I Did it For Them or so I Thought

It has been about 6 to 8 years now, but I remember very clearly the prompting that came to me one day. I was told that my children needed daily scripture study. I started reading the scriptures to them during breakfast. These past several years of daily scripture study was for my kids, to build their testimonies and instill in them a love of the word of God. It was all for them or so I thought.

About 4 years ago I was in a Stake conference and the subject of a talk was temple work. We were admonished in this talk to attend the temple as often as possible, not once a month which had been the counsel. I felt impressed that with older children and my youngest at the age of 3 that I could set up play dates and attend the temple once a week. I made a new year resolution to attend the temple once a week. I had a really good friend who was willing to take my 3 year old each week for the 3 hours I was at the temple. I was excited, I could help 52 people throughout that year if I was diligent and kept my goal. I was doing it all for those people who had died and couldn't do the work themselves... or so I thought.

In the fall of 2012 I started back to college after 17 years. I had felt impressed months earlier that it was time to go back. So I filled out applications, took tests, and ordered transcripts so I could finish my education. I had had a baby in November of 2010 my first boy and 5th child. School seemed a little overwhelming, but I felt that this was what Heavenly Father wanted me to be doing so I waded in. I started with online classes and a Saturday class my first semester. You've probably started to wonder what this has to do with the first two paragraphs of this post.

As classes started, I was surprised to find my conservative beliefs, my traditional marriage style (being a stay at home mom), and my religious beliefs attacked. It was extremely frustrating to read in different textbooks that I was wrong, resistant to change and progress, and very old fashioned.

I lack confidence in myself and generally feel that I am in the wrong if my ways disagree with others, especially many many others. I found myself critically looking at was I was reading and learning along with what I have believed and known to be true all of my life. I started questioning many things. My most difficult class, that tested me the most, was my anthropology class which I took my second semester. The textbook attacked the Bible, religion in general, women's roles, and mankind and their origin as I understood it. It was a testimony shaking class for me. It led me to ponder and ask many questions.

Fortunately, our ward Sunday School teacher had had a similar class and had some of the same questions and struggles I was having. He mentioned a little bit of his struggle in a class one Sunday, so afterward I asked him about it more in depth. The things he shared with me that had helped him made so much sense to me. Also President Uchdorf had given a CES fireside around this time. His talk was called “What is Truth”. When I had listened to it the first time, I was thinking of it in context of religious beliefs, but after talking with my Sunday school teacher and his wife, I saw it in context of science, religion, and anything that lays claim to truth. I was able to read and study words of the prophets, scriptures, and to pray for answers and help. I was able to find confidence in my differences. After all, if I was so different from my secular learning, I had to be doing something right, right? ;) I was able to really strengthen my testimony.

My testimony had never been tried as hard as it was during this first year of school. My friends were LDS, I was a stay at home mom in Utah. It was easy to be LDS. I also had had many evidences of God in my life that made it easy to believe in God, Jesus Christ, and in Their church because it had brought me so much peace and happiness. During my struggles I understood that I really had two choices, hold on to what I believed and continue on in happiness and peace, or let it go and stop doing all of the things that I knew to be right and which I knew was the source of my peace and happiness and live in darkness, sorrow, and uncertainty. The choice was really a no-brainer, even though the struggle was real. The struggle made me stronger and a fighter.

My second year I took a philosophy class where my religious beliefs came under attack again. This time I didn't question what I knew to be true, but with every paper I wrote for that class, I bore testimony of God and the purpose of our lives and my last paper was all about my Savior Jesus Christ and His teachings.

Now back to the first two paragraphs. The scriptures and temple attendance were not only for my kids and those who had died. Heavenly Father had and has a plan for me and knew the struggles I would face, because he knows me, my personality, and my lack of confidence. He prepared me for school. It was for me, as well as for the others.

Without that preparation, the filling my lamp with oil, I could be telling a different story, a story of loss, of confusion, and of suffering. Fortunately, my loving Heavenly Father knew what I needed, and through His spirit, was leading and guiding me to spiritual light and knowledge and a foundation built on my Savior Jesus Christ. Helaman counseled “And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall” (Helaman 5:12).

It is so important to nourish our testimonies with daily prayer and scripture study and regular temple attendance. These things will get us through times of struggle, questions, and trouble. Heavenly Father has given us tools to help us stay on the strait and narrow path, but they can't benefit us if we ignore them. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.