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Heavenly Father, we need to talk.

I struggle with the idea that you would send an angel with a flaming sword to command Joseph to marry multiple women including a fourteen-year-old girl, but when I laid naked in a cold acrylic bathtub with a knife to my wrist where was my angel? How could you allow me to spend a decade and a half thinking of myself as a vile sinner? Nigh unto murder as you have put it in scripture. I hated myself because of the mistakes I made as a child, but I took a sick pride in my need for atonement. I was more vile and sinful than others and the Lord forgave me. Did you want me to believe that I was flawed and broken and vile and terrible? Did you know how that would affect my mental health?

If you knew my soul and if you knew the depth of the pain I felt, how could you allow me to go even a day hating myself because of your teachings? Why did you teach me that depression was a symptom of sin? Why did I go my whole life thinking that depression was a sign of weakness? Why couldn’t anyone around me see the pain I felt except for my wife? Is this an acceptable way to live your gospel and earn my way into heaven? I suffered from scrupulosity because of the church. Is that an acceptable way to worship you? Nobody told me otherwise.

My second concern is that history does not line up with the stories your church taught me. The first few stories surprised me when I learned the truth, but that quickly changed into the expectation. The more I read the more I expected the history to disagree with what I was taught. This is a problem because I based my testimony on those stories. I can only think of three logical parties to blame for the discrepancy between history and the embellishments taught in the church: you, church leaders, or local membership. I’ll address each one so we can figure this out. Local membership knows nothing about church history. If they know a little they become nuanced partially believing members of the church. We can rule them out as the source for the lies. That leaves only two options. Either you lied to church leaders and hid information from them, or church leaders knew the actual history and intentionally hid it. The implication of either option is not acceptable for a church that claims to bear your name and be led directly by you.

I have so many more questions, but I need answers to those two first. Why did you ignore me and why did you lie to me? Here are a few other questions and lamentations.
Where did the certainty go? How did my black and white world of truth and lies melt away? I had an answer to every question. A clear distinction existed in my mind between right and wrong. A straight and narrow path leading to you.

When this vanished I expected only darkness, but where that line once stood, all I find is a wide swath of color. Why is the world more vibrant without your truth? Why can I see color now where before all I had was shades of gray? If your truth is meant to bring happiness, why do I find peace from other philosophies? When certainty held sway in my mind, I was full of pain. Now I live in chaos among unanswered questions, but I am happier than I have ever been in my life.

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Why can’t I feel you in church? Why are you present when I sit with Shakespeare or Hemingway, but silent when I listen to your prophets and apostles modern and ancient? All I hear from your prophets are a litany of drivel, a destructive refrain.

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The banal teachings that were meant to inspire me only filled me with darkness. I only feel you in art, books, and music. I have not felt you in scripture since I was a child. Why can’t I feel you in church? Why are you present when I sit with Shakespeare or Hemingway, but silent when I listen to your prophets and apostles modern and ancient? All I hear from your prophets are a litany of drivel, a destructive refrain. Is it their linguistic ability or their message? Linguistic ability does not matter, because you called Aaron to help Moses speak. If I am to believe your scripture that leaves their message as the only reason it could make me feel this way. Am I to blame for the way I feel or did you make me this way? Starved for spiritual enlightenment, I poured over scripture modern and ancient, but you were not there.

I can get past anachronisms in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and other modern scripture. I can get past translation issues, doctrinal changes, temple changes, gaslighting. A brief list might suffice to express the depth of my frustration. Stop me if I misunderstand any of these. Rock in a hat, Fanny Alger, William Law, Polygamy, Polyandry, D&C 132, Multiple first visions, Kinderhook Plates, Blood Atonement, Mountain Meadows. I found a way to make incompatible teachings work with scientific facts like evolution, the age of the earth, and the big bang. I trusted in you and your prophets and apostles even though they often contradicted observable facts. I don’t believe men live on the sun or moon and dress like Quakers. I balanced my distaste for the church’s stance on the LGBTQ+ community. I forgave your apostles for getting it wrong in 2015 and then changing their minds a few years later. I found that change inspired by you. I read the Bible, and Book of Mormon as Allegory instead of history. A story does not need to be literally true to hold the truth. I read it as I would a novel or the mythology of another culture. I spent my entire adult life in a mental balancing act, holding tight to the teachings of my childhood while bearing the cognitive dissonance of life experience and learning.

I could and did accept all of that, but I cannot accept that you want me to live my life as a depressed husk of a man. I lived a shell of the child I was before “transgressions” and hurtful doctrine shaped my mind into a terrible mass of self-deprecation and destructive thought patterns. I refuse to live that way. I will give up my chance at salvation in your celestial kingdom if it means, I can be a happy father to my children. I forfeit my blessings if the cost of obtaining them is my life. I would rather my children have a father than the memory of a dark shroud of a person who once lived with them. Your doctrine led to my suicidality. That is a price I am not willing to pay for your love.

I cannot accept you in the form that they presented you to me. Does that mean I don’t believe in you? I’m not ready to address that yet and I may never be. I still feel an influence when I read an excellent book or listen to an inspirational song. I search for these answers, but perhaps I already have my answer. A life lived in fear of everlasting torment motivated me to be the best man I could manage. I offered self-abasing penance exchanged for fleeting moments of relief at the cost of my sanity. Was the levy too high or was the system broken? Is there some problem with me or is this a trial of my will?

A crossroad of two lives, a decision to leave or stay

Patiently waiting for answers,
Scott

This was my last prayer. I wrote it out at the time I offered it in 2019 when my faith crisis shifted from self destruction to healing.