Thanks for your perspective HD! The above is EXACTLY the way I’ve been feeling for months! Almost like I feel my spiritual radar is on the fritz.
We all have crosses to bear, and unfortunately for ex-Mos, a very common cross is that “What if?” cross, that constant nagging doubt. Doubt if leaving the Church was the right thing to do, and doubt if there’s even a God at all. I didn’t throw all of my garments away until I had been baptized in the Catholic church for over a year, and just last year I pitched my Quad. I took it to church and hurled it in the dumpster. It felt SOOOO good!
When one is taught for one’s entire life that anything against Mormonism is of the devil, it’s hard not not to have that nagging voice in the back of the head creep up to the forefront. Discerning the truth is a most difficult struggle. For most, it does get better eventually. But it has yet to go away for me completely, and I doubt it ever will.
But again, it comes back to the Truth. And the Truth is that the Catholic church is what it says it is as far as I can tell. And sometimes that’s the best I can do. For so much of my life, I could say without hesitancy that “I know that this [the Mormon] church is true, I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, blah blah”. I find it a huge and painful lesson in humility to sometimes barely be able to say, “I have no idea if this is true, but if there is a God, I have hope that this is where He would want me to be.” It’s a risk to hope that I’m not being fooled yet again, and knowing that many see me as foolish just as others did when I was Mormon. All this doubt and fear, though, is based on pride. And pride is the tool of the devil. So I pray for more humility, because it is obvious that I am lacking it in abundance.
My wife spent 3 hours last night texting me a series of insults and invective that would make the hardiest person wither. She is SO far brainwashed by the church that NO other perspective could EVER be true. I pity her. She’s really going to flip her lid when I start introducing our son to Catholicism. He’s already convinced coffee isn’t of the devil and it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the Mormon house of cards falls for him as well.
This makes me think of a funny story. At my first meeting with my current priest, to put me at ease he asked “Do you want to go grab a cup of coffee or something?”. I said, “Um, no, I don’t drink coffee.” I don’t think he understood - it was such a weird thing to see people drinking coffee IN CHURCH after Mass at all. Well, in the social hall but you get the idea. And even my never-Mo husband found it weird when he saw someone with a beer at the Easter Vigil post-Mass potluck.
