I was aged 14 right back in 1988 when I got my patriachal blessing.I obviously took it seriously and believed every word of it.It old of me having a huge future role in the church such as serving a mission where many would personally be touched by my spirituality and being led tot he honest in heart and being hugely blessed by the opportunity. I thought it means I am a very chosen individual who has an amazing heart to love god and serve him.I used to think I was uniquely special in this way.I was also supposed to indeed be a leader within the gospel of christ.I thought that might mean I could be a senior leader like a general authority maybe.
Now looking back,it was all so cruel and a hoax.I have autistic spectrum disorder and communication difficulties.When I was old enough at age 19 to serve a mission,I was told I could not serve a mission because of the way I am. That was true in real ways,as I was to immature to be a missionary and would have done more harm than good.Even before,I tried some missionary work with serving missionaires within my local area.I found very few interested or inspired by me.So all this gradually unravelled my confidence in what I believed to be true.
I have not been back to any Mormon church since early 1996.That blessing on paper warned me not to think other people were blessed beyond my measure.I was always socially anxious around younger teenage Mormons.I was always upset they would have fun getting married early and having families.I was awfully anxious about the future.Amazingly,I always got easily in the situation where I could feel not blessed enough as others.Amazingly,I am aged 43 now.I have never been married and have no children.That is what i worried about when I was aged 16 and 19.The blessing told me to go to quiet places and pour my heart out to god and he would not withold blessing from me.Amazingly i find myself doing exactly that,but to the protestant god and not the Mormon god.
So the blessing made something rather accurate and exact predictions about my personality and what situations I get in to.However it was a cruel hoax that as a teenager,all my troubles and difficulties with my Aspergers or borderline autistic issue will be rewarded in the end with blessing in the eternities and serving mission to bless so many people with my spiritual gifts and nature.I really believed it was going to happen.In the end,it did not no matter how I tried to follow through on it.Some Mormons said I was just not worthy or did not properly follow through on the spiritual path I was supposed to take and just ignore the realities.
Sure, just like some horoscopes can be. By a combination of using high-percentage guesses, cold reading, dumb luck, and "fitting" things that happen to vague language in the predictions.
None of which makes either of them "true" or "inspired" or "prophetic," of course.
Mine was strikingly similar to my horoscope--coincidentally my date of birth is on the thing.
So, I wondered if the patriarch had read up a little on Cancer/Year of the Dragon before I sat down.
I read that contemporaries of JS said that he was an atheist who only believed in astrology. Who knows?
The patriarch used another parlor trick for my husband's PB. Knowing he was a cop, there's a lot of tripe about "valiant," "warrior for Jesus Christ," blah, blah, blah.
-You've been adopted in the family of Christ. -Study your scriptures and get acquainted with the prophets of old. -You will see the church continue to grow; you will have the opportunity to have missionary moments. -You will accept callings. -You will get married in the temple when the time is right. -You will take classes for higher education; be sure to take classes which will prepare you to be of service to others
I was twenty-three when I got my patriarchal blessing. Too bad the stake patriarch did not foresee my brain hemorrhage three years later, which would cause my schooling to become very spotty to the point where I stopped attending. That should have tipped me off about TSCC.
Oh, and I did not bring anyone into the church, or gotten married (in the temple) as the patriarch prophesied. No complaints, though. :-)
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2017 02:29PM by severedpuppetstrings.
chocolate-covered shit. You always know what you're going to get. But some people go ahead and eat it anyway. Because some people apparently like eating shit.
Mine wasn't so accurate because: *I'm not married with an LDS women. *I didn't go to a mission. *when I became mormon my friends didn't have a desire to know that gospel when they saw my change, what's more most of them started ignoring me (even though I had never tried to convert any of them).
I actually found mine and read it and it was alot of blah blah blah predictions and everything was predicated on my being a loyal and faithful sheep, following the doctrines to the letter, marrying in the temple, and raising children to be good little sheep etc, etc. So if I remember correctly I was already doomed to burn in hell at the time I got my PB as I was already cussing, skipping outta church and pleasuring myself...and then I discovered beer and married a Catholic. My bad.
If anything in the blessing becomes true is just luck. Again, the Patriarch usually knows a few things about you and could have asked your parents for some feedback.
Some Mormons read into their blessing so much that that they make decisions that helps get them closer to what their blessing says. Not all of course.
They don't notate all the failures you will have along the way as you experience life.
From my novel: TBM Princess is mulling over her life plans post high school. She finds her almost-fiance intellectually lacking.
"In her hope chest was her patriarchal blessing, her life charter pronounced and signed by none other than Elder Enoch Snow of the First Quorum of the Seventy in Salt Lake City. Among his promulgations was that she would be 'the treasured helpmeet of a great leader of God’s people in Zion.' Ammon knew ranching cold, but she could not see him running a ward, never mind a stake or district. It occurred to her that she never discussed spiritual matters with Ammon."
I was embarrassed when mine said to watch my language! I was 18 and did swear a bit, but was pretty prude since I had just started going to a church college. Now I smile about it, haha! My language is worse now than ever before. I tried to find my blessing. I thought I knew exactly where I put it, but it wasn't there. Oh well.
I received my PB shortly after I was married. I was a believer but even then I remember thinking that the patriarch had crossed up the wires in some way. It spoke of great interest and involvement in medical and scientific things and the ability to understand and absorb. This was to me, who, although liking biology, physiology and such, hated and had great difficulty with math. Consequently I kept waiting for one of my children to be born with some terrible illness or condition -- thus leading me into the medical world. It never happened. Children all healthy. My belief in the church wained and I pretty much forgot about the blessing. But at a point later in my life when I decided to go back to college, I did end up studying in a medical field and did quite well, even with the math. Does that mean that I believe that the patriarch had the inside track? No. I see it as a puzzling coincidence. There were other things, that were very vague, but this was rather specific and seemed to come true. Strange. Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy, a subliminal message? No, I really don't think so. As I said - a strange coincidence.