What is success? (Language warning)

 When I was LDS one of the biggest things that worried me was that I would never do enough to win Christs love and acceptance.  I was taught all of my life that we had to try as hard as we could and that God would do the rest.  Well in the LDS world doing as hard as we could was a list.  If you didn't meet the criteria on this list then you would fall short and not be worthy in the eyes of Jesus. It seemed like I was always falling short in one way or another no matter how hard I tried I would never be able to feel the love of Jesus because according to the LDS faith I wasn't worthy.  This and some other life events has led me to have depression.  I have dealt with my depression in many ways but when I made the decision to leave the church and start my own journey things started to change. 

I learned that Jesus loved me unconditionally.  I learned about this thing called grace, which is a free gift with no strings attached.  Jesus loved me for me, despite of my weaknesses and my shortcomings.  Since then I have recognized that I am a sinner and that it is Jesus ALONE that can save me and not after all I can do.  I have met and now follow a very different Jesus than what I was taught in the LDS faith.  Before I was born again I went to a church and heard a song by Hillsong Worship and in that song there is a lyric that goes "Who the Son sets free is free indeed...in my Fathers house, there's a place for me...I'm a child of God, yes I am!  After hearing this song I knew I must repent and turn my life over to the Lord. 

My life has changed in many ways since I have left which I will talk about in future blog postings.  My wife will also be joining these blog posts as well to share her experience leaving the LDS faith.  However what I want to speak about today has been an issue in my life that up until recently has been a problem in my life.  

All throughout my childhood I was told what I should do in my life.  I learned that unless you did things a certain way then you couldn't succeed in this life.  You had to go to college, you had to do something big and important.  Something that people would recognize you, like you.  Being a blue collar worker wasn't enough, you had to be some sort of manager,  This was the key to success!

Here I am over 50 years old and have been chasing that word...success.  It wasn't until recently that my dear wife and I were talking and she asked me what did success mean to me.  I got my associates degree and learned regardless what my grandmother and aunt told me that I didn't have to have a piece of paper that said I had a degree to make it in life.  When I received my degree I had 15 years in the transit agency however I didn't feel like I was successful because of that piece of paper.  

So, I got my degree.  Now my life wasn't complete because I wasn't a manager for my company.  By this time the people I wanted to work with in management had since retired and moved on and I really didn't like anyone else.  So here I was.  Stuck.  What the hell am I going to do now?  

So going back to the talk to with wifey.  She asked me what does it take to be successful?  I always thought that it was the material things that I always tried to achieve in order to be someone in life that I was told all of my life.  Boy, wasn't that a crock of shit!  I had to seriously think at what success really is.

So here is what I came up with.  I have a family.  I have a great son whom we have had very little problems with whom I am VERY proud of.  Even though I am not a manager or make six figures a year or even haven't made my first million yet I have a good job which I have been with for 26 years now,  I am proud to say that I am the sole person in my family to hold a career for this long.  I own a home and a nice car.  

So even though it wasn't the description  I was told growing up, I can honestly say that I am successful!

The Beginning of the End

 I have always wondered where to start with these things. I am not at all by any means a writer, that is my wife's forte. However, over the course of the last couple of years I have gone through a faith crisis and thought that I would document my unravelling here.

Being born and raised in the LDS church is all I have known throughout my life. My dad came out of the closet when I was young and we left the church for awhile and attended a non denominational church for awhile and while I was a teenager we were inactive but we always found our way back to the church because we never knew the truth about the church.

My wife and I were married and sealed in the Portland LDS Temple. We are both returned missionaries. We thought we had the perfect LDS life and were going to live happily ever after. Well, I guess things do change. My wife started to question and investigate long before I ever started. I thought that she was quite foolish to be looking and I wanted to be a good Mormon and "follow the Prophet" blindly following and not questioning. Well, I did question some things. For me, the first red flag that I had was when the church got involved with proposition 8 in California. Being raised with a gay father I was taught to tolerate gays and lesbians and that God loved all of his children. Not to mention I have always had the opinion live and let live. So, I did have a bit of an issue when the church got involved with that and told their members how to vote. The second red flag for me was when the church came out with the policy that children of gay couples could not be baptized. I believe that this policy has since been lifted. However this did not sit well with me. I was quite torn. I was active, going to church every week. I was teaching Elders Quorum. Going to the temple every week. I had a big problem with this and started to question.

Not too long after this my wife woke me up crying. It was late and I asked her what was wrong. It appears that on the State of Utah archives website Brigham Young said speaking to the Utah Legislature that it is better for a couple that is in a mixed race relationship to be killed than than to continue living. I found this VERY hard to believe when my wife told me this and thought that certainly this isn't a credible website she is looking at and that perhaps if it is He wasn't speaking as a prophet but as the governor of Utah. So I checked it out for myself and right there on the Utah State Archive Website in black and white there it was. To make things worse he added that he is speaking as the president of the church.

Now I was told all of my life that God would not allow the prophet to lead the church astray. For me this was leading the church astray. Why would a loving God pick and choose the children whom he loves? For me this was the moment that I knew that I wouldn't be going back to the LDS church.

For a very long time since then my wife and I have researched high and low and have spent hours upon hours for direction as to what we hoped would be the "glue" that put it all back together, what would make everything that we have found during our research explain that it is all right however, the more we searched, the more damning evidence we would find.

So, not only did we find out more about Brother Brigham and the things which he has done but the atrocities that Joseph Smith he has done. How the Book of Mormon is false, a plagiarized work. How Joseph Smith is a child rapist. All of these things that I am telling are all on the LDS church's website. Mostly on the Joseph Smith papers and also the Utah State Archives website all available online.

Our prayers weren't in vain. My wife and I learned quite a lot on what a loving God we do have. We have had to unlearn quite a bit and we have leaned heavily on the bible. As a matter of fact this is where we have found much of the similarities in the Book of Mormon which Joseph plagiarized. For me, I think one of the biggest things that I have had to unlearn but have grasped is that God loves me for who I am, not that I have to earn Gods acceptance. That it is through his grace that I am forgiven and that all I need to do is believe. Not earn it. This is something that the LDS church has taught over the many years that we were saved after all we could do.

We still have a lot to learn. Since our departure from the church I have since been baptized and I have also sent a letter of resignation, which is a story all within itself as it is almost impossible to resign from the church unless you submit a notarized letter.

I really feel like God is showing us in the right direction and that I am growing everyday.