I had serious asthma as a kid. It was passed down to me from my dad who nearly died from it when he was in the 2nd grade in Salt Lake City.

I also caught pneumonia as a child when, ironically enough, I had been put in the hospital for serious asthma. There the nurses left me too long under an oxygen tent and the resultant heavy moisture condensation left me dripping wet—which gave me pneumonia.

In other words, the hospital staff could have killed me. I was lucky to have survived. (Coincidentally, it was a Catholic hospital. No wonder I wasn’t getting better).

I remember my dad giving. me a priesthood blessing at home as a child as I lay in bed suffering from asthma while pretending to be asleep.

Immediately after the blessing, I faked getting better, right then and there, by trying to force-regulate my breathing for the benefit of my sincerely-believing parents so that they, who were anxiously at my bedside, would feel better.

In other words, I was trying to help THEM feel better.

My pretend performance under the “healing power of the priesthood” fooled them into thinking that the blessing had immediately worked as I lay there with my eyes closed, listening to them earnestly tell each other that the blessing was coming true.

I remember hoping that it would come true but figured it wouldn’t (an early sign of my in-embryo personal apostasy), so I did my best to act my way through it for their benefit. (Sadly, I thought I owed it to them).

But I knew better.

It was one of my earliest memories of trying to play-act being a truly blessed Mormon. I just wasn’t cut out for the role.

I learned that I just couldn’t fake belief, and faking recovery from asthma helped teach me that lesson.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2019 06:41AM by steve benson.

I had the same experience, although I was never put in an oxygen tent. When I was “interviewed” by your grandpa, I should have asked him about it.

Most of us just try to be normal, even though breathing can become a problem at almost any time. And then I began to believe that if I didn’t get better on my own that it was MY FAULT for not having enough faith to get better.

It is such a lame system in which to raise a family. And it can cost you your life!

My first “miracle” was when, after suffering for days, my mother finally took me to the doctor. He gave me a shot of Adrenalin and I got immediate relief. Now THAT was a miracle.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2019 09:00AM by Darksparks.

I was always scared to administer any type of priesthood blessing. It had a lot to do of really not knowing what to say. Yes, I am quite aware of the circular reasoning of "if it's of God's will then it will happen or not." I found no comfort in it and I observed my Dad as a young man struggle to find the right things to say. He stammered through and his blessings sounded rather wishy-washy as he would never promise that people would get well.

So my Dad was a long time home teacher to an elderly widow and her special needs adult son. The woman came down with pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses. She lingered in the hospital for nearly two months and Dad was doing double-duty seeing her and driving around her son too. He was giving her regular priesthood blessings and they probably made her feel good. At some point, my Dad realized that he hadn't been spending much time with me, so we took one of those father-son outings on a Saturday.

This was long before cell phones so the widow's son called to my home to request my Dad to visit, but nobody was home. So he called another member in the ward. It went all the way up to the high priest group leader. He was most indignant and annoyed that my Dad wasn't around to tend to her request. So he went and gave her a priesthood blessing. Early morning, the widow passed away. Her medical condition was stable, if not improving. Her son neither called nor told anyone of her passing, but the whole priesthood body heard about it during church the following day.

The son hitch-hiked to church and made a dramatic entrance to the priesthood meeting. He was very upset, "You killed my mom. You gave her a blessing of death!" He pointed his finger at the HPGL. The HPGL turned white in the face. A couple bigger sized brethren stood up as to guard the HPGL. The HPGL cowered in his chair and said nothing.

The upset man continued. "Why couldn't you have said a good prayer like Brother Goop. No, instead you told God to release her spirit and now she's gone. I am going to hate you forever, and if I go to hell, I'll be waiting for you." He then left the chapel and sat quietly until the end of church. I think my Dad drove him home that day.

You were just following Packer advice.

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Question:_Did_Elder_Boyd_K._Packer_suggest_that_we_should_%22lie_our_way%22_into_obtaining_a_testimony%3F

The miracle is found in pretending it.

We were trained to fake it until you make it. We needed to act like the blessings worked. We knew if we didn't have faith, the blessing might not work and it would be our fault.

We were conditioned to self-fulfill whatever the blessings said, be it patriarchal blessings or other priesthood blessings. if they didn't work, well, God had his reasons or you didn't have faith.

For some maybe there might be a placebo effect, but in your case as a child you knew the part you needed to act to please the adults.

It sounds like between the hospital and "blessings" it could have turned out badly.

Thankfully there are better standards for respiratory care today. Pneumonia is always a concern in hospitals still.

In my youth, attending church occasionally with my friends, I did not have the need to "fake it", but I certainly did as a young adult when I went through the temple to take out endowments and get married.

"Wasn't that the most marvelous experience?"

"Well hell NO", is how I really wanted to respond, but instead I faked it, mumbling, you know, "reverently" how surprising and long it was.

This church? was already proving to be weird, disappointing, deceiving, and oh, so very boring.

My slippery slope was slipping and sliding.

I didn't even feel like I had actually had a wedding ceremony but only a PREACHING CEREMONY in the craziest comical clothes for a wedding every imagined. (I wanted to hit the old bitty who told me my wedding dress would not be "temple worthy", so the changes, plus the temple clothes created nothing but a bride's worst nightmare)

Oh, the fun was just beginning!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2019 03:16PM by presleynfactsrock.

If that wasn't the biggest WTF moment(s) I've ever had!! Luckily, I did the endowment 8 days before I had my wedding. That helped the sealing to not be so bizarre.

Myself, my dad wasn't into blessings. Other than baptism, etc., I didn't have any blessings UNTIL (you guessed it) I found out the future husband was gay. I didn't like to bother the bishop, but I was BROKEN and so I'd wait and wait to ask him for another blessing. I'd fast for days. Then I'd get a blessing and I just knew this time would be the answer. Stupor of thought. Nothing. The heavens were slammed shut.

Then when I was deciding to marry him, my friend and a neighbor gave me a blessing that he would never leave me. Did that blessing work? I was told it was our fault that we hadn't tried hard enough. I wasn't righteous enough.

It was the leaders who led me out of the church, my experiences. I didn't know all the history until I came here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2019 03:47PM by cl2.

> In other words, I was trying
> to help THEM feel better.


There was also the factor that faking the beneficial effects of a blessing made the recipient also appear to be WORTHY of ghawd's healing power!



Also, and I feel shame for this, your above-featured sentiment was exactly my thinking in high school the first time I got Paula B.'s bra off.

Growing up Mormon does teach you how to be a film flam expert. I got good at telling people what they wanted to hear and putting the dog and pony show on and then doing what I wanted to do on my time. I kind of viewed being Mormon as a job. We all end up having to be nice to customers we don’t like and dealing with bosses we hate and selling products we think are lousy. Being in the church is the same thing but without the paycheck. The benefit of playing the game is it got my parents off my back.

I just viewed priesthood blessings as a placebo. A little holy oil. A few nice words. Hey if that was the placebo that helped someone get better then I did some good.

I kind of viewed being Mormon as being a snow job that got harder and harder to sell to myself but much easier to sell to others attempting to do their own endurance work for their ends.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2019 05:01PM by Elder Berry.

Rubicon, "I kind of viewed being Mormon as a job." That brings back memories! From my earliest memories, I hated going to church. But, as the saying goes, "The beatings will continue until moral improves." As an adult, I beat on myself. Then, at work, I was put on the safety committee. I hated that also. I couldn't take both sets of meetings; work paid my bills; so I quit going to church. The relief was immense! For a promotion (and to get off the safety committee) I transferred to another location. For a wonderful year, I was on the entertainment committee (isolated work camp). Then . . . I was put on the safety committee! Retirement has solved all problems!

That is heartfelt, Steve. Pretending for Mom and Dad even while suffering with asthma. It's love, and it's a shame the way it's exploited to the point that the child feels beholden. Don't disrupt the order, we learned.

until I was about 12, even though I had actually learned the truth when I was about 7 (when I saw all the "from Santa" gifts in my parents' closet a few nights before Christmas when my parents were out of the house on temple night or something like that).

I didn't want to make them feel bad and ruin the Christmas fantasy fun for everyone by outing my parents as fake Santas.

So I pretended not to know what I knew. And for the last 2 or 3 years of my faking, I think my parents were starting to get worried that I was stupid or something because I was getting a bit too old to still be believing in Santa. But they didn't want to hurt my feelings and make me feel stupid (even if I was stupid).

So we were all faking that we believed in something ridiculous...but doing so for the sake of each other's feelings.

I sometimes think that this is really what Mormonism is all about for many families.

Wally Prince Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I sometimes think that this is really what
> Mormonism is all about for many families.

My family is a fake Mormon family. We pretend we love each other.

Wow... I never once thought of faking my belief to make everyone

feel better. I just always felt bad because the church was no

big thing for me and I believed there was something wrong with

me since I wasn't all enthused about the church like everyone

else seemed to be. I should have trusted my inner nine year old

self. It would have served me well then.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2019 06:23PM by saucie.

Pretty much describes my time in the church. I just did not care about anything being preached from my earliest recollections. I attended, got the requisite ordinations and never read a GD thing that could be described as scripture. My only Mormon friends were pretty much of the same opinion as me and the vast majority of my friends were nevermo's.

Hi Steve - I've missed you! It's good to see you you posting here again.

I can identify with your parents in this - wanting so desperately to see their child recover that they will believe in anything that gives them even a glimmer of hope to be healed.

My son was born with a lung disease as well. He had multiple "priesthood blessings" that he would be healed. We wanted so desperately for him to be healed. However, it was apparent that God was not interested in interceding on his behalf.

The effects of the lung disease eventually damaged my son's heart. At just five years old he needed open heart surgery to repair the damage. I remember sitting in the hospital waiting room with my mother-in-law during the surgery. She turned to me and said something to the effect that I must have a great deal of faith in God to let my son have open heart surgery. My response even surprised me! I turned to her and said, "No, I have a great deal of faith in that surgeon!" She looked shocked!

It was a moment of true clarity.

Seems that it comes somewhat naturally to try to "fake" things such as a testimony when you're in the presence of so many "groupthink" exercise - didn't realize this until years later that a lot if not most of the people constantly getting up and bearing their souls were truly faking it to gain admiration etc. or simply caught up in it, doing so to fit in or go along with the crowd.

I was a convert and was baptized as a teenager. But somehow I managed to fake my way through 30 years of membership. I truly wanted to believe, but I realized later that much of it involved trying my best to fool myself as well.

I started out Catholic, was Anglican, Baptist and finally Mormon. No one can say that I didn't try my best to be a religious person. In the end, I just couldn't pull it off.

Gratefully I was at least brought up in a home where the subject of God just never came up. They never said He was there, or wasn't. They simply didn't mention Him at all. I was left to decide for myself when I got older, as my Mom later explained.