I suffer from severe OCD. My patriarchial blessing says twice that marriage will happen in the lord's time. It's very bleak on the subject. Although I am a Mormon I struggle with my patriarchial blessing.

Hello, bobbiedelta. Welcome to the board. You say you're Mormon? Are you having doubts?

Yes.

All of the lessons pertain to marriage and children. I am single and am disabled. It's very discouraging.

One of the callings I had was transcribing Patriarchal Blessings. It was one of the first moments which caused some doubts in my mind because they were basically all the same.

The only ones which were a little more detailed were the ones where the Patriarch knew the person receiving the blessing a little better.

Mine says I'd be married in the temple to a worthy man. Not only did I never marry (I didn't leave the Church until I was 50), but sometime in my 40s, I realized that I really was never meant for marriage in the first place.

Mine's very specific though. It says special doors will open for me and they have. I've had 29 stories published within two years. So some of it is coming true. So the marriage thing breaks me.

Confirmation bias can make even the most vague statements appear to be specific. That's why psychic readings, tarot cards, palm readings, etc is such a lucrative business.

Reminds me of a Monty Python sketch where two old ladies are reading the horoscopes:

Mrs. O: You have green, scaly skin, and a soft yellow underbelly with a series of fin-like ridges running down your spine and tail. Although lizard-like in shape, you can grow anything up to 30 feet in length with huge teeth that can bite off great rocks and trees. You inhabit arid sub-tropical zones and wear spectacles.

Mrs. Trepidatious: Oh! It's very good about the spectacles.

"Special doors" is not specific, it's the spitting image of vague.

YouTube search James Randi, he's a world reknowned debunker of fortune telling, among other things.

Patriarchal blessings are nothing more than fortune telling. They use the same methods. They make predictions that would 1) likely occur anyway, and/or 2) are general enough that anything that happens seems to fulfill the prophecy, and/or 3) some are self-fulfilling prophecies that prompt you to take action in favor of the prediction, and/or 4) some are already apparent and they are "predicting" something that has already happened or is apparent will likely happen.
5) There's also the escape clauses- that if it doesn't happen it's because you didn't believe in it strongly enough or did something wrong, or the lord is testing you and making you wait...maybe even until the "next life".
That...pretty much covers all the bases so that statistically it is inevitable that one or more "predicted" outcomes must occur.
Also, there's a known observed bias that 6) once we are tricked, we are able/willing to accept many subsequent wrong answers after only one right one. And, 7) if we have some psychological need to, we simply overlook gaps and holes.

I too have clauses in my blessing that, sure enough, happened. But, all of them are explicable using some combo of #'s 1-7 above. My blessing is about 75% correct. The remainder isn't dead wrong, it's just ambiguous. Obviously that's unlikely for someone that knew NOTHING about me, but my patriarch knew enough about me personally and enough about what was likely to happen simply because I was at a certain stage of Mormonism...that now 75% seems like sheer guesswork when you factor out the effects of #'s 1-7.

Blessings and other advice from church authorities caused me a fair amount of anguish. For example, for about a year, over 10 years into my marriage, I fretted that I had married the "wrong person" and therefore even had the wrong kids...as if such a thing were even possible. This was because my blessing said that "upon my return" from a mission I'd find a companion and marry in the temple. Well, I turned down two offers (that I deemed inappropriate even by church reckoning) pretty much immediately after my mission, and ended up marrying about 3 1/2 years after my mission. Then years later something petty caused me to second-guess my marriage and I wondered if I had screwed everything up by not marrying one of those first two...but which one?
To me that's the fundamental injustice of patriarchal blessings...that they are deemed as binding by believers, that they're not only from god, but a COMMANDMENT from god. At some point, at least, you find yourself worrying whether you are in compliance, and worse, maybe thinking there's no way to fix it.

I recommend the movie "The Invention of Lying" with Ricky Gervias if you haven't already seen it. The moral of the story is that there are things not even God can tell you to do.

were quite general or almost certainly have happened without those patriarchal predictions.

This "blessing" is making you sad, so I suggest you have a little ceremony and burn it. Then tell yourself that *YOU* are in charge of your life.

You only need drive and luck to achieve your goals. Choose one or two achievable goals and form a plan today to work toward them. Make them something which is important to you and very possible and go for it! This will give you focus and prove you don't need someone else saying a so-called blessing on you to do what you want to do.

Good luck.

Even when I was solidly Mormon, the patriarchs seemed like church sanctioned psychics—good guessers who knew their target audience. Being Mormon is such a narrow pathway, not because it’s hard to be righteous, but because life needs to cooperate. Health is a requirement. Spouse. Kids. Wealth. When things don’t go according to plan there’s scant solace in talk of challenges and trials. Mostly it’s “what’s wrong with you?” Those blessings always say if it doesn’t come true…what’s the wording?...predicated on your faithfulness? Shmucks. At some point you have to wonder if you’d be better off without them.

Among other bad calls, mine says I will work extensively with the Young Women and serve a mission with my husband... I can tell you that ain't never gonna happen. I also found out that mine has entire sections that are almost word-for-word the same as other girls who were in my stake at the time. They ALL mentioned temple marriage to 'worthy' husbands, and about one-third of those girls are not married. A few are divorced, and one is lesbian. Also -- 'the lord's time' pretty much means "anything between now and eternity". Don't worry about it and just focus on your happiness and worth as an individual!! ((hugs))

When I got my patriachical blessing I couldn't help but think, "Wow, this could apply to anyone."

Try applying your blessing to someone else, and see how much of it is still true. They're very generic.

When I went to get my patriarchal blessing as a new convert, I was so excited to have this experience that near everyone I had talked to describe as "so special" and that "they heard things about themselves that only they could know."

Not only did my patriarchal blessing mention absolutely nothing about marriage or children, it was very very generic and was pretty much information anyone could spout off after talking to me for a little while. That was when the first real cracks in my belief system started to show.

The other posters here are correct. Patriarchal blessings can take a very vague statement and make it sound like it applies to any circumstance in your life, it's best to not take it too seriously, the only thing that will make your life course is you, not a piece of paper.

One of my least favorite things about the Church is the way that you can be made to feel less worthy (even if it is subliminally) about the fact that you're not married or have children. I am not married yet, nor do I have children, but I have found that since I left the church and that pressure has lifted, I have found a greater confidence in myself and that has helped me to realize that if marriage happens, it will be great, if not, that's okay as well. I can be just fine exactly as I am and just because I don't fit a certain mold that the Church defines, I don't need to be patronized and considered a "special spirit."

If it helps, I have struggled with diagnosed OCD since high school and it is very easy in a faith that has such strict regulations to feel bound and trapped and constant anxiety that you're not doing well enough. When dealing with OCD and the Church, that anxiety can become enormous, especially when one doesn't seem to be fitting the "typical" Mormon picture.

You don't need to fit the "typical" Mormon picture. I've become a much happier and better person since I resigned, and I don't need validation from a temple recommend or from a generic patriarchal blessing to tell me that I'm worthy. You are worthy because you are a great human being on this Earth, not because some document checks off all the little boxes that are considered important in the LDS culture.

You have a really supportive community here and I wish you all the best :).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2013 01:17PM by missblue.

I had a friend who's grandpa was a patriarch. Anyways his grandma told him that some of the teenagers who seemed a little weird or didn't fit the stereotypical prettiness and handsomness, the patriarch would put in the caveat "in the lord's time" when referring to marriage. LOL. Big inside joke i guess.

I received more sincere input from a Spiritual Intuitive then I did my Patriarchal Blessing.

Once I got the written version of my PB, I read some parts and though "What if I'm being promised those particular things just to 'make sure I'm always kept in line or in the faith'"

yeah the patriarch dudes are probably saying what they feel or what comes into their head, hoping they're doing it right, just like when men give any other "blessing" to someone. So no intentional deceipt there, but yeah I look at my patriarchal blessing and think that it could apply to pretty much anybody.

We interpret it to fit what's going on in our life, no matter what it says. confirmation bias exactly. If you didn't have an interpretation for "special doors opening" already then you would have filled that in later with something. It can't fail.

It's like, if it makes someone happy then God and Mormonism win, but if it doesn't make someone happy then instead of it being a problem with the belief system it's a problem with the person or a need to be faithful or patient, and so God and Mormonism still win.

My PB and the one from my best friend at the time are almost word for word the same. Both of them it said that if we stay worthy we will get married in the temple. Both of ours said we should always pay a full tithing. Both of our said honor father and mother. Both of our BP said to prepare to become mothers in Zion. Back then I though how beautiful it was that we were blessed with the same things now I am thinking it was his "regular" PB that probably most women got a PB in that style.

subeamnotlogedin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am thinking it was his "regular" PB that
> probably most women got a PB in that style.


Trust me, they did.

My pb forgot to tell me that I have OCD, but it did tell me that I have 'good parents'. My mother was verbally and emotionally abusive to me even into may adulthood.

I would have loved to know about the ocd long ago, so I could have gotten help, instead of thinking I just needed to repent more ( I had pure o, mostly, with a smattering of checking and contamination ocd, until the birth of my 2nd child when all hell broke loose in the form of majorly life-stopping contamination ocd.)

So while god was interested in my marriage and kids- it said I would have many children; I had 2, he was not very interested in helping me figure life out with important knowledge like:


I have ocd
Ocd gets worse after I have a child
It would be a good idea to get counselling to heal from child abuse.
Get out of the Mormon church

Nevertheless, I figured all this out anyway!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2013 09:25PM by karin.

A friend of mine was very depressed after she got her patriarchal blessing. Hers said that she would not live long enough to have children. She was crushed. This was in high school and we've since lost touch. If I can remember her last name I'd like to look her up and see how many kids she has & if she still attends church.

He was probably thinking about his own wife. Or trying to scare her to into having a baby with him

My patriarchal blessing promised that I would be free of major illness throughout my life.

Funny thing is, I was born with a serious congenital illness. So not only was he dead wrong, but you can't even chalk that up to a prediction which didn't come true because I wasn't faithful.

My PB said I would never 'falter or fall away.' Fail.

Last year my daughter's YW Camp leader was hit by a bus at age 26 and killed. This was a horrible tragedy. But what made it worse - her PB said she would see the second coming while in this life. You should have seen the mental gymnastics taking place among the YW leaders. The girls all heard her say it at camp. That was a pretty healthy dose of cog-dis for my daughter.

Who's to say she didn't see him a split second before she died? so technically this life? hahahhahha. you fail to prove otherwise again. hehehhe

Welcome to the board! I know having doubts is painful but it is the 1st stepps to understanding. As for P. Blessings I wouldnt give them alot of wieght. Mine said "there would never be a thought of divorce uttered in my marrage"(I put up w/a lot cuz of that). Ive been divored twice! My bro. told me his said he'd be a leader in the church...He IS NOT.My aunt & uncles said they walk back to Missouri,(back when they talked about that stuff). They died in a car accident in the 70s.!

My blessing says that through my example my non member dad will gain a testimony and join the church. I haven't been in church in a couple of months and we are thinking of having our names removed because of all the junk we have found out so far.

My patriarchal blessing was one of my first major stumbling blocks as I began to question the church. My husband had lost his before we married so a year or two ago he got another copy from Salt Lake. We grew up in the same stake and received our pb's from the same patriarch and, lo and behold, they are almost the same. The phrases, the promises, almost everything.

While I was still trying to deal with the cognitive dissonance from that my sister tells me how the patriarch, who was our family's long-term home teacher through my mother's illness and my parents' divorce, hit on her after her first semester of college. Asked her to sit on his lap and everything. First of all, gross. Second, based on some information I later learned I don't believe that was his first time hitting on young female college students. Third, this is the man who was supposed to have received revelation on my behalf?

My testimony has never been the same since.

It sounds like that 'patriarch' could have something going for himself. For the young women, he could say: "I bless you that you will receive the attention of a creepy old man in the future. Do not deny him, for he is sent from the lord..."

He's just following JS's example. I wonder if he ever scored, like JS did.