As Thanksgiving comes up, I’ve been thinking about things I’m grateful for and then for some reason, I thought of a time when I was hearing that I should be grateful for the gospel, but I really wasn’t. At the time, “the gospel” and “the Church” were center points of a lot of concerns I was having – my own personal “crisis of faith”, if you will. Since then, I’ve learned a lot, and I wanted to share what I’ve learned through my “faith crises” experiences as well as what I’ve learned about the concept of a “faith crisis” in general.
Is a “faith crisis” … typical?
In the book Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life, Gail Seehey discusses common adult development (like child development stages just for adults). The one that stands out to me because of my age, experience, and Church membership is the “faith crisis” that people typically go through in their 30s. It hit me hard at age 28, but a friend of ours went through it in his early 40s, so the range is flexible. The point is, going through a “faith crisis” is considered normal adult development, so be aware of it. When loved ones are going through it, it’s nice to know that it’s a common experience and … try not to freak out.
In my case, my “faith crises” have led me to spiritual witnesses and strength that I didn’t have before and couldn’t have had without the going through the questioning, studying, prayer, and fasting I went through. Though the first crisis was a scary and stretching time of my life – lasting almost a year and a half – I came out more solid and anchored in my testimony than I’d ever been.
How FHEasy was designed to help prepare people for times of questioning
One of the missions of FHEasy is to teach children (and adults) some of the common Church history issues that critics bring up, but to bring them up in a context of faith. This gives faith a chance when a passionate critic thrusts some issue in your face and presents their version of the issue as THE TRUTH and claims that anyone who believes otherwise is delusional. This can happen in person, but more frequently it happens over the internet, because in our day, when a person goes through their faith crisis, where do they look for answers? Well, hopefully, they persistently pray and ask God, but undoubtedly, they also search the internet.
I’m not opposed to that. During my second, less-lengthy-but-still-pretty-intense faith crisis a couple of years ago, I definitely searched the internet. But I made sure I gave the Lord “equal time” by studying faith-based sites as much as faith-breaking sites AND I PRAYERFULLY READ THE BOOK OF MORMON DAILY for as much time as I studied the internet sites!
This was a very intense time of study. I put as much of my life as I could on pause and I spent hours a day in study and prayer. At the beginning of this experience, I stayed up very late one night studying over 100 pages of issues posed by a former member who left the Church and turned into an active critic who then supported a lot of people feeling betrayed and diving head first off “the Old Ship Zion”. That night I also read over 30 pages of reasons why a personal friend had left the Church. Let me tell you, that’s a LOT to take in in one long, late night!
Some specific things really helped me that night, though. In my personal life:
- I had an anchoring witness of Christ, His Atonement, and His servants (thanks to my previous faith crisis).
- I had some knowledge of a few of the issues and had worked through them previously, making me less apt to believe everything I was reading and also less apt to jump to the conclusion that I had been betrayed by my family, Church leaders, and other well-meaning-but-obviously-deceived loved ones.
- I had also been doing my daily spiritual nourishing routines: personal and family prayer and scripture study, Church attendance and service, and family home evening.
Here were the specific issues that I knew about previously that were being raised and mercilessly bashed:
- I knew there was more than one account of the First Vision and that there were some differences in descriptions in the accounts.
- I had prayed and studied quite a bit about polygamy and had come to peace on that score.
- I had learned a little about the temple and masonry and wasn’t really thrown off by that issue.
- I knew that Joseph Smith used a rock and the urim and thumim for the translation of the Book of Mormon, and that was fine with me.
There were pages and pages of other issues that I either hadn’t heard of or thoroughly studied (Kinderhook plates, “Lying for the Lord”, false prophecies, the Book of Abraham issues). In the margins of the pages, I wrote whether I’d studied the issue and was fine with it, whether I wanted to study the issue in depth, or whether I thought the issue raised was invalid. Then I studied and prayed hard until I felt I had examined and resolved the issues to my satisfaction.
The take home point here is that just having previous knowledge of those four things helped me keep my bearings and not get thrown off too much. As I saw it, the critics’ presentations of the First Vision, polygamy, the temple, and the translation was not the same as what I had studied; therefore I needed to study and pray more and really look at the contexts and sources being presented.
Which I did.
And after all that study, I broke up what I learned into bite-sized pieces and sprinkled it throughout each lesson of FHEasy. I listed nearly every single issue that I studied and then carefully and prayerfully placed each one into the lesson it best fit with. I did not do this for fun. I did not do this because I didn’t have anything else to do. I did it with a sense of mission and a clear sense of divine guidance. So, please, avail yourself of all the study and research I did and dig into those Church history sections!
IN SUMMARY
Many if not most people will go through faith crises. It’s actually quite normal. And some will stay and be stronger for it like me, and some will leave and feel good about that choice, like some of my friends. My experiences and choices are between me and the Lord; theirs are between them and the Lord, and I respect that. I respect the individual, the process, and their choices, as well as my own.
(Note – People who leave the Church want others to respect them and accept their choice. At times they loudly demand that respect. If necessary, demand right back to them that you want the same respect they do – to believe as you choose. Respect yourself and others to the point of not letting people run over you and not trying to run over them either.)
I hope FHEasy serves you and your family by helping you draw closer to each other and closer to God, but also by giving you and your family knowledge in a faith-based setting that may lend you strength in your time of need.
After all that, may I say …
Happy Home Evenings!
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