainly it would be wrong or at least unwise to go to the other extreme and say, “I am never going to marry a person who is divorced or has children, with or without marriage, because statistics show higher failure rates for those situations.” What might be a safe middle ground is to say at the outset, “These are the ideal situations I would like to have for my marriage, but I’m sure with the help of the Spirit, I could determine when there might be legitimate exceptions.” They aren’t RARE exceptions; if they were, extreme caution would be warranted. There may be a higher rate of failure of second marriages, but I wouldn’t say it was INCREDIBLY higher. Alison’s mother and father were a legitimate exception. Apparently Naismith and her husband were a legitimate exception. I think my husband and I were a legitimate exception. I know many, not a few, legitimate exceptions who are happily married now. By their fruits ye shall know them. If my child were contemplating marriage to an individual from the “risk” group, I would encourage him to let Heavenly Father help him see that individual through His eyes. I would tell him to be aware of the statistics, but not paralyzed by fear of the unknown. And I continue to believe that the Atonement is ALL ABOUT giving people second chances. If time and experience prove it to be unwise to pursue the second chance which culminates in marriage, I guess that’s a legitimate possibility, too. My heart aches for my fellow “risks” who never even get the chance to date, though, to even explore the possibility of marriage, because after all, people have their standards. That attitude is more common in the Church than you might be willing to accept.
I agree with Tracy and Michelle. I do feel that parents can receive revelation for their children which they might not be able to receive for themselves, particularly where paths of revelation are blocked for children by their own serious sin and its consequent distance from revelation. That can happen at any age. I taught those kids yesterday that the inspiration from the Holy Ghost comes in different ways. It might come as an actual voice or appearance (rare), a thought or impression, a dream or vision, something in print, something an uninvolved speaker says, or something a very involved parent or other leader says. Parents continue to have a stewardship with children for the remainder of their eternal lives, so it stands to reason that they could continue to have revelation concerning them, and not just about their parenting skills. That does not mean parents are free to butt in or tread where they have no business treading, but in certain situations, their inspiration is still viable and needed. Michelle gave some good examples from the Book of Mormon.
Davidson, you did not make me uncomfortable. I appreciate your post. You have seen things from a different perspective than I, and that’s acceptable. We have differences of opinion, and most likely always will, but I have ALWAYS tried to be respectful of you and your experiences, and feel that I’ve received that in return for the most part.
Sincerely, I am very sorry for your experience. I know that people can be insensitive jerks, and it sounds like it happened on more than one occasion for you. It happened with me at times as well, but that’s beside the point.
The single mothers I am talking about are not from my husband’s work. I am not privy to my husband’s encounters with his clients. I’m sure he treats them with love and respect because he’s a good man and that’s what he would do, in real life or in his work.
I wasn’t planning to get into the specifics, but the cases I spoke of are all within my own family and close circle of friends, and they involved 5 either never-married or divorced mothers. Times were hard. Sometimes they dated jerks. I loved these ladies before, during, and after their ordeals. Eventually, 4 of the 5 found someone that they were able to have a temple marriage with, and have happy marriages from what I can tell. The 5th is also married, although not in the temple – but to a good man who loves her children as his own. All of them were married (to their current spouse) by the age I was when I got married. I had many years of dating – jerks, fabulous men, men who wanted me only for one thing, and men who were looking for an eternal companion and saw a good person (but not an eternal companion) in me. Trust me, I know the jerks are out there. But not everyone is a jerk. Luckily, there are wonderful men out too. You found one, Naismith found one, I found one, and my 5 friends each found one. In fact, I would say more often than not, the single or divorced mom finds love again. The times in between are difficult I am sure – it is a complicating factor in what is already a complicated thing. It’s an extra thing to deal with. It happens.
I think it’s impossible to judge other people’s motives, and thus unfair to say that someone doesn’t believe in the atonement. That is something no human can ever judge in another person.
I wish you the best Davidson, always have and will.
davidson, I don’t doubt at all that sometimes people were jerky toward you and Naismith or that you were hurt. (Haven’t I written enough about hurt feelings (hair, weight, bullies) to show that I do understand and sympathize with those who are harmed?) But that was never the contention. The disagreement was with your statement that those who didn’t want to marry you because of your divorce/child did not believe in the atonement. I’m still trying to get clarity on that ONE issue.
I’m sorry you were hurt. I’m sorry that people unfairly judged you. I’m sorry that guys tried to make moves on you. Sincerely I am. But I have never worried that someone casually reading the sight would misunderstand the idea of hurt feelings.
As for the sensitivity issue, maybe this will give insight. In a period of nearly six months while I was at BYU I went out with 56 guys (yes, I dated all the time and, yes, I journaled it all). All but two were returned missionaries. All but two (different two), made moves on our first date. And I’m not talking about trying to hold my hand. Like you, I became disgusted and decided (and told my bishop!) that guys were all jerks and I was done dating.
Why did they do it? I was not divorced and I had no kids, so I can’t blame that situation on their actions. Did I dress like a slut? Well, I did have two mini-skirts and one “flash dance” sweatshirt that I wore at my apartment. Oh, and my two pageant gowns weren’t “temple worthy” but were far from sleazy, if you ask me. And I did follow BYU dress code down to the letter at school/church, etc.
I just decided that some guys were jerks who chose not to use any self-control and that I was so flaming hot that they couldn’t help themselves. 😉
I bring this up to point out that maybe, just maybe, you were physically attractive and a guy of low moral character just might use any excuse he could think of to pounce. Maybe it really had nothing to do with your situation because you weren’t actually treated differently than some others of us. Like I said, I got the same treatment (or worse?) and wasn’t divorced and had no kids.
davidson, if I read ChanJo’s post correctly, it was the “I’m leaving because you hurt my feelings” impression that was given when she couldn’t see how someone attacked you.
davidson, who told you to leave? Who berated you for not answering?
davidson, are you sure you’re not confusing her with Oregonian? To me this sounds like, “Well, I’m sorry I was impatient with you when you were mean, hurtful, and awful to me.” But has *ChanJo* done so repeatedly? I just scanned, but saw mostly just regular comments from her.
Frankly, this isn’t helpful. If you have a complaint, address it. Give an example. If you think I jumped to conclusions, just say so and tell me where you had a problem with what I said. But to generally throw an accusation at everyone without substantiation won’t go anywhere.
davidson, I sincerely don’t understand your point in pursuing this idea. Yes, we all know marry wasn’t married when she conceived. (Would it have made a difference, since Joseph wasn’t Jesus’ father anyway?) We don’t know how she conceived and speculation on it seems rather unnecessary. Mormons do, after all, believe in a virgin birth.
[To be clear, I’m not sure about all the implications of betrothal vs. marriage in Mary’s and Joseph’s culture. I don’t know, for example, how sexual activity AFTER betrothal as opposed to BEFORE betrothal was viewed. So most of this is just speculative.]
So, what does this tell us? Does Mary know what it’s like for people to misjudge her? Sure. Because she WAS a virgin and people may have assumed she wasn’t, that would be difficult. Mary would then, perhaps, understand being misjudged.
Does that mean that she has some great sympathy for those who choose to ignore the law of chastity, become pregnant, and then faces social consequences? I’m not sure why it would, because that is NOT what she did!
Would Mary somehow have great sympathy for those who commits adultery and faces social consequences or someone who steals and faces social consequences?
That’s not to say that all social consequences are good. But are they all bad? That’s an interesting issue I’ve discussed with Sam and my sister for a couple of decades now.
As for Mary being a “single mother” at the end, I disagree based on my definitions. I think “single mother,” “divorced mother,” “widowed mother” are more meaningful terms.
Deciding to get married only in the temple excludes most of the world’s decent, God-fearing men, too. I do understand your point about “sanctioned by prophets,” though, so let’s move to something less serious.
I have never heard anyone say they have a “goal” to “only marry someone who’s never been married” but I would guess that most never-married folks would prefer that. Is that wrong? Is that anymore wrong than, say, to prefer a blonde? someone educated? someone kind? someone loving? someone athletic? someone adventurous? someone who shares common interests? someone who is good with kids? someone who has a loving family?
I guess I DO think that’s what most people do. I dated a ton, but MOST of the guys I dated did not propose. Why? I don’t know, but they had SOME reason for not doing so. I couldn’t blame a divorce and children and claim that they didn’t understand the atonement. But they DID choose not to pursue marriage with me. Are their reasons acceptable? YES! They are! And I don’t even know what they were. They just didn’t WANT to marry me. That’s enough of a reason!
Yes, davidson, and third and fourth and fifth chances. But the atonement is NOT all about giving people a “chance” to marry you. When people decid who they marry, wise people look at the whole person. Past, future, emotional/physical health, ambition, desires, faithfulness, interests, personality, family, sense of humor, education…the whole ball of wax. They look at the whole thing and decide if that whole thing is where they want to place their eternity. Of course they look at past relationships/marriages and children, just as they look at all the other stuff. Getting a temple recommend isn’t the only qualification.
davidson I still don’t know what you’re talking about since I don’t dislike you. I just think that the best first step in dealing with hurt feelings is to look at yourself and see if someone else really did something harmful or if your just too emotional about it.
hey taking my name in vain…
You’re in good company, then, aren’t you 🙂
We could go round and round and round with this, but I don’t see any advantage in it. I wave the white flag.
Davidson, I think everyone here agrees with 95% of what you and Naismith are saying– the only problem seems to be with the idea that a person who has reservations about marrying someone who’s been divorced, and/or has kids from a previous relationship, doesn’t believe in the atonement.
Certainly, the guy who made the snotty remark about you being in the temple is a moron. And it would SEEM that he’d assumed you hadn’t repented or the atonement couldn’t work for you.
Anyone who assumes that a divorced woman, a single/divorced mother, an unwed mother (to me, there’s a difference– which is why I maintain that Mary wasn’t a single mother– single mother implies that she raised him on her own, which she didn’t) automatically is “bad” choice for a marriage partner is just being ridiculous. But for someone to be cautious and concerned about potential problems is entirely different than automatically assuming that it could never work, that the person is automatically ‘unworthy’, etc. In the case of divorce, I DO believe that sometimes only ONE person is guilty of causing the divorce. And that’s exactly WHY it would be important for someone to know WHY a potential partner is divorced in the first place.
There’s a difference between a divorcee who was victim of abuse for example, and a divorcee who was unfaithful, abusive, etc.
And certainly, as Naismith pointed out, a rape victim who ends up delivering and keeping a child conceived during the rape isn’t “guilty” of anything that a potential spouse should be concerned about.
Can I give a very close example?
I have a family member who’s a convicted (and admitted) sex offender– against his own CHILD nonetheless. He also admitted to sleeping with prostitutes on his trucking route and that he has a porn addiction. He served his time and is out now. He says he’s repented.
How would you feel if your daughter started dating him? If you had concerns, would that mean that you didn’t believe in the Atonement?
The woman he married, his daughter’s mother, was inactive long before he met her. He was inactive too– for the most part. He started abusing his daughter around the age of 2, until he got caught when she was 5. During that time, the family started going back to church, he was ordained, and they went to the temple to be sealed. You know what that means, right? He was lying his way through interviews. So despite what he was doing while mom was at work, he was ordained and went to the temple. You know– go to church– pass the sacrament, go home and rape your 3 year old.
Within 2 years of the sealing, he got caught, was sentenced and served a pathetic 1 year in jail.
I have NO doubts in the power of the Atonement. I ONLY have doubts about him and his USE of the Atonement. I don’t believe for one second that he’s repented. He SAYS he has– but the man doesn’t go to church. He doesn’t have appointments with the Bishop. For two years my family sent his wife money, because he wouldn’t. He only started paying child support when the court forced it by taking it right out of his paycheck. He started dating again
BEFORE he was divorced and got the girl pregnant. She had a GIRL– they got married last year. The woman KNOWS he molested his first daughter– but you know what she says? “He’s changed. He repented.” Like when he repented in order to get the priesthood? Like when he repented before going to the temple? Yeah– he repented. And Pol Pot never killed anyone. What evidence does she have that he repented? Even after all the damage he did to his family, he wasn’t even sorry enough to at LEAST help his wife CARE for the kids by sending her money. Nah– he was spending it on this other chick, going out on dates. And now he’s trucking again, and lives 2 hours away from his new family during the week, only coming home on the weekends.
Let’s see– he’s addicted to porn, admitted sleeping with prostitutes and isn’t living at home? He doesn’t go to church, doesn’t meet with the Bishop…
and she says he’s “changed”??
Whether it’s divorce, babies out of wedlock, addictions, pornography, abuse– whatever– people have GOOD REASON to be concerned about people’s pasts and how those pasts could AFFECT a future marriage and family. It doesn’t mean that they don’t trust the atonement– but rather, don’t trust that teh PERSON has truly USED the atonement in their life.
I KNOW people who are divorced who I would NOT have a problem with if my son (if he were old enough) wanted to marry them. I know OTHER people who are divorced who I’d NEVER want him to marry. The fact that they are at church every week isn’t good enough.
I know PLENTY of people who at one time were NOT living the law of chastity, who I would NOT have a problem with him marrying either.
If my son told me that he was wanting to marry someone who was divorced– I WOULD have some concerns. Why are they divorced? Were they partly to blame? If so, do they recognize their part in the divorce and have they truly repented and changed? I can tell you that I would NOT automatically dismiss them or assume that they were a horrible choice. But I don’t think my concerns would demonstrate in anyway that I don’t believe in the atonement.
There’s a sister in our ward who recently divorced. I REMEMBER when I met her for the first time. It was in between sessions of conference about 3-4 years ago. We were sitting in the chapel– wiating for the next session to start. I didn’t recognize her and introduced myself. She was recently married– for the second time, and had moved here from Utah with her husband. Her husband had children with his previous wife, and she had a daughter. Within 5 minutes of meeting me, she began bad -mouthing her husband’s previous wife. Talking about how crabby she was, how unfair she was– how she blamed everything on her husband, etc. Everything the 1st wife said about her husband was a lie. She was the “wicked witch of the west”.
And I thought– “lady– you only know what your husband is telling you.” I was totally flabbergasted that she was berating her husbands previous wife to me, having JUST met me. I immediately got a bad first impression of her. Not that she was “evil” or anything, but that she was incredibly naive
and one of those people who automatically assumes that her new beau is completely innocent and the EX was the problem. She also seemed very bitter
and was just incredibly nasty regarding the ex-wife.
Her husband came a few minutes later– i got a very bad first impression of him, as well. Just a gut thing though. Maybe influenced by the impression his wife gave me. but whatever it was, I had a sense that this guy was a creep. (And as I’ve stated here before– I have YET to discover that my first impressions of people have been wrong._)
Soon after, I was called into the Stake YW. I ended up working with this sister as an advisor in her ward’s YW program. Despite the horrible first impressioh she gave, I saw a very nice side of her– compassionate toward the YW– particularly those with serious problems– even taking one of them in. And I was happy to get rid of the bad taste in my mouth that she’d put there previously.
Then, my mother came out from Utah to visit. When we went to my son’s scout camp parent night, she was surprised to see a young man from HER ward in Utah, at my son’s scout camp in Missouri. Turns out it’s the step-son of this same sister I worked with in YW. My mother had only WONDERFUL things to say about the first wife. Not so nice things about the ex-husband. She sort of verfied my gut feeling about him.
Last year, this sister moved into my ward. Why? She’s now divorced from this man that she thought was SOOOO wonderful, and who’s ex-wife was the wicked witch of the west. Her mostly inactive daughter was in my Sunday School class. She hardly ever came, but when she did, I’d have to “squelch” her comments because she always related everything to her mom’s “stupid ex-husband” and would start going off on what an idiot this man is and how her mother was so stupid for marrying him, and how she never liked him in the first place. Not exactly appropriate material for a Sunday school discussion.
I could be wrong– but I would’nt doubt the cause of this man’s first divorce is very related to the cause of the second one.
The fact that he has access to the atonement, that he attends church, etc– doens’t necessarily make him good “marriage” material. That doesn’t mean that he could NEVER be good marriage material. But obviously, there’s a continuing problem here. 2 divorces in 5 or so years? I think it’s probably safe to say that whatever this man did to contribute to the first divorce, was probably never repented of, and continued into the second marriage. Now there’s another family in ruins.
Surely, no matter WHO someone is, or what their past, they have access to the atonement. But it’s only common sense and wisdom, to not assume that just because someone has ACCESS to the atonement, that they’ve truly USED it, recognize where they’ve been going wrong and have truly had a change of heart. And that goes for EVERYONE– not just the divorced, the addicted, etc. Anyone can have hidden sins, problems, personality flaws, etc.
But it would be irresponsible and unwise to brush off things that COULD serve as warning signs.
Sorry– that was incredibly long-winded. 🙂
am I going to wait for the bishop to tell me what I should do?
I am way back at this comment about revelation and stewardships…again, I think it depends on how you define revelation. I don’t think a bishop’s or parents’ revelation is the same thing as telling someone what to do. Often revelation is so much more iterative, so much more of a process, and counseling with those who have the stewardship over one can be part of that process.
I think it’s important not to conflate extreme examples of unrighteous dominion (e.g., the kidnapping case) with what revelation within a stewardship could mean and how it could play into the process.
Don’t know if I’m making sense….
Michelle, you are making sense – I just think that the revelation a parent might get for an adult child is generally more about how to counsel, give advice, etc. than to tell your child what they should do. It’s the difference in saying, “Have you considered this…” or “try to see it this way” and “I had a revelation that you are not supposed to marry that person, so you shouldn’t”. That’s not really a parent’s call for most (meaning accountable) adults.
Now, yes the kidnapping mom added another element to that “you are not suppposed to marry that person, so you shouldn’t, and I’m going to make sure you don’t by removing you from the situation”…that’s an extreme most parents wouldn’t go to, but some would.
Davidson, I didn’t realize we were at war. Most of us are simply having a discussion.
It’s the difference in saying, “Have you considered this…” or “try to see it this way” and “I had a revelation that you are not supposed to marry that person, so you shouldn’t”.
I understand the difference, and I agree.
But I think there is something more that could happen…that parents can gain insights about the situation, can perhaps even see into the future with the Spirit’s help, etc. That won’t necessarily be something that is shared, and definitely shouldn’t be forced (again, that crosses into unrighteous dominion). I just don’t think it’s fully accurate to say that parents will ONLY receive ideas for what they should say or do. I think they *could* receive different types of revelation.
Again, to me, it’s about recognizing how differently revelation can come, and that it isn’t always about ‘this is what you should do.’ Honestly, how often do you receive that kind of revelation for yourself? Often, revelation comes more line upon line than that for me, and insights that others in my life can receive as we counsel together can be as significant and directly applicable to my life as what I can receive for myself.
I also saw my parents receive their own revelation that my marriage decision was a good one. I was there when they experienced it. They didn’t tell me what to do (I had already told them that was what was happening), but they received a confirming witness. That to me is more than just ideas about what to say. They got their own confirmation, and I think that is fully in line with their stewardship to receive.
I also think there may have been something to what they felt about that other guy I told y’all about. I think they overstepped the line a bit in not letting me come to that conclusion w/o feeling their disapproval, but I still think there may have been more to what they felt than just emotional reactions.
Michelle’s father had a confirming witness about our relationship (that she should pursue it, not anything more) when we first met. He didn’t insist, but he certainly encouraged her to have my address with her when she went to Girls’ Camp – and he bought her a postcard to send to me while she was there. This was (is) an extremely conservative man, so this was “out of character” for him, and yet he actively helped facilitate communication between his 15-year-old daughter and a young man his daughter had known for less that two weeks – whom he had met exactly once for less than five minutes.
He told us about his impression long after the fact, and Michelle was still a teenager living at home (so I understand the difference between receiving revelation for an adult son or daughter), but I’m sure the “right to revelation concerning one’s children” extends long beyond when they leave the house. I just see a major difference between “concerning” and “for” in this discussion.
How does that relate to discovering one’s identity? I think the Spirit can teach us lots of things that seem tangential to our identity but actually are an integral part of it, like when two identities are wrapped in one shared identity. I think we and others can sense that, when appropriate – and I think it is the Spirit that teaches us more about our identity than anything else we encounter. It’s not necessarily our experiences; rather, it’s what we take from them.
I’ve been thinking, especially lately, that the process of determining what my priorities should be keeps drawing me back to my patriarchal blessing. I think, for all the key points in my life, that my blessing has been a guidepost and complementary to following the Spirit in my decisions that I have made. I know it was especially key for me in not only choosing who to marry but also when to marry.
I’ve been also thinking about my unique identity and the specific talents and abilities that Heavenly Father gave to me in comparison with my brothers and sisters. I know we aren’t supposed to compare, but one specific example has made me appreciate the value of not comparing ourselves with others and focusing on what we individually have to offer. My patriarchal blessing specifically mentions family history work as one area that I should work on and doesn’t mention anything specific about missionary work. I was curious as to whether any of my siblings had similar emphasis in their blessings about family history so I asked them and none of them did, but they all had things that mentioned missionary work.
After thinking about it, this was not surprising to me considering their talents and abilities. I, on the other hand, have a harder time with missionary work and really enjoy family history work when I can do it. This realization is helping me recognize that Heavenly Father knows my strengths and weaknesses and has encouraged me more in areas that are strengths for me. It also has helped me not feel quite so bad that I’m not as gung-ho about missionary work as the rest of my family. Now, I recognize that this doesn’t give me an excuse to neglect missionary work in my life and I won’t, but it’s another confirmation to me that each of us has a specific work to do with our lives and it’s our responsibility to work with God to understand what that is, do it, and not worry that our path might be different from those around us.
Excellent, Amy! What a good idea, to let patriarchal blessings help determine what our identities are! And I have a great respect for you already. A statistic I found several years ago said that only 6% of the membership of the Church does family history work (the preparation necessary to take names to the temple) , and of that 6%, only 2% submit their work to Salt Lake. The vast majority of the information found in our archives is submitted by nonmembers when the Spirit of Elijah moves them. Many will admit that they like doing it, but they don’t know why they are doing it. The three-fold mission of the Church is to bring three groups of souls unto Christ: (1) ourselves, (2) the living, and (3) the dead. It’s all missionary work and all necessary. Bless your heart for seeking to know your calling.
That’s SOOO sad!
Ray, it was youth conference not girls camp. 😉
My dad was there as a chaperone. He bought 2 postcards; one to send to our family and one for me to send to “Ray, if you want – or whomever else you want to send it – or if you want to keep it as a souvenir.” I was not with him when he bought them at the gift shop.
Amy, excellent point about patriarchal blessings. I know mine has greatly affected the direction of my life and the priorities I have had (and have now) and how I have identified myself. Thank you for returning to the questions originally posed!
Davidson, I like your point about family history being one aspect of missionary work.
OK, who had to go bring up genealogy and induce all this guilt??? 😥
Me! I did that! Now I will make you a cup of cocoa to help you feel better. 🙂 Whipped cream, or marshmallows?
Davidson, I’ll take one with whipped cream, please. :whorship:
That’s funny. I started typing “youth conference” but changed it to “girls camp”. Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about boys being there when you fell.
This realization is helping me recognize that Heavenly Father knows my strengths and weaknesses and has encouraged me more in areas that are strengths for me.
I have found sometimes that my patriarchal blessing has done the opposite as well…some elements of it have been there as anchors to help me do or choose things that wouldn’t have been natural for me.
There’s definitely what you talk about too, but the older I get, the more I see how my blessing has prepared me for some really hard things and helped me see what things I would need to work hard on.
davidson, I was going to take the blame. :smile::wink:
Alison’s comment, though, makes me think of another aspect of identity that I thought of while reading Michelle’s post. If we know who we are and what our priorities should be based on personal revelation (which, of course, changes with time and circumstances), then we shouldn’t ever feel guilt about what we aren’t doing because we’ll have the calm assurance from the Lord that we are focusing our efforts on where they should be for the moment. That’s what I’m working towards, at least, because I don’t like unnecessary guilt. 🙂
I’ve found that, too. The older I get, the more I realize how well Heavenly Father knows me and my circumstances and my patriarchal blessing continues to be a guide to who I can become.
Thank you. I think I’ll need both to feel better. 🙂 Make that a double. Drown my guilt in theobromine.
Genealogy is one of those things that sits in the back of my head and makes me crazy. I KNOW I need to do it, but I have no desire to make room for it in my life. And I know I’m wrong, I’m not making excuses. I just need to get off my duff, but OH! Can I clean toilets or something instead????
Amy E, what I think and what I do are not necessarily the same thing. 🙁
Alison, I have the same problem, a lot more than I wish.
Alison,
For me indexing (used to be called extraction) assuages some of that guilt. We don’t have to be doing the classic fam history to be helping with the work. 🙂 It’s so easy, can be done in 15-30 minute increments here and there…it’s great for people like us, imo.
Alison, you are more than welcome to come clean my toilets any time!!! I might even do some indexing for you in trade… 😉
Hey, I was thinking of mentioning indexing too. I used to do it and really enjoyed it. I haven’t done it lately because I’m working on a medical transcription course, but it’s definitely a way to contribute.
I just want to second my wife’s suggestion. I’d be more than happy to work out some in-kind payment. :devil:
Michelle L., the dumb thing is that I even know about indexing. I took a class on it just about a year ago. (Meaning that I went to my friend’s house who does it and she showed a few of us how to do it.) That was a step in the right direction. But then I was told that I couldn’t use the software on a Mac and I couldn’t do it virtually until about a month ago when I got an Intel Mac. And now I can’t even remember how. Blah blah blah. Just more excuses and reasons and blah.
Michelle and Ray. You are so kind. I will be sure to add that to my To Do list! If I bring my own tools is it worth more to you?
I’ll take bathroom cleaning help any day!
And Alison, I am in the same boat…computer crashed and I can’t find my password and login and ….
Medical transcription course? How’s it going? I started one, had several months of kidney stone problems and drugs for pain, and I let it drop. I haven’t picked it up again. Do you mind if I ask? Where are you taking the course–or is it an correspondence course? I’d sure like to hear your experiences with it.
Hi Serena,
I’ve only been doing the program for 3 weeks now, but I’m really liking it. I’m doing the Career Step program online. My sister in law did this same program a few years ago and had several job offers right away. She now gets her own contracts and works about 3-4 hours a night after her kids in bed (from about 8:30 until midnight-ish) evey night. She said now that she’s fast and can keep more profit since she gets her own contract, she’s averaging around $15 an hour. Starting, she said it was around $9.00. (you get paid by the line – sure you knew that already – so as you get faster and more familiar with the terms you’ll make more.)
I’m sure it will get harder as it goes, but I’m 25% finished with the program. They say if you do it full time, you can finish in about 4 months. I’m trying to move as quickly as I can so that by the time school is out I’ll be done or close to it. I substitute teach so it would be really nice to have something to make up for that income I’ll lose over the summer, and then if it’s going well enough I just won’t go back to subbing. I’d like to go to grad school in a year or so, and I think this will be something flexible I can do to earn a little money. There is definitely something to be said for being able to work in your pajamas at home!!
I think you should pick it back up, you’d probably really like it. 🙂
Every one I’ve talked to who does transcription really likes it.
LOL Michelle, I went out a few times with the son of Ed Decker :shocked:. We were always just friends, but I still remember the date when he told me who his dad was. All I could think of was the legacy this guy had to live with. He was a great, upstanding, guy, a returned missionary, going to BYU and active in the church. He was on the tech crew for Young Ambassadors and toured with them. But he had this issue that he couldn’t escape.
Agreed Tracy. I couldn’t marry a military man OR a cop. But I am SO glad we have them!!! I wouldn’t even want to marry any kind of on-call physician. Maybe a podiatrist in private practice with a partner, but never an OB! 🙂
I was a bridesmaid at one of my best friends’ wedding years ago. She was marrying a man who was a quadriplegic. The decision to marry was a bit different, because when they got engaged he wasn’t a quad. He got in the car accident on the way to Utah to see her, the day after Christmas (just a few weeks before their wedding date was first scheduled)–long story. But she still made the conscious decision to marry him–and that was a choice with major ramifications. So, whatever the decision, best that the issues be dealt with head on.
mlinford thinks I’m gay? Because I’m not a homophobe? Wow. Just wow. Just found this. Wow. Only way someone can’t hate gay people is to be one? Wow wow wow wow wow. Scared little girl? Wow wow wow wow wow. Telling.
djinn, this thread is over two years old, so I really didn’t want to refresh my memory on the whole thing. In skimming, however, I could not see where mlinford said anything about you being gay. Ray’s comment seemed to mention lesbians and you in the same paragraph, but I didn’t see the attribution you claim there either.
You can clarify if you want, or maybe just stop googling your screenname looking for a fight. 😉
It was Ray, I misread. Sorry MLinford.
“Frankly, that’s a trait that MANY lesbians share – a visceral need to challenge authority. One of the main reasons you and I rub Quimby and lorian and (especially) djinn wrong is that we speak with an authoritative voice. They associate that with oppression and pain, so they lash out at it without stopping to read carefully what we are saying. It’s a little worse, actually, for you, since, ironically, they can see me as a “nice guy†who just doesn’t get it fully – but they feel betrayed by you (another woman). ”
Still fascinating.
Plus there’s this from Ray, later affirmed by MLinford: “It’s interesting, however, to see her new handle (…jerk) on FMH and Mormon Matters. She really is more than a little unstable emotionally.” They’re taking a playful user handle designed to let people know that I recognize that I tend to get a bit passionate and are conflating it into a bit of a mental illness. Surely I get to at least mention a certain amount of, uh, distress. Ray lied to me. Repeatedly. Silly me. Where could I get those trust issues? I wish you guys wouldn’t be so sadly predictable.
Hmmm – I think some of this conversation used to be whispered – did the whispers become public when you switched over to the new format Alison?
Yes, the parts quoted in the recent comments were part of a private, personal conversation. It would be really nice, if possible, if someone went back through old posts and cleaned up that issue. I stand by what I said in all private messages, but they were structured as private messages – and that isn’t clear at all now. They appear to have been public messages for everyone to read, and they weren’t.
I’ve never lied to djinn in my life – or to anyone else at FMH. Every comment I’ve ever made there was honest. The comments quoted here are about perceptions of people and approaches to commenting.
Ray, apparently the port doesn’t distinguish posts. I’ve got about 10,000 comments on this blog and I don’t have a way to tell how they were posted in the forum format. If you’d like to tell me which particular comments were originally sent as private, I can hide them. Maybe a post URL and comment number?
That’s impossible, Alison, given how long it would take me without access to the old version. I hoped maybe there was a way to access the old version, which would make it much quicker. If not, so be it.
Exactly. 🙂 I have no access to the old version, it was merely converted to this one. But even if I did have access, it wouldn’t help, given that the messages are in an entirely different database and would have to be identified one at a time. :/
If you see any that were private, give me the URLs and comment numbers and I can remove them.