Your attendance, obedience, free labor (“calling”), sex life, and tithing, certainly mattered to church leaders; but did you feel YOU mattered to them?
I truly believed they cared from my teenage years until my ex went to prison for sexual abuse of my daughter.
I asked the Bishop if the ex would be excommunicated for his conviction. Bishop replied that he wouldn't go that far and would wait to see what would happen. WTAF?!
He was a convicted sex offender that was sentenced to prison and he was basically saying he wasn't going to do anything about it.
Back then, the church was my entire life; I payed, prayed and obeyed my brains out. Most of my free time was given to the 3 callings I had. But, when I needed food for my family or help with the electricity ONE TIME I was denied for the most part.
I didn't pay tithing so I could pay the electric bill. The Bishop was a wealthy man and outwardly displayed disdain for those who struggled financially but did not see it until it happened to me.
I had given EVERYTHING - my time, money, talents, whatever it took and then I began to see that they really don't care and Bishops are not divinely chosen but put in place mostly because someone thinks they can get the $$ from the members.
During that difficult time I wanted my ex to be excommunicated so badly I could not think of anything else. I now know that excommunication means NOTHING in the real world but at the time I thought it would help to relieve the suffering my daughter was going through. I came to understand that prison time was better :-)
You give everything you have until you have nothing left emotionally, financially or physically and then they hang you out to dry.
holycarp Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You give everything you have until you have > nothing left emotionally, financially or > physically and then they hang you out to dry.
So true. Altruism is not a requisite part of receiving priesthood callings.
I thought I mattered in the first 47 years. Once I lost my belief, I realized how little the "church" relationship meant; however, I did retain a sense of friendship with some of the older gentlemen in my former ward. We have seen each other infrequently at funerals. OMG, that's so sad.
I was considered a golden contact. I was 19 when I was baptized. Tall, pretty, college coed. I joined because I had a bad breakup, and just walked into the church, a student branch in Michigan. Loved the activities and people. I was very active and given callings. Went on a mission (that is a whole other story) and was a Rockstar in the now ward. Married in the temple and then found out I was in an abusive marriage. Kept it together and had 3 children. Was given leadership callings along w/husband. We were a golden couple, On the outside we were the perfect couple, but in the house I thought he would kill me. Even so the callings kept coming and I was a favorite. I felt needed and wanted. Then the divorce and everything dropped. Calling taken away, told no auxiliary wants me because of the big "D" on my chest. Moved w/kids and graduated nursing school. During that time in new ward, no callings and women would not talk to me. Why would I want their husbands? I then became involved w/a wonderful man in DC and moved. He was well known and had connections. Suddenly I had callings again. I was needed again and wanted. He did not want to marry. callings disappeared and I then realized
oops pressed wrong key. I realized a woman is only needed if she is attached to the right guy. If you are single over thirty(my daughter is discovering this), divorced, to old to have kids, etc, they have no use for you. Now I am 62. I work, volunteer. very active in the Salvation Army. I am treated w/respect and very happy now. I know people want to get to know me and have a healthy relationship. The Mormon church is an abusive relationship, but it took me leaving to realize what a mess I got myself and my kids into.
Wow! Your experience was a roller coaster ride. What kind of religion treats its adherents this way? A false one, for sure. To my mind, assigning callings is a numbers game; people in the church are a commodity to meet current demands. It's arbitrary and fickle. It's judgmental and unkind.
I used to wonder why leaders would berate congregations on a cyclical basis about home evening, home teaching, tithing, temple attendance, you name it. I mean, these are the very people trying to make their lives conform and their religion work. Why not compliment them? Why not try lifting their spirits instead of keeping them down?
Life's too short to give continued power to an abusive individual, institution, or religion. Interrupt the pattern. Break the chains. Get help if need be and get free.
Yeah, I think that at mission age, I was put on a fast track, and strings were pulled, some strings I haven't ever heard being pulled for others.
They probably pick way more than they know they're going to need because they always lose a bunch...
I'd be specific, but then you'd think I was bragging and we'd start yelling at one another and then, boom!, church security would have you hog-tied in the trunk of an Audi 8!!
I suffered one bad experience after another through the church programs and the leaders. It was tremendously negative so why would I ever want to go back and visit the mormon church for nostalgic sakes?
-I was told that I was too stupid to accurately count sacrament mtg attendance (from bishop to me as ward clerk) The ward had been losing members to "move out of the area". Bishop called me stupid.
-The entire mission experience [lack of baptisms directly correlates with disobedience; lies and bullying from the MP] All BS
-Withholding of praise/recognition for academic achievement My Dad was proud that I had earned good grades in HS. All he wanted to do was to brag/boast about my grades. It's what the other dads had done in the weekly priesthood meetings. I knew the bishop loathed me so I begged my Dad not to say anything. The bishop acted curious and asked my how many A's and B's I had earned. The bishop interrupted me and said that he didn't consider it an achievement because there was still room for improvement. He told me to sit down for wasting everybody's time.
-I was told that under no uncertain terms would I be excused from kneeling to say the sacrament prayer. I was a priest who had tore my knee ligaments. I hobbled on crutches and awkwardly kneeled on my good knee while the other leg stuck out into the aisle.
summer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Messygoop, your bishop sounds like he was a > miserable human being. Your only consolation is > that he is probably still a miserable human being.
I hope so.
Sometimes people looking in at the mormon church wonder why people put up with such abuse. Well, it's because you are conditioned to be be abused. I thought that's the way it was. God was a prick and you just accepted the crap that was dished out at you.
My favorite verse was that the meek shall inherit the earth, but I have since learned that never happens in the church. You can do everything that is asked of you~ serving your callings, tithing, attending church and temple, being humble. And you'll never get anywhere, but be viewed as a pitiful sheep.
No. I wanted to believe them and so I believed I was worth much as their soul child of their gods.
When I became rebellious I became their liability. I learned in their body of believers there is no place for doubters and never had been. And I realized consciously what I had suspected all along - I mattered only so long as I confessed adherence.
This is the t shirt that GAs are required to wear under their suits or when speaking to a congregation. You can tell by their body language they are wearing.
My favorite analogy comes from the movie version of the Caine Mutiny. The story revolves around the crazy Captain Queeg who commands a small rust bucket ship during WW2. The ship is about the lowest there is in a vast wartime navy. Queeg's tyranny over the ship leads to several officers rebelling against him in an attempt to get him removed from command. There is a scene in the movie where they visit the flagship of the fleet to make their case, boarding the flagship which represents the pinnacle of naval discipline and spick and span order. Suddenly, the contrast between their essentially irrelevant tub and this mighty ship of war brings up their essential worthlessness in the grand scheme of things and the perception that their problem and themselves will be seen as petty in the grand scheme of things navy.
General conference always reminded me of this revealing the vast disconnected between the perfection presented from the conference pulpit and the everyday imperfection and disorder of a typical ward unit...the rust bucket tub at the bottom of the the chain. To me, there was little connection between what I was experiencing at the bottom level and the image of perfection presented at conference. What on earth did I on my grunt level have to do with the power and might of the church and the utterly other world role of the powerful men who ran it?
That would be a big N-O. The rank and file just plain do not matter. They are there for the sole purpose of working their butts off, turning over 10% of their income to their slave masters and popping out as many future minions as their bodies will allow. Period. End of story.
Until I was eleven I pictured that I mattered a lot. Then one day I woke up to the fact that my best friend, the one I went to church with because my family did not attend, was off to a week ward church camp out adventure and I was not! The bishop, some days into the trip, came home for some reason and realizing what had occurred came to pick me up to take me back to the camp out with him.
I would not go. It was then that I realized, at least on one level, that I did not matter much to the church.
Sadly, I still clung on in lots of ways because the community of the church was my only sane, and somewhat happy, outlet. I did have WONDERFUL, very wonderful mormon friends, while the leaders from ward to top level did not give me any indication that they REALLY gave two hoots about me.
I thought back to when I joined the church (I was marrying a TBM). At that time, the level of fellowship, caring, visiting and home teachers, etc. that I was promised sounded smothering. Although I was pleasant and welcoming, after the first month, there was very little "caring". I always performed my callings, did my visiting and all the rest as I was instructed, plus a little more. I felt I was doing more than I should and certainly more than I was getting back. Fast forward 15 years to getting a divorce and leaving the church, other than one visit from the RS president and one phone call from a woman who always asked me to cook for homemaking, I was completely ignored (I had been a completely active, tithe paying member)- so no, I don't feel I mattered, but I am very happy to be out.