My Dark Night Of The Soul Part 1

December 24, 2010, 

5 days before back surgery.

Friday, December 17^th, 2010 was the beginning of my ‘Dark Night of the Soul’. A true ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ is not a minor challenge. It is a deeply, meaningful experience. You don’t choose a dark night. It is given to you. There are many gifts hidden in that darkness. Your job is to find them. ‘A Dark Night of the Soul’ brings transformation. It is a defining moment. You were one way before that experience. You are another way after it. It leaves you forever altered. It pushes you to the edge of what you thought you were capable of handling. It forces you to rely on something beyond yourself to get through it. That is how I view a ‘Dark Night of the Soul’. That is how I view what happened to me in those eight, long, intense weeks from December 17^th, 2010 to February 17^th, 2011.

I can clearly see that Friday night in December that I broke. I can see my room, where I was sitting, where Randy stood. It is crystal clear. He was packing and leaving for the weekend with Mike, Rich, and Brandon to go skiing. I was staying home with the three youngest kids to teach a Jazzercise class the next day. He had just started a new job working for Fushion-io. I was trying to come up with a budget on his new income. I hoped I had found a solution that would work for both of us. I was eager to talk to him about it before he left for the weekend. He took one look at it and said, “No. Try again.” I admit my timing to talk about money wasn’t the best. He was late leaving town and not focused on what I was saying. But the truth was that didn’t matter. Even if we were sitting down alone to discuss it without distractions the response would have been basically the same. Truthfully, I knew that was how he would react when he saw it. It was worth a try though. 

Tithing to the Mormon Church was the main problem. To pay an honest, full tithe you must pay 10% of your gross income from every pay check. At this moment in my life, I didn’t know that wasn’t always the way tithing had been paid. In the early days of the church, members were taught that tithing was 10% of your increase for the year, or interest. Orson Hyde in The Millennial Star, the longest running L.D.S periodical, from 1847 said, “The celestial law requires one-tenth part of all a man’s substance which he possesses at the time he comes into the church and one-tenth part of his annual increase ever after. If it requires all man can earn to support himself and his family, he is not tithed at all. The celestial law does not take the mother’s and children’s bread, neither ought else which they really need for their comfort. The poor that have not of this world’s good to spare, but serve and honor God according to the best of their abilities in every other way, shall have a celestial crown in the Eternal Kingdom of our Father.” Early members of the church  paid tithing once a year if they had an increase, not if they were in debt, or just getting by. (You can also find this information in D&C 119:1-4 as well.) Paying 10% of your gross income is difficult for many families not just ours. Nowadays, the church preaches that you are to pay 10% of your income to them at all costs. Even if your family is starving the bishop would counsel you to pay your money to them first and wait for the Lord to bless you for faithfully following the prophet. It is that extreme, pay your tithing above all else then take care of your family. God should always be first, and the church is God.

The problem for me was that Alex was getting married in six months to a wonderful young woman. I wanted to be at their temple wedding with a clear conscience. We had recommends. But if we weren’t paying our tithing monthly, I wouldn’t feel right about going inside the temple. I would fee unworthy to witness their wedding. They tell us God will not be mocked. If you enter the temple when you are not ‘worthy’ to come into it, God will definitely punish you somehow. That was a repeated lesson I never forgot. I definitely feared God’s punishments at that time in my life. It was very important to me to pay a full tithing every month before their wedding. However our budget was extremely tight since we had moved to Utah in 2008. I was asking for a few hundred dollars more a month from savings. That way, we could pay our tithing without being stretched quite so thin financially every month. I thought this was a good solution. Had I known the truth about how tithing was originally paid, this would not have ever been an issue for us to fight over. However, Randy was not willing to budge on the money we saved, not even for God.

Of course, he didn’t see it my way at all. I was in charge of spending the money. It was up to me to not spend as much. To him, it really had nothing whatsoever to do with God. It was only about the money. To be honest, I am the spender, and he is the saver. I admit my philosophy regarding money back then was a lot like Voltaire’s, when he said, “Don’t think that money does everything, or you will end up doing everything for money.” I believed it was God who would bless us if we paid money to ‘Him’ via the church faithfully every month, and it was God who would punish us if we didn’t pay it. To me, this certainly was all about God.

We had had this same disagreement too often for too long since attending the temple. I was sick of it. I couldn’t make him change and understand my point of view any more than he could make me change to see his. We were at odds, at a complete stand still on this issue. In that moment, I gave up. I was finished with this fight over tithing and money. In that very moment, I could feel my world slowly collapsing on top of me with each new realization coming into focus for me. In addition to money issues, we had religious ones too. I was absolutely miserable in my “perfect” Mormon life. I had been doing everything I was taught to do. Yet, I was living with chronic pain, constant heartaches, depression, and unhappiness daily. I hated my Life! I became very aware that this battle between us was really a lot deeper than just the money, or God. I believed we wanted totally different things from Life. I was stricter when it came to following the rules of the church. I saw them as black and white, while Randy was more relaxed and saw them as grey. Ironically, I would appreciate that after I left the Mormon Church, but not while I was trying to live the gospel firmly. I thought Randy would be happier as well if we just went our separate ways. To me, he didn’t seem happy with his Life. I thought we were both completely miserable. I could not live like this anymore. Something had to change! At that instant, I truly believed in my heart that my marriage was over. I knew I was done fighting for it the way it was. I didn’t have any answers. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t have a clue how it would happen. I just knew that my life was going to change drastically from that moment on. The way I had been living my life was no longer an option for me. That I knew with every fiber of my being! This fight was the last straw that literally broke my back, and pushed me over the edge of sanity. It was the beginning moments of my ‘Dark Night of the Soul’. 

Lee Haris said, “If today you suddenly become aware that your life is not how you want it to be, that is not a tragedy. It is a gift, because you have seen something you did not see before. You have seen the next part of the journey.” This was the magnificent moment I began to awaken from my childhood indoctrination. When I look back at this memory now, I recognize what I a fabulous gift I was being given even though my heart was breaking apart. 

Randy left with the boys that night unaware of my tremendously wounded heart and broken Soul. The next day, I taught Jazzercise. My back was sore, but nothing more than usual. I was use to never-ending back pain. It was a daily battle for me. I had blown two disks in my back on Halloween of 2009 moving a large, heavy, metal desk by myself. Unknown to me at that time, I have degenerative disk disease and severe arthritis in my lower back. My back was an accident just waiting to happen. I had been in physical therapy all year trying to deal with my intense pain from the herniated L5S1 disk. I had two cortisone shots within six months, only one had helped for about six weeks in September of 2010. I did everything normally that Saturday in December. My back didn’t hurt any worse than usual. I went to bed that night being able to walk. When I woke up on Sunday morning, my disk had blown even more in my sleep. It was now entirely crushing my nerve. I have no doubt there is a mind, body, and Soul correspondence. My physical body was just now catching up to what the mind, my Soul, and my heart already knew. I was completely broken. I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually ‘out of order’.

I knew my back pain intimately. This pain was new. It was horrendous. It was unbearable! I couldn’t walk or straighten my back. I had to use crutches, or crawl, to get around the house. Randy took me to see a different doctor first thing on Monday morning. This new doctor wanted to try another shot of cortisone in my back to get me through Christmas. It didn’t work. However, the pain pills he gave me did bring some relief. I was able to manage the pain until my surgery on Wednesday, December 29^th, 2010. Surgery on my worst herniated disk relieved my crushed nerve immediately. I woke up from the operation almost pain free. I have never been so grateful for modern medicine!  

After back surgery on New Year's Eve 2010, finally I am able to walk without pain!

This was my miracle. This was one of my gifts from the darkness. Being broken was the best thing that could have happened to me. It was the fresh start I needed. This was the time of my cocoon. In order for the creeping caterpillar to become a beautiful butterfly, it first has to go through a total breakdown, a transformation, metamorphosis. It must become an unrecognizable pile of mush. In that mush, in that darkness, something astonishing is happening. It is reconstructing its life from a crawling caterpillar into a soaring butterfly. It looks like chaos. But, there is order and splendor in it. Something unique and exceptional will emerge from that goo. It just needs time to rebuild itself, that’s all. This was the beginning of me turning into unrecognizable goo; so that I could one day emerge into my beautiful butterfly, my Sacred Light, my authentic self. Maya Angelou said, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” At this moment, I was willing to go through Hell to reclaim my life, and that is pretty much what would be required of me, but it was worth every shattering, soul-crushing step I took to retrieve my power! January 2011was the start of a new life for me, it was the beginning of recovery for my physical body, my heart, my soul, and my sacred spiritual path through Life. I would soon start the process of breaking down everything I had ever been taught, believed, or thought I knew for sure. I would quickly realize it’s wonderful to not have all the answers. 

I still have two blown disks in my back; but, surgery alleviated the pressure on my nerve. They had scrapped out most of my disk that was crushing it. I was very limited on what I could do while recovering. No lifting anything heavier than a few pounds, no bending, no twisting, and no driving were allowed for two weeks. Then for the next two months, I had to be extra cautious as well. I was in a back brace for all of that time. I would not be teaching Jazzercise, running, or lifting my children for a while. My mother in law came to stay with us to help care for Logan and Emmalee for those first two weeks I was in bed. All the other children were in school, and Alex was attending college at USU in Logan, UT.

After surgery Emma wasn't leaving my side, even though I couldn't lift her she insisted on sitting on my lap. It was great to be back home with my family. 

While recovering all I could do was lie flat in bed, or sit up for small amounts of time, so I could heal. This too was a precious gift. I never could have taken a two week break from my responsibilities as a mother. But, surgery forced me to stop living my life as I had been. My laptop computer helped me to pass the time. It wasn’t very long into my recovery when I came across the first information that showed me a different point of view of Mormonism, what my family would call 'anti-Mormon'. Anything that doesn’t show Mormonism in a good way is considered anti-Mormon by most Mormons, even if the information is true. Mormon Stories Podcasts by John Dehlin was the first web site I ever looked at that showed this other side. After that, it was like domino's falling down, one site lead to another, and then another. I found many YouTube videos and blogs on Mormonism. They all shed some light on its dark past. A past, I had no idea existed. I was stunned to learn things about Mormonism that I never knew. I had grown up in the church. I studied church history. Yet, many things I was reading about, and listening to, were entirely unknown to me because I had only studied church approved materials like the church counsels its members to do. Growing up in the church, I should have known these things. Yet, I didn't. I really had no clue about how the church had come into being, other than the standard version the church wants us to know. In one shocking day, my world was devastated. By the end of that day, I gave myself permission to question, to doubt, and to re-examine every single thing I had ever been taught by the L.D.S church; and, I have never looked back.

 For nearly two weeks, I searched the internet, I watched videos one after the other, and read ‘til my eyes hurt. Once I could drive again, I went to the library with a wish list of books to read. I checked out several books that day, No Man Knows My History, by Fawn M. Brodie, and Mormon Enigma-Emma Smith’s story, by Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippets Avery, were two very significant books I took home to read. I couldn’t put them down. I finished them both in just a few days time. However, the book that sealed the deal for me departing the church was By His Own Hand on Papyrus by Charles M. Larson, concerning the Book of Abraham. After reading that book, I couldn’t believe the Mormon Church was God’s one true church anymore. Yes, I did exactly what the church teaches us not to do. I read unapproved materials about the church, and they blew my frickin mind! It was extremely liberating to learn facts I was never told. It was a relief actually, to study what had been hidden from me. Many things made sense to me now.

The topics that disturbed and upset me the most are Blacks not receiving the priesthood because of Brigham Young’s racism, Joseph Smith’s polygamist beliefs  and his many mistresses, multiple first vision accounts, Joseph using a seer stone in a hat to ‘translate’ the Book of Mormon, DNA evidence and many other problems within the BOM, Brigham Young’s Blood Atonement, the truth about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the Freemasons connection to the temple rituals, Second Anointing, their treatment of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, but the final nail in the coffin was how Joseph claimed to have translated an Egyptian book of the dead, found on mummy’s he had purchased, into the ‘Book of Abraham’. All of these quandaries completely trampled my testimony of the truthfulness of the church’s claim to be the one and only way back to God. Those ten problems are just the tiny tip of the massively concealed iceberg. It is interesting to me that the church has put out several essays on their official website, regarding many of these  very disturbing subjects (www.lds.org/topics/essays). Clearly, they see the need to address these significant problems within the church’s history. I think that the church is losing members in droves because of these exact same reasons that I left. The church is trying to fix their broken dam; but, it might be too little, and too late, for them to stop the flood of members leaving after discovering these hidden details. It is so easy to find excellent and accurate information now. No church member should still be in the dark about the true history of the church. Even if it is not faith promoting, they deserve to know it. Lying by omission is still lying. The reasons I left the church are not minor ones, these are big problems for me; too many problems to ignore. It was a tremendous relief to discover the truth that had been obstructed from me for so long.

          Two years after I left the church, in 2013, Jeremy T. Runnels would write a letter to the CES director. CES is the churches education system. It is an excellent letter stating clearly the problems within the church that I just mentioned and more. I highly recommend reading it. (www.cesletter.com/letter-to-a-CES-Director.pdf.) Jeremy was summoned to receive disciplinary action for writing this valuable letter. Ironically, the ‘court of love’ was first scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 14^th, 2016, on Valentine’s Day. How fitting for his church leaders to pick that day, a day all about Love, to do the most unloving act that the church has at its disposal, excommunication! Fortunately once the word was out about this injustice, social media and the press worked their magic to influence his stake president to change the date. Jeremy’s ‘court of love’ actually took place on Sunday, April 17^th, 2016. J Ruben Clark, apostle and counselor to David O Mckay, the 9^th prophet of the church, when speaking regarding the L.D.S. church said this, “If we have the truth it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.” Unfortunately, the very people who do investigate the church, and then decide it isn’t all it claims to be, are the ones who get punished. In Jeremy’s ‘court of love’, which he recorded and I have watched, Jeremy repeatedly asked his stake president to answer serious questions about the church, which he absolutely refused to do. When it was finally Jeremy’s turn to talk he defended himself by stating honestly, “I don’t know how to repent of the truth.” Because the truth is that, 'the truth is still true even if no one believes it; and, a lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it'. At the end of this meeting, Jeremy nobly handed over his resignation letter to his stake president as he declared to the men judging him, “I have excommunicated the L.D.S Church from my life!” Jeremy is a superb example of displaying courage when under fire from an adversary. He is also an awesome model of the perspective that sometimes walking away has nothing to do with weakness, and everything to do with strength. We walk away not because we want others to realize our worth and value, but because we finally realize our own worth and value. 

          When you comprehend that everything you have ever been taught is a lie, it changes everything! That is why I too was able to calmly walk away from this religion. I made covenants, sacred promises, to their version of God without all of the information. The leaders of the church left out many details that were momentous. Those facts made a difference in my belief about their claims to be the one and only true church of God. Now, I no longer believe in the Mormon Church’s claims to be the only way back to God based on evidence. Information I deserved to know before I pledged all my time, talents, money, family, and my very Life to an organization. That is why I could sincerely turn my back on the sacred promises I once valued. The church deceived me by not disclosing the whole story about how it came into being. Just like a Judge can change their mind when new evidence is submitted in court, I changed my mind regarding their version of God, and Life, when new evidence came into my possession. It was very freeing to learn of these hidden events. I now understood why I felt like I didn’t fit in that religion for most of my life. I wasn’t wrong after all. I realize Mormonism is some people’s path. It is the path for many of my loved ones, and it was mine for many decades. I know others have found out this exact same information, and they didn’t choose to leave. I can appreciate why they chose to stay. Leaving any religion, in which your extended, and immediate, family is still deeply involved, is not for the faint of heart.

          Many years ago when we were living in our first home in Colorado my oldest sister came to visit us. During a conversation about the church she said to me, “Even if I found out the church wasn’t true, I would still choose to be a Mormon. I think it is just such a lovely way to live Life.” That statement shocked me to my core, which is why I remember our conversation so clearly. I told her, “Not me, if I ever find out the church isn’t what it claims to be, I am the hell out of here!” Which I think, shocked her. At that time, I had no reason to question or doubt the church. I believed it was all it claimed to be, but I spoke truthfully to her. I meant exactly what I said, but some things are easier said than done.

          I was very excited to share this new information with my family. Now we could all leave the church! I was delighted about what possibilities for our lives lay ahead. I thought for sure Randy, and my older children, would want to know these things too. Then, we could all walk out together. Regrettably, Randy, and our older kids, didn’t share my fervor for deserting the church. In fact, Randy refused to even look at why I didn’t believe in the church any longer. I thought he would want to know about the problems, and the concerns I had pertaining to the church, but he didn’t. It turned out, Randy wanted to stay a Mormon, he didn’t care about any of these issues, and he wanted me to stay a member as well. That shock was almost worse than the churches deception. I truly didn’t see that coming!

            It only took two weeks for me to consider myself an ex-Mormon; and then two more weeks after that, I shed my garments for good. Fear kept that unusual underwear on my body longer than I would have liked. At the same time I discovered the deception in the church, I also discovered a book called The Science of Mind by Earnest Holmes, which I love. That book led me to book after book on different spiritual subjects. I was a sponge, soaking in every bit of fresh, new information I could find. I knew what I didn’t believe; now, I got to discover the truth for myself instead of being told what the truth was. What spoke to my Soul? What felt right in my heart? I was determined to answer these new questions and more.

          I was experiencing what Jeff Brown calls ‘a Truth ache’. He explains it this way, “A truth ache is a nudging sense of falsity, a palpable hunger for true-path. A truth ache is what we experience internally when we are not honoring our divine purpose, of simply living a lie in relationships, or other areas of our life.” I was desperately aching for the truth, my truth, and I was willing to reveal it at all costs. Leo Tolstoy said, “Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” I was sifting through the ashes of my burnt up beliefs trying to find what still spoke to me as truth. I was on a truth treasure hunt, and I loved every minute of it! I was like a kid in a candy store. Only my candy was books and the store was a library. I ate them up. I couldn’t read fast enough. The library became my home away from home and the internet my best friend. This is another reason why my marriage was hurting. I was elated to be leaving the church behind and discovering the world. Randy was not at all pleased about it. Betty White said, “Butterflies are like women, we may look pretty and delicate, but baby, we can fly through a hurricane!” A hurricane was surely, but slowly, brewing in our home, and it was about to explode in all of its furious glory!

Aloha Ke Akua!

www.iamsacredlight.com
www.sacredlights.net
www.secretsfromtheuniverse.blogspot.com