When It's Not a Refuge

This is the second blog post that I know I have been needing to write and just haven't quite figured out how I need to write it.

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  And lots of people hate that church.  And they may or may not hate me because I am a member.  For the most part, I feel like most people still like me and still think I have fairly sound judgment.  But there are a lot of things in the church that people don't like.  And I totally understand that.

There's a reason why I wrote in my last post that church is kind of my refuge.  Church is hard to go to.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is filled to the brim with imperfect, and lots of times annoying and hurtful people.  I could give you a whole list of times where church was not a fun place to be.  (Not that church is necessarily supposed to be fun, but it wasn't great being there.)

Here's the list:
The Plight of the Millenials
The Guilt of Not Dating
Super Single at BYU (comical)
YSA Creep (comical)
The Worst Adventure Ever
Leaving BYU

This list is not conclusive, nor do you actually have to read all of the posts.

I have not felt welcomed at church lots of times.  I have felt judged and mocked and rejected.  I have felt unloved and awful.  I have felt that I am the worst.  I have been told so many terrible things at church.  And going to church would make me cry.  It literally made my day worse to go to church because of the hateful, unkind things that people said.

But I still go.

Because I'm insane.

No, that's not it.  It's because I believe in the doctrine: faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.  I believe in those things.  All other things just help us get there.  I believe in the teachings of The Book of Mormon.  I have never felt closer to my Savior Jesus Christ than by reading and studying The Book of Mormon.  I believe taking the sacrament is a reminder of the Savior and helps bring His power into my life every week.  So, even on the Sundays where I feel worse than before I went to church, I ultimately have more power and capability to handle the entire week's struggles.

So, yes, going to church is still hard.  Yes, I sometimes avoid talking to certain people at church because I'm bad at forgiving.  Yes, I cry after church sometimes because it's hard to go.  Yes, there will always be people who are going to say something prejudiced.  That's a given.  So what if people hate me and call me terrible names and say that millennials are the worst and that other young women only value me if I'm married and people have no idea who I am.  I'm not giving up on my Savior because of a bad time.  There's a great quote that goes something like this:

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

So, I'm just getting super strong.  Just kidding.  But God asks us to do hard things.  He asks us to do things that we hate.  He asks us to do things that don't necessarily seem fun.  But He still loves us.

And He still loves everyone, no matter what they are doing at this moment.  He looks at us and says, I'm so glad I have you.  And I want you to be loyal to me, so you can have all that I have.  I want to give you the world.  And I want to give you more.  Because I love you.  And what I have is great.

So if you hate the church, I'm sorry.  If you don't believe in God, that's okay.  I don't hate you.  I might say things that are hurtful, but don't let me get in the way of your relationship with an Almighty God who knows more than me and can give you more than I can.  Come and experiment on what is taught.  Come and ignore the words of the haters and the backstabbers.

Try reading The Book of Mormon.  Try it.  And if you don't feel God's power any better, then you will know the truth about the book.  Try having faith and repenting.  

And know that if nothing changes because of this blog post, I don't even know if people read my blog, so it won't even make a difference in my relationship with anyone.  I still am weird no matter what happens.  So just keep on keepin' on.