For Mom, reassuring her I haven't gone off the deep end. The reference to Dad was a little too much, by the way. I can't tell you what I'm going through, but I can say I would never do that.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." 1 Thessalonians 5:21
I was raised by a mother who valued knowledge. I watched her look up everything in the set of encyclopedias we had whenever she had a question about something. She bought a giant medical encyclopedia too, and I still defer to her findings rather than that of an MD. I saw her search answers from scriptures and prepare lessons for church. I heard her bear her testimony to others. I could feel her desire to know things big and small. If she had a question, she always found an answer. And she didn't stop looking till she found the right answer.
I am a product of my mother's own inquiring mind. I get a bee in my bonnet and, like her, I can't rest till I find out the source and the full breadth of that subject. Just because someone tells me something is true, I don't take it at face value. I take it in my hands, turn it over, find the different angles, sometimes split it in half and put it under the microscope. After I've thoroughly examined it, I will decide if I agree with the original claim of truth.
Finding truth is a lifelong pursuit. And the same truth can be tried and tested in different ways only to be discovered all over again that it hasn't changed. What is true remains true. And of this, I want to testify.
I know God lives. I know Jesus Christ is my Savior. I know he was born that he could take on my sins as well as all my pain and sorrows, that I might be forgive and let go of the things that hurt. I know His purpose is for me to become more like Him. But in the process, I also know I am not expected to be perfect, I am not expected to do more than I can, and I should not be so hard on myself that I can't enjoy the life I've been given. I know the Bible is the Word of God and that the Book of Mormon compliments it and testifies of Christ. I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is true, that the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are sure.
But I also know that all people are fallible and imperfect. Because we are human, we are susceptible to judgment, criticism, hypocricy, anger, jealousy, and gossip. People you think would be accepting and kind are exactly the opposite. If I didn't know the difference between the culture and the doctrine, or if I judged truth by the people who wear it, I most certainly would have left the Church a long time ago. It is my greatest wish that people would let each other be human; it is hard enough to let ourselves be human without others' demand for our perfection.
Truth is often distorted with hearsay, however unintentional. These two things (mean people and half-truths) creep into the Mormon church like any other; we are not any more immune to the philosophies of men mingled with scripture. I've seen the falsehoods, I've heard the myths we pass off as truth that really are just stories, I've even been deceived by some of them that I've heard my whole life...till I searched out the source and found the truth. There is a difference between the doctrine and the culture. Religious culture is so thick that it can make it hard to know the doctrine. It's often obscured and mistaken as truth.
The key is knowing how to separate truth from untruth, and fortunately, we have that key. It is by the Holy Ghost that I can know and continue to know what is true; I am entitled to personal revelation, and that is the one gem, priceless above all else, that I cherish.
I remember as a teenager overhearing Mom tell a friend that she worried that I was so rebellious that if I went away to the college I wanted and didn't attend BYU, she thought I might leave the church. It hurt that she had so little faith in me, and I was surprised that she considered me rebellious when I couldn't shed the Molly Mormon stigma I had. But let me tell you: if you move to Utah without already gaining a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Church, you will surely leave it, resent it, or take it for granted. The blatant hypocricy I saw at that church school most certainly tested my faith. I was extremely lonely, surrounded by phonies, and the only thing that kept me going was my relationship with Christ. I know many other people have wonderful experiences while attending BYU, but mine were not. It was a very trying time for me, and I left that place a lot more sure of truth than I'm sure most people there did, not because it was a spiritual powerhouse but because it was not. I stood on my own testimony when everything else around me felt like a joke.
I may still need to develop my own affirmation of certain standards of the Church, and I may still kick against the pricks on things I know I should do but don't want to. But one thing is certain: I cling to truth, whether secular, spiritual, interpersonal, or any other, and I know the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints IS true. Not because that's what I've been taught, but because I figured it out for myself.
"Then say, what is truth?
'Tis the last and the first,
For the limits of time it steps o'er.
Though the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst,
Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst,
Eternal, unchanged, evermore."
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