Help Thou Mine Unbelief (Mark 9:24)

Nearly twelve years ago, shortly after I returned home from my mission, I moved in with my grandmother to provide some live-in caregiving and have a free place to stay as I prepared to start attending BYU. She loved to watch movies in the evenings and I did a lot of catching up on movies I’d missed while on my mission while I was there. One evening my uncle stopped by with a movie I had not heard and he insisted we needed to watch it. The film was “Doubt” starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It tells the story of a nun (played by Streep) who suspects that the new Father in their parish (Hoffman) is sexually abusing some of the altar boys. In the end she fights to get him reassigned based entirely on her conviction and circumstantial evidence. At the end she delivers a heart-wrenching monologue to another nun (Amy Adams) questioning whether she’s done the right thing and sobs that she has “such doubts.” The film notably does not ever really let you know whether he was in fact guilty, because that wasn’t the point. The point of the story was a woman’s efforts to act with conviction to do what she truly believed was right in the face of doubt. It was for me a poignant film that spoke highly to one of my great struggles: that of doubt.

Back in February when I was disclosing my transgressions of the last few years to my Bishop, he said something that resonated deeply with me. He explained that just as I should always expect the possibility that I will be attracted to men my whole life, I will similarly always experience the trial of doubt, and will have to navigate that trial and make choices despite the pressure of that trial. This was actually very eye-opening to me and immediately struck me as true. It’s interesting that I have settled to a point of calm with my attraction to men for nearly a decade now. But I have never thought of doubt in that same way as something I will simply continue to experience and need to plan for the long haul. And yes, I know some of you are thinking that if I really was at peace with my attractions, why did I do the things I did these last few years? But truthfully, my actions weren’t because of my attractions; sure, those influenced the flavor, so to speak, of the transgressions, but the choices themselves were more a crisis of both unresolved trauma requiring therapy and of a crisis of faith caused by unchecked doubt.

Two posts ago I explained a lot more of the details of my various transgressions over the last few years, and explained how I came to understand what the scriptures refer to as being a “double-minded man.” After explaining at length in that post what that means, I wanted to follow-up and counter with what it isn’t. Being double-minded doesn’t mean having conflicting feelings, thoughts, inclinations, or temptations. Double-minded is when we actively try to live both of those things or try to give place for both sides. In fact, only minutes after publishing that post in late March, I read this quote from an excellent interview with three historians on the Joseph Smith Papers Project, regarding those who struggle with questions:

A friend of mine gave this advice. If you have two beliefs in your mind that appear to be contradictory, you can allow them to coexist. For example, you may have a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon that led you to become converted to the church, and at the same time you may have questions or doubts about some aspect of church history. It is totally compatible to have a testimony of the gospel and the Restoration while having questions or confusion about some aspects of the history. Questions and doubts are natural. Turn to the Lord in humility and be patient as you wait for his help and his answers. Seek, seek, seek, and wait, wait, wait for answers. Don’t stop doing the spiritual things while you are seeking and waiting. Sometimes the answer is to be at peace with something even though you don’t understand it. The answers and comfort and peace you seek will come, and they will come through the Spirit. I know many people whose testimonies became stronger after periods of doubt and uncertainty.

Note that second sentence. You CAN have two contradictory beliefs without resolution and I don’t think this makes you “double-minded” in the sense I was describing. Once again, double-mindedness occurs when we try to ACT in contradictory ways and live two conflicting realities—a way of living I became quite familiar with.

I have for years carried great guilt and shame for my doubts. I now realize that my doubts are no more reason for guilt or shame than my attraction to men, my love for chocolate, or my penchant for music by Rachmaninoff. These are all things I experience, and they CAN influence my decision-making, some for better, some for worse, and some for neutral. But it’s the choices that matter. I gave a lot of place to grow and entertain and act upon my doubts. That was my choice, and I am responsible for those choices. But having doubt is simply part of my nature.

I think some confusion on this matter comes from how some scriptures are worded, which may require a distinguishing of how the same terminology can be meant in different ways. For example, Doctrine & Covenants 6:36 says, “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” We are here commanded not to doubt, which can certainly lead to feelings of shame or guilt when we inevitably experience doubts. But I think this scripture, like any scripture that is commandment, is still speaking only to our choices. Maybe I’m pulling at semantic straws here, but I think there is big difference between experiencing doubt and choosing actively to doubt. And I’m kind of an authority on the subject because I’ve experienced a lot of both! I don’t think the Lord condemns us for our doubts, but He may chasten us for what we choose to do with them. We can choose to reach to Him when we doubt. Two stories from the New Testament illustrate this principle well.

In Mark chapter nine, we read of a desperate father with a child overcome with “a dumb spirit” and seemingly from the description, perhaps several medical maladies of various sorts. He loves his son and has tried many things to help him for years. In desperation he has already come to the disciples, who have been unsuccessful in helping him. He now has come directly to Jesus to petition for relief. Christ counsels him in verse 23, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” Without hesitation (“straightaway” in the scriptural parlance) the father in verse 24 “cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” The Lord then heals the man’s son. The man in the story acknowledged his doubts. But he has clearly acted in faith, trying repeatedly for years to seek healing for his son. He has held onto his faith after repeatedly pleading and seeing no miracles yet through all that time. When even the Savior’s disciples, who by then already had their own reputations as miracle-workers, could also not cure him, he had every reason to give into those doubts. But he acted in faith. He cried out, with tears, for the Lord to bless him for whatever faith he could muster and fill in the gaps where his faith fell short. And the Lord blessed him for acting in faith rather than rebuking him for experiencing doubt.

On another particularly famous occasion, as recorded in Matthew chapter fourteen, Christ’s apostles are struggling in a boat without him amidst a storm. They’ve already seen him calm a storm previously, but now they are without him as they cross the sea of Galilee and fear for their lives. Just then they see him, miraculously, walking across the water towards them. His bold chief apostle Peter immediately asks permission to do the same. As we know, he walks a few steps and then, seeing the “boisterous wind” begins to sink in his fear. He immediately cries out for the Lord to save him, and the Lord does so. When I hear people recount this story a lot of emphasis is often placed on Peter’s doubt, as if to hold him up as a bad example of faith. But I would ask, how many other disciples even got out of the boat? Peter’s faith let him walk on water. He DID doubt, but even when he did, his immediate response was to call out to the Lord for help. What a wonderful example and spiritual victory! The point of the story, to me, is not that Peter doubted, but that he acted in faith and when confronted with doubt, he called on the Lord for help. We will all experience doubt, and when we call on the Lord to help us amidst those doubts, he will do so instead of letting us drown because we doubted.

Interestingly, and as an echo to the counsel my bishop gave me, it seems Peter continued to struggle with doubt his whole life as well. There are several instances which show glimpses of that doubt during the Savior’s ministry, but even long after when Peter has been leading the Church for a decade, we read in Acts 10:17 that Peter continued to face doubts, even in the moments after receiving glorious visions from on high. Peter was a man who faced doubts and acted in faith and it seems abundantly clear that the Lord is very pleased with his ministry and the bold acts of faith he made despite being someone who chronically experienced doubt. His sometimes-great doubts coexisted with his faith—a faith mighty enough to walk on water. I experience the comingling of doubt and faith every day.

So, having established that the experience of doubt does not condemn us, we turn now to the choices which can. May I offer some terminology to clarify this distinction? The doubt in these two stories I would term passive doubt: a condition which we deal with wherein we naturally will experience doubt while in mortality, and which may coexist with mighty faith. A second term would be active doubt: when we choose to act in doubt rather than acting in faith. This can be in subtle ways we entertain those doubts and begin spending time trying to align our beliefs more with our doubts than our faith. In can be in more flagrant ways, such as using our doubts as justification for our behaviors of unfaithfulness to our spouse. This is the form of doubt which we are counseled against when told to “doubt not, fear not.”

While studying references related to doubt, I was initially surprised to see a passage I’ve actually considered to be a hallmark scripture on faith listed in the Topical Guide under “Doubt.” In fact, I referenced this scripture in my last post to demonstrate how the scriptures build faith. But, sure enough, there is in the middle of the verse, a warning about active doubt. The verse is Alma 32:28, which reads (with my emphasis):

Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

In the middle we see a caution to not cast the seed out because of our unbelief or doubt. In doing so we “resist” the Lord. He sends us His Spirit and the scriptures to entice us towards doing what is right. Active doubt tries to build a defense system against those spiritual pulls. Sometimes we WANT our doubts to win, so that we don’t have to accept the harder parts of the gospel. I certainly have been there. And of course, the sad result of doing so is missing out on the “delicious” fruit of the gospel which grows when we act in faith instead, even if the best we can do to act in faith is to cry out for help when the doubt seems too great, even as Peter and the afflicted boy’s father did.

Active doubt is, of course, self-sustaining. When we act in doubt, we breed greater doubt. And acting against the commandments naturally breeds doubt as our brains have to grab a life raft of justification to keep from being crushed under a blanket of cognitive dissonance. The Lord warns us of this in Deuteronomy, a book which serves as the Lord’s ancient dissertation on faithfulness to covenant life. In chapter 28 we are warned of the effects and natural consequences of sin. Among those consequences, we are warned in verse 66 that our lives will “hang in doubt” when we turn away from the Lord. So active doubt breeds sin breeds more doubt.

The great turning point of regaining my testimony this year after years of repeating that cycle of active doubt began when in desperation I prayed privately for the Lord to help me feel my faith, or in other words, to help me in mine unbelief. Reflecting back on this consequential prayer I offered five months ago, I note that I did not find myself praying for relief from sexual addiction or temptation. I was praying for faith amidst doubt and to feel the influence of the Spirit which I had cast out and resisted, and that is what helped everything start to turn for me. I still experience doubts. Some days they are small and some days they seem mighty and overwhelming. But I am choosing faith, because I also experience faith. Some days it seems small and some days it feels mighty and empowering. But I’m learning to not condemn myself for the current status of my mix of faith and passive doubt. I am choosing to act in faith and leave active doubt behind, and it has begun to be delicious to me. I feel the Lord offering the miracle of spiritual healing and pulling me from the depths of the sea before I drown. And those witnesses are building my faith. The overall trajectory is upwards, even if there is some oscillation along the way. And I have hope that through Christ I will continue to conquer my doubts through controlling them, even if I recognize that they will be with me for the long run.

--Obadiah

Confused at the Grace (Hymn 193)

I started my blog nearly ten years ago as I began coming to terms with my sexuality. It has now been over seven years since I updated it. The blog always served two purposes: (1) to act as a personal cathartic channel for my feelings as I navigated that period of my life, and (2) to share my feelings so that others in a similar situation would know they are not alone. By the time I quit blogging, the first reason had faded away quite distinctly: I had found a sense of peace and balance and no longer struggled as much with internal conflict. I was happy. The second reason remained, but I figured my blog was still there for people to access if they wanted to hear the story, and life became very busy after I graduated BYU and got a real job. Then I became a father and life got even busier. Several times I thought of blogging again, but it just didn’t rise high enough in the priority chain.

So why am I back? A lot has happened since then and I’ve been coming through what I’d label a “second period of crisis” regarding my sexual and spiritual identities. As I have, I’ve seen both of those main reasons for blogging come back to life: I am working through difficult feelings again, and also have new experiences and insights I feel are worth sharing so that others may feel a little less alone. However, I also think my approach is going to be different this time, in a few key ways I’ll describe later on. First, let me explain a little more about what has brought me to the point where I’m at.

As mentioned above, since my last post I graduated from BYU and got a really awesome job that brought me out of Utah and into Texas, where we’ve lived since 2014. In 2015 we had our first child and being a father has just been the most incredible experience: so challenging, so rewarding. We’ve had two more children since then, in 2017 and 2019 respectively. With each child both the challenges and rewards have increased. I imagine that reflections on parenting and becoming the parent I want to be may be featured here moving forward, but it wasn’t parenting that brought me back to the blog.

Starting in the latter half of 2017, a period of depression combined with a spiritual malaise led to me resurrecting some old bad habits, beginning with browsing homo-erotic stories online. I had let many important gospel habits grow stale, especially consistent personal scripture study and meaningful personal praying as opposed to just “saying prayers.” I also had just grown busy and exhausted, and on top of it all, I simply felt like I had not felt the Spirit in a very long time. This was the beginning of a break in my testimony as I was giving a lot of room to my doubts, but not doing much to help my belief.

From 2018 onward, things escalated to gradually worse and worse mistakes. I’m not intending to explore all the details in this post, though I do plan to share a bit more in future posts, not because I think we all need to air our transgressions or place a lot of focus on them, but because some greater detail may be necessary context for some of the lessons I’ve learned, and some details may also help someone else caught in the same problems. I don’t plan on giving any explicit details. The two main things I’ll share briefly now are these: lots of online chatting with other gay men online, and an erotic (though not fully sexual) in-person encounter with a man in 2019. For today’s post that’s all you need to know for context, but what I really want to share is how everything has changed for the better in my life recently.

During the first two months of 2020, I began curiously growing in two different directions. The misbehaving side was actively seeking another experience with a man. But at the same time, a recent move to a new house made it easier for me to begin taking public transportation to work each day, and I began using that time to restart the habit of studying my scriptures. With that, I felt like my testimony became reawakened, even if slightly. The result was a lot of conflict. I could sense things building to a breaking point. And then the COVID-19 pandemic began and locked the world down. This had the positive effect of spoiling some plans I’d had to meet up with another man. But it also crushed my newly regained scripture study habit as working from home changed my schedule and removed the need to use public transportation. So the building conflict was for a time tamped down into a period of spiritual limbo.

During the years since I last blogged, I remained a member of the North Star Facebook group for Same-sex attracted Latter-day Saints, but just as my blogging had fallen off, so had my active participation there. But I did occasionally see posts from others and on rare occasions even commented on them. Shortly after the pandemic began, I saw a post in my feed from a man asking if there were others in the same area of Texas I live in within the group. In the previous few years I may have ignored and moved on, but this time I decided to throw my name onto his post. This resulted in a friend request from this same individual and one other. I chatted briefly with each of them via Facebook Messenger and we got to know each other at a high, superficial level. One of them (I’ll refer to him hereafter in this post as “X”) invited me to join a local in-person SSA men’s support group (temporarily virtual at the time due to COVID) that met every other week that had made a big difference for him.  I politely declined at the time, saying (laughably dishonestly), that I was good and was really at a stable place with my attractions and didn’t really need that at the time. This really would have been a true statement for the period of 2013-2017, but clearly by this point things had spun out of control and I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that I needed help.

Later that year, I had a few very brief but powerful spiritual experiences that gave me these short but bright glimpses into the faith I had once had but felt disconnected from. This did not equate to a true restoration of my testimony, but certainly gave me a stronger desire than I’d felt in years to get it back and feel the Spirit and the truth of the gospel the way I once had. I felt a great urgency about this, because even though I hadn’t met in person with another man due to the pandemic, some of my other bad online habits were beginning to escalate again. Near the end of last year, two important things happened. First, “X” invited me to the local group again, and this time I initially gave a more tentative response. Second, I offered a real prayer. I once had amazing, spiritual prayers, but hadn’t prayed that way in years. I tried to tap into that kind of prayer again. It wasn’t completely successful; I still didn’t feel the Spirit. But I felt so sincere in my pleadings, perhaps the most sincere I had ever prayed. I begged to be able to feel the Spirit again the way I once had, if not right away, then within the next day. Beautifully, the next day I had a brief instant, unexpectedly at a mundane moment, where I received a startlingly clear glimpse of how it had felt to know it was true. It seemed unprompted by any specific event and left as quickly as it came. But it gave me something to hold onto and keep moving forward, as if to say, “If you start making the right choices, this is how you could feel again.” As I pondered that moment and tried to decide what to do, one of the conclusions I reached, and even believed the Spirit was pushing me towards, was to reply to “X” and ask to begin participating in the group during 2021. Was I fully sure it was the Spirit telling me that at the time? No. But I decided that if what I wanted was to feel the Spirit, then if I even believed that maybe I was getting a prompting, I should listen.

So I replied and got the information for the first meeting of the year. I was put in contact with a member of the group (let’s call him “Z”) who would be hosting it at his house that week. “Z”, it turns out, worked in the same industry I did and was also married with kids, so we were able to quickly connect and become friends over our many shared interests and experiences. In fact, the group as a whole was filled with these very humble, very faithful men, each of whom had walked a difficult path. They were very welcoming. I had no idea what to expect in attending the first meeting. I thought maybe this was really just a loose get together of similar guys to talk or maybe, I dunno, play board games? Or something? What I got instead was essentially a faith-based group therapy session. And it was mind-opening. I was not the only first-time attendee that night, and to help the two new guys feel more comfortable, at the end of that first session another member shared his story with us. Out of respect for that group and the understanding of trust we have, I won’t ever be sharing specifics of what anyone discusses, but suffice it to say I was touched at a deep level by his courage.

When I first decided to go to the group, I was not intending to necessarily share everything I’d recently been going through. In fact, I really planned to just attend and learn and use it to help me spiritually improve so I could stop making the bad choices I’d been making, and never have to tell anyone. But it turns out it doesn’t work that way. Lasting change doesn’t happen shrouded in secrecy. The Lord knows the truth anyway, so if we pretend we needn’t confess, we are only lying to ourselves. For the first month or so, I simply became better friends with some of these men and started vaguely reaching out to “Z” when I was feeling tempted (or had just had a slip-up) to tell him I was feeling “spiritually low” and could use a lift. He was always ready to help supply that lift, and didn’t pry. He did, however, one day say basically that if I was dealing with something more than just “spiritual lowness” I could share with him and he’d be there to help without judgment. But he didn’t push. The more I saw the good examples of these other men and heard stories from several who’d gone through a proper repentance process, the more my dishonesty and years of secrets ate away at me.

Up to this point, I had been very vague with my wife as to why I suddenly wanted to start going to this group. She knew about my same sex attraction early on in our dating life and it really had not been something we had talked much about for years. I had also been very discreet in my misdeeds and had never given her reason to believe there was anything wrong. But at the beginning of the year I explained to her that going to the group was just something I felt I should do and she was very supportive, even if maybe a little confused. After my third group meeting, on February 11, I didn’t sleep all night. I was wrestling with the idea of telling my wife about everything. By the end of that night I had decided I would tell her… some things, so she’d know I was working through some addictions and trying to improve, but without telling her everything. So that Saturday, February 13, we were talking after the kids went to bed and I told her in rather vague terms that I had made some mistakes that I felt I needed to tell her about. I started to really break down at this point, and of course so did she a little, but she was very supportive at the same time. I told her I didn’t think I could tell her everything then, but that it was something we needed to talk about soon. (By the way, this is a very… unusual way to kick off Valentine’s day!)

That night I basically had a full mental and emotional breakdown. I cried most of the night. And of course, you can imagine my wife was left just wondering what terrible things I would be sharing. But I didn’t know how to proceed. I texted “Z” to tell him where I was at and that I needed to talk with him. The next morning we talked for a long time. He started by sharing more of his own personal experiences with me, and by the time he was done I knew that I couldn’t just confess part-way—I had to tell everything. So I started by telling him on that phone call. I sobbed my way through all the major things and then begged for help. He gave me some very clear and great advice about how to approach disclosure with your spouse. He also told me he was a great listening ear, but not a qualified counselor in these issues and that I needed to speak with a therapist before disclosing. I didn’t have a therapist. But “Z” did, and he actually had a session scheduled the next day which he immediately sacrificed so I could use his appointment instead. I had promised my wife that I would speak with her by Wednesday evening so she wasn’t left hanging too long. I spoke with the therapist on Tuesday evening and besides helping me work through some issues, he gave me some very critical advice for how to approach disclosing to my wife. With that advice fresh in my head, we decided to talk that evening.

Telling my wife what I’d done was the hardest thing I had done up to that point in my life. I was genuinely terrified that by the end, I would be at serious risk of losing my wife and my children. Others have lost their spouses for far less than I had done. Of course my wife was hurt, probably to a degree deeper than anything she has ever experienced. But she also made it clear that she planned to stay with me and help me out of the pit I’d dug. I was stunned, ashamed, grateful, devastated, and every other possible emotion at the same time. This was the beginning of a series of deep and meaningful conversations on a wide variety of subjects in recent weeks that have thoroughly strengthened our relationship and helped us find ways to improve our marriage.

The next day I began to thinking about the next major hurdle I needed to clear: telling my bishop. I needed this repentance to be complete, and I needed my wife to know that I wanted to be right with not only her, but the Lord. As an aside, if you paid attention to the news last month you may remember that this was the same week that Winter Storm Uri blanketed Texas in snow and caused multi-day catastrophic power outages. (We were incredibly blessed to never lose power, though many around us did; I think the Lord knew we could emotionally handle only so much that week). Anyway, while I was in the thought of talking to my bishop, he called me! Scared me to death. But he was calling just to ask if I could assist in checking on a few members of our ward affected by the power outages. I said yes, and did so, the whole while wondering if I should wait a while to tell my bishop until I’d calmed down more emotionally (these days I was crying at least hourly and was a complete mess). I texted “Z” to ask if he thought I should wait a while, or at least until talking to my therapist again. He gently suggested that the sooner I spoke with him the better. That night I called the Bishop again and asked if I could meet with him.

The next day I did the next hardest thing I’d ever done as I talked through everything with my bishop. It was nearly three hours. Three beautiful, healing hours. Just as I had after telling my wife, somehow I felt good at the end of the conversation. I felt a remarkable amount of mercy, instead of the condemnation I expected and felt I deserved. I have often found myself since then, as C.S. Lewis described it, “Surprised by Joy.” I’m shocked and confused at how quickly my life is getting better. Now make no mistake: I still have many conflicted emotions I’m struggling through and personal weaknesses to confront, but from that week forward my life has started to be filled with light again. And to a greater degree than ever before in my life, I’m beginning to understand the words of that beautiful and familiar hymn which say:

                I stand all amazed at the Love Jesus offers me,

                Confused at the GRACE that so fully he proffers me.

                I marvel to know that for ME, HE was crucified;

                That for me, a sinner, He suffered, He bled, and died.

                Oh, it is WONDERFUL, that He should care for me, enough to die for me!

I have much work to do and vital relationships to repair. But I have never before felt so empowered to overcome them. In the last three weeks I’ve seen so many unexpected blessings and felt so much love from various people I’ve spoken with, most particularly my extraordinary wife. Disclosing my transgressions suddenly has gotten us to talk about many things we couldn’t before. Our marriage is coming through this stronger now, not weaker. And that is the power of GRACE, or help from our Savior: divine help which is available as soon as we muster the courage and humility to accept it. It is remarkably efficacious, to a degree truly “confusing” as the hymn says. We have often grown to be so enthralled with justice that we cannot comprehend how much more powerful mercy is and how God doesn’t want to condemn any of His children: He wants to transform them. We must make the step to come, and that step can be terrifying. But I’ve recently learned that the blessings you receive for your repentance outweigh all pain and fear you may have of taking that step.

There is much more to tell, and still more that must happen as I work on becoming a better man. That will all come in future blog posts. But as I’ve reconsidered who I want to be, I’ve also reassessed this blog a bit. Now that I’ve returned, I’m going to be making a few changes:

·         Title change: When I started this blog, I was very clear about the fact that neither the terms “gay” nor “Mormon” were my first preference, but that they are the common terms people search for. My thoughts on “gay” haven’t changed much: not my preference but it doesn’t scare me (and I do use it sometimes to describe myself for the sake of convenience and brevity). However, my thoughts on the term “Mormon” have evolved more, especially in light of Pres. Nelson’s focus in recent years to more specifically avoid the term. I also think the scope of this blog may expand a bit beyond a pure focus on same-sex attraction, though, so I’ve also decided to drop the term “gay” and move to a more encompassing title of “Scriptural Insights from a Work-in-Progress Latter-day Saint.” (I recognize that the blog URL and contact email still contain both terms as of posting this, but those are more complicated to change and I’m still working on it.)

·         Greater authenticity: I’ve been reinventing my life lately on a deep level of honesty and authenticity, given the clear capacity for blatant dishonesty I’ve displayed the last few years. A decade ago, this blog was an important part of my coming to terms with many things, but it was NOT always authentic. While my thoughts on various scriptures were usually quite sincere and authentic, my description of my life and level of righteousness was NOT always. The earlier posts weren’t all a massive lie, but looking over things, I certainly white-washed a few details about myself and made myself look better than I was. For example, on more than one occasion during my time at BYU I kissed a man, but I never gave even the slightest impression of that in the blog. On at least one occasion I blatantly lied in this blog by saying I hadn’t viewed video pornography. Why did I do that? It’s complicated. Some of it was because some people who read the blog knew I was the author (including notably my mother) and I didn’t want them to know that I’d made a few more risqué mistakes than the blog would lead you to believe. I made myself look very pristine and I wasn’t. Now, I didn’t reach the same levels of indiscretion I have in the last few years, but I was not always the person I purported to be. That ends now. I’m done being dishonest. That doesn’t mean I plan to include every sordid detail, but I won’t be saying anything untrue or hiding things in a way to make me seem cleaner than I was. Honesty is going to be a common topic early on as I restart this blog. Regarding those old posts, I considered whether to delete or update them, but I actually think the authentic thing to do is to leave them. I can correct truths moving forward (like I just did) but don’t have to amend the past as I presented it then. This applies also to a few posts that I’ve re-read and realized I don’t fully agree with anymore, even if there is nothing dishonest in them. That’s part of my progression and I like to think I’ve grown a little bit wiser about a few things. But I can disagree with my past self without censoring him.

·         Regarding anonymity: Here’s another interesting sticking point that made me hesitant to resume blogging. Since I last blogged, I’ve heard several conference talks cautioning against online anonymity. And I just closed down an extensive negative online anonymous identity I’ve kept up the last few years. Not to mention, I just said I want to increase my authenticity! BUT, I also have new reasons to actually remain anonymous: my wife and children, who did not sign up to be revealed as they would be if I blogged openly with my identity. While I may blog about parenting on occasion, I also plan to keep any and all details about my children out of the blog out of respect for their privacy. This has become my policy in my normal social media use as well: my wife and I have largely stopped sharing pictures of our children on social media out of respect for their privacy. As someone in a mixed orientation marriage, I live a life deemed controversial by the world’s standards, and it isn’t fair to my children to be associated with their dad’s choices. I also have strong reasons to not have my personal blog associated or tied back to my professional life. I have a great job, but work in an industry so “progressive” that they ironically don’t have much understanding or room for my choices and situation. SO: I plan on keeping up the pseudonym. But, in the name of greater authenticity, I’m also willing to connect using my real identity with any sincere reader who reaches out to me through the blog email. In other words, I won’t correspond outside the blog in any way using a false identity. I plan on sharing my blog openly in a few forums and already there are quite a few people who know I write this. So while I’m not going to put my name literally on the blog where it can be searched for and associated openly with me, privately I plan to be quite open moving forward. I’ll be discontinuing my “Obadiah” social media accounts I created back when I first wrote this blog. There will be no second persona to speak of, just the use of the pseudonym here on my blog.

·         Cadence: When I first started the blog I was writing very consistently, sometimes 2-3 times per week. Well, time was one of the reasons I stopped blogging to begin with and my life hasn’t gotten any less busy. I’m choosing to make time for this, but cannot promise any great frequency or consistency. Right now I have a rough goal of aiming for weekly posts, and that sounds pretty ambitious, frankly. (Did I mention I have 3 kids now?) Also, don’t worry; posts won’t all be this super-long.

May the Lord bless you, wherever you are at,

--Obadiah

Grace and Godly Sorrow (Moroni 10:32-33)

In December I wrote a post called "Grace and Gasoline" that discussed the necessity of Grace for our salvation, comparing it to gasoline in a car. If you haven't read that post, you may want to go back and read it first. I suppose it isn't essential to understand this one, but I may draw back on things I said in that post and assume you know what I'm talking about. You've been warned.

Anyway, the subject of Grace has been on my mind a lot more the past few weeks, and I felt like it would be helpful to write another post on the subject. In my earlier post on Grace, I emphasized its importance and the fact that it is an enabling power. In this post, I'd like to discuss more specifically HOW it acts as that enabling power, including some specific ways I've seen Grace manifest in my own life and the divine role of Godly Sorrow in the process of sanctification, as opposed to its counterfeit, shame.

So, let's dig right into it, shall we? In that last post I proposed a rather in-depth analogy comparing Grace to gasoline, enabling us to move forward. It's a mighty nice thought, but do we see examples in the real world? I think even recognizing that Grace somehow plays a role along the way, we fail sometimes to grasp what that role is. I'm sure I still do in many ways. But I've recently come to see very clearly at least a little manifestation of Grace acting as the fuel which propelled me forward. I want to begin with a scripture from literally the closing verses of the Book of Mormon. In Moroni 10:32-33 we read:

32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God. 
33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot. 

And so, in these verses, among the very last words of Moroni before he sealed up the plates, we see God's great plan revealed: to make us perfect and holy. Note that Moroni doesn't neglect our part (in the analogy, if you remember, it is still up to us to drive the car). Thus, we must put forth our effort to deny ourselves of all ungodliness. In other words, our desire and action need to be there in order for all of this to work--God won't force us to improve if we don't desire it. But the gas is absolutely essential for the car to move forward when we push down on the peddle. Moroni here uses one of my favorite words to describe this perfection process: SANCTIFICATION. It is sad to me how few latter-day saints understand this concept. The word itself literally means "to make holy." It describes what Grace DOES. It is what life is all about: conversion. We are hopefully throughout out lives constantly in the process of being converted from raw, natural men and women, into divine beings. Sometimes we choose instead to be converted in the opposite direction. But with God's help we can choose godliness, thanks to Grace and the power of sanctification.

So, now let me humble myself a bit and share some of my own experiences with you and how I've seen grace manifest in my life. I've written on two previous occasions about a friend of mine I find especially attractive who I've code named "Methuselah" for the purposes of this blog. In the previous 2 posts I've written about him, I alluded to the concept of impure thoughts and how we can keep them at bay. Those are great posts of advice on how to help keep thoughts clean--at least our side of it. Those posts detail well how we put our foot on the gas and steer the car, as per the road trip analogy of Grace. But overcoming impure thoughts I had about "Methuselah" required more than my own effort. Today I want to tell you that Grace changed my heart, enabling me to overcome those thoughts.

When I confessed to my bishop about the thoughts I'd had, he gave me a beautiful analogy. He said that there's nothing wrong with a bird flying over our heads, and perhaps sometimes even landing there! But if we let him build a nest in our hair, that is entirely our fault. Sadly, in the case of "Methuselah" several months ago I had begun to let the bird build a nest. I allowed myself to conjure up some pretty awful fantasies involving the two of us in my head. Now, once again, my previous posts (which are linked to in the previous paragraph) detail the things I did personally to overcome those impure thoughts. If you are struggling with keeping your thoughts pure, please read the advice I offer there for "chasing the bird away" so to speak. But also keep reading this post, because I think the most important part of the equation is relying on Christ to help with the parts we can't do on our own. You see, at the time I genuinely enjoyed those fantasies. I DIDN'T WANT to forsake them. But, I DID recognize the deficiency in my desires. I was able to start putting forth the effort to change before I even entirely desired to, but above all I prayed to God to help my desires change. And at the time I left it at that and moved on and was able to gradually clean up my thoughts. And while I recognized the change in thoughts, I didn't realize along the way how much my desires had changed until this last week actually.

As I mentioned in previous posts, one of the ways I coped with my attraction to "Methuselah" and dispelled bad thoughts was by developing a healthy friendship with him. I've recently done some fun social things with him and have gotten to know him really quite well. This last week, reflecting on the fun friendship and spiritual ways I've gotten to know him also, I was suddenly reminded of the profane thoughts I had about him back in October. In that moment I experienced a huge wave of what the scriptures call "Godly Sorrow." There was no fondness for those thoughts. Only disgust. I honestly couldn't believe that I'd ever allowed my thoughts to go there. I felt sick to my stomach that I'd let such a pure and innocent person be the unwitting victim of such awful thoughts. I felt great sadness; like I'd hurt him very personally. I felt like I'd profaned something very sacred--and indeed I had. But then I was hit with the realization of how sacred that feeling of remorse was. I was reminded of my prayers to God that He would with His Grace help change my desires, something I was not able to accomplish on my own, despite my best efforts. I was able to do lots of other things to cut the thoughts off, but the desires had remained. But in the last few months, my efforts plus grace teamed up and I was transformed. In at least one dimension of my character, I experienced sanctification. Through God's Grace, my heart was changed. I no longer desire unchaste thoughts for "Methuselah" or anyone else now. In fact, the thought disgusts me now! I've been filled with a renewed sense of sacred regard for my fellow men. And I am so full of gratitude for it!

So, let me wrap this post up by commenting a bit more on that feeling of Godly Sorrow. It is very natural to feel sorrow for sin. In fact, this week it was a welcome tender mercy from God that helped me recognize His Grace: it was that sorrow that helped me realize how much cleaner I am as a person, and how far Grace has brought me. Now, I would warn you all to learn to discern between Godly Sorrow and its counterfeit, shame. I recently heard the difference between the two defined as follows: Godly Sorrow is embodied by sadness for sins we've committed, and always serves as a healthy motivator for change, or in some cases a reminder of the change we've made. Shame, on the other hand, is fueled by self-loathing. While Godly Sorrow says, "the things you've done are bad," shame says, "YOU are bad person." Shame undermines the person's self-worth and thus tries to serve to keep us stuck in sin. Shame discourages us and tells us that because we are sinners, why should we even try to change? Or why should we like ourselves? Shame is what can breed suicidal thoughts. Satan wants you to feel shame, and then will tell you it is Godly Sorrow, in order to try to make you believe that you DESERVE to feel such hateful things about yourself. DON'T LISTEN TO THOSE LIES! You are a soul of great worth. You deserve to feel loved by God, because He does love you! He loves you enough to have sent His Son to atone for you, so that you could experience the Grace and Sanctification that will make you more like Him. Along the way, you will naturally feel some Godly Sorrow for your imperfections, but I hope you don't ever let shame hold you too tightly or too long. As the beautiful hymn "I Stand All Amazed" puts it, sometimes recognizing God's atoning love for us can leave us "confused at the grace that so fully he proffers" us. Because I do not yet love perfectly as He does, I too am continually confused by that Grace. Oh it is wonderful, that He should care for me enough to die for me!

I hope this second post on Grace has been helpful. I'm sure it won't be my last on this subject. Thank you for reading. I love you all so much!

My best,

Obadiah

In the service of your God (Mosiah 2:17)

I love the Sabbath day. I have such a hectic and busy life, that it's nice to have a day that all my school and work worries don't matter. I've learned throughout that when we do homework or work on the Sabbath, we bring our own punishment upon ourselves by denying ourselves the opportunity for the rest from that stress which he Sabbah was instituted to offer. It's been a phenomenal, uplifting day and I've been dying to share some of the highlights and things I've learned here.

Based on some stake training I recently received regarding my calling, I needed to talk to my bishop about a few changes to the way the organization I'm in charge of does things and coordinate/clear those changes with him. I probably could have told him most things in a long hall-way conversation, but felt like it might just be nicer to schedule an actual appointment with him so I'd have more time to actually sit down and talk the changes through without feeling rushed. So, before sacrament meeting I talked with the Executive Secretary and got the last appointment slot he had available--an hour and 45 minutes after the end of church. Over the nearly five hours between setting up the appointment and when it happened, I kept getting a pestering thought about whether or not I should tell him about my same-gender attraction as long as I had an interview already. I convinced myself that I was only having that thought because I'd been working on this blog all week and so the topic was more on my mind than usual.

I now must take an aside to tell you another piece of my life. When I disclosed my insomnia on this blog earlier this week, I was really worried about the possbility of being given away by that struggle, since many people know about it. I have another interesting trial to share today that I'm not nearly as worried about because I talk about it almost as rarely as my same-sex attraction! It's also not something I consider to be a very big deal and I rarely ever think about it, but today it became important to an experience I had. I was diagnosed years ago with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). People who know me would never probably guess this, largely because it is vastly misunderstood. A lot of misdiagnoses have occured and many people think it is something it isn't or that it doesn't exist at all. (The parallels between ADD and SSA were never so glaringly obvious to me beore today!*) While ADD can make a child hyper, as the stereotype goes, not all ADD people or even children are hyper, and not all hyper children have ADD. Basically, ADD means that while your brain is trying to perform analytical or intellectual functions, it can be limited by chemical imbalances which prevent it from carrying messages properly. I won't attempt to explain the biology any further, but it is ultimately a simple problem in the brain that has proved to be very treatable with effective drugs that don't have serious side-effects like many early ADD medications. I've taken various meds, including my current favorite, adderall, for over ten years. Without my medication, it would probably take me two hours to write this paragraph. I have the mental capacity, but can't harness it properly while that imbalance exists.

Why did I tell you this? Well, after church as I was waiting the nearly two hour for my chance to see the bishop, a friend from my ward sat down next to me in the foyer. We started talking and I was particularly surprised to see him rather down, as he tends to be one of those unstoppably happy people that everyone loves. I could tell early on that he needed a chance to do most of the talking and so I just let him go at it for about a half hour. He vented a lot of frustrations about how scared he was that he was graduating and didn't feel ready, ultimately because he felt like it was so hard to concentrate and use the skills he's supposedly been trained in through school. He described feelings of inability that sounded just like me without my medication. I don't think about it very often because I'm so rarely without my meds, so I usually forget that I even have ADD because I've been blessed with such great modern ways to help fight it. Now, this was NOT the first time I've talked to someone and thought that they probably had ADD, but I've NEVER told anyone I thought such about them--it's just too controversial a topic and many people have strong opinions about it, so even if I think people have a problem, I don't usually tell them (not to mention my own desire for privacy). I'm not a doctor anyway, and could certainly be wrong.

This time, however, I did something unprecedented. After simultaneously listening to my friend and the Spirit for 30 minutes, I felt like I could at least share my own experiences. He had said that he thought that I and many others were just naturally more gifted than he was and didn't know how he could do well in the workforce as such an inferior person. By sharing that I got through things with a combination of prayer, scripture, and some little blue pills, I helped him see that maybe he's not much different than many others he considers superior. I told him I was not a doctor and couldn't diagnose or prescribe anything, but that he should look into options available. I suddenly found many things I wrote on this blog this week about recognizing and facing the truth of  problem in order to solve it relevant to share in a completely different context and saw how my struggles to understand SSA this week had prepared me to help someone with another trial. Among the things I said, I mentioned that the brain is just a part of our physical body like any other part, and can therefore have problems or damage. I had used to wonder if my taking pills was unfairly advantaging me over my peers, like an athlete on steroids. I've come to realize that it actually just puts me on an even playing field. If I broke my arm, few people would call it a sign of weakness if I used a cast! In fact, if help was available, people would call me foolish NOT to do anything about it and just let my dead arm drag behind me. So it is with the meds I take: they help my brain connect and concentrate properly.** The things I shared, whether he has ADD and will get treatment or not, seemed to help--especially the part about being honest with ourselves to face the TRUTH of whatever our problems are so we can solve them.

At that point, my friend had to go. It was abot 5 minutes until my scheduled time to meet with the bishop. Again that thought came to tell him about my same-sex attraction. I finally realized that I had waved all these promptings off without praying about it. So, I took those five minutes to offer a prayer and almost immediately the Lord responded very clearly. He told me quite directly that I had just suggested that a friend do a very humbling thing to seek help for an ailment that he didn't have complete control over and to seek healing. Then, he used my own analogy against me. He said I could be stubborn and refuse to seek a cast for broken arm when available, or I could trust Him to put a righteous servant with sound advice in my path, the same way I had been put in the path of my friend just moments before and had been able to help him. I was to follow my friend's example and accept help from someone the Lord had prepared to help me.

So, without out knowing really WHY I was telling him, but knowing that it would help somehow and that I did in fact need to seek that help, I went in to see my bishop. I told him I had 2 things to speak to him about. We first discussed the calling-related business which I had originally set up the appointment to discuss. That only took about three minutes (much shorter than I was hoping as I sat there with my heart beating faster and faster, knowing what was coming next). You'll remember that an earlier attempt to share my trial with someone this week did not go as well as I could have hoped (though not awful) and I was therefore filled with lots of anxiety here as well, despite the fact that my bishop is one the greatest men you'll ever meet in your life.

Well, I won't get into details of the conversation here, though I may mention a few things we discussed in the future. What I will share for today is that is went miraculously well. My bishop truly is a great man, and he has pondered and read a lot on this subject and was prepared to give me fantastic and loving advice. Apprehension and fear instantly evaporated when we started to talk and it felt like a huge burden had been lifted from my life to share it in such a sacred setting with someone who had invested time into being able to understand SSA and thus help those who struggle. Best part of the story: when went in, having just realized that I needed to tell him, I still did't know why. Before I left his office however, I knew why I had told him and why I do indeed need to tell my parents when I go home for Christmas in a couple weeks. In the past I've been perfectly fine keeping this all to myself, relying on the scriptures, prayer, and Church counsel as my primary support sources, followed by other writings, research, blogs, etc. However, it is one thing to sit back observe the cyber-conversation on this volatile and politically-charged subject from a distance, and quite another to become a participant as have in the last week. While I've realized that up to this point my own studies and prayer have been sufficient to get me through this trial, I've now placed myself in a position to receive greater attacks from the adversary. How he loves to tear down righteous examples! I've now opened myself up to getting lots of attacks from bitter rivals to my personal beliefs and views, and I've read enough "gay Mormon" blogs to know how many begin with noble intentions before ultimately succumbing and crashing. The Lord needed me to know that I won't always be able to rely on just myself, prayer, and scriptures to survive. I will now need the strength and support of just a FEW select individuals who are close to me and who love me. Overall, it was just a fantastic and enlightening interview that gave me lots of perspective and direction.

What does this all have to do with the scripture I've titled this post with? Mosiah 2:17 from the Book of Mormon is a very well-known verse which reads:

"And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."

I think that this is both a literal and figurative verse, hinging on the delightfully ambiguous word "of." To understand it, we must first understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ. In Gethsemane, Christ took upon himself our pains, our sicknesses, our afflictions, and indeed everything we experience in this life so that, as Alma says, "he may know according to the flesh how to succor [i.e. help] his people" (Alma 7:12). He experienced my life with all its trials so that He'd know how to help me through each one. Just as we read how God sometimes uses the wicked to punish the wicked, I have seen over and over again in my life how he also uses the righteous to bless he righteous. Because of His great Atonement, Christ knew what help I'd need through my trial, and he used a righteous bishop to "succor" me. Thus, one way to read the passage in Mosiah is to read the "service OF your God" as meaning the service which He sends us to accomplish. Like a military service we enlist in, we can be in the service of God and thereby help bring the blessings of His Atonement to fulfillment by doing what He would have us do to succor our fellow men in the ways only He knows best because of His experience in Gethsemene.

However, that "of" allows another equally appropriate interpretation as well. You see, Christ didn't just experience my life and trials. He also experinced yours, and he experienced those of my friend who I spoke with before seeing my bishop. Being in "the service OF your God" certainly also seems to imply the act of actually serving the Lord Himself directly. When you consider that He experienced everyone's lives in the garden of Gethsemane, then when we serve others that's actually who we're serving! By acting on promptings to make another person's burden lighter, we also lift those burdens from the other One who suffered their weight--the Savior. Thus, truly when we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are quite literally in the service of our God.

While I would counsel all of you to be careful who you share your struggles with, don't pass up opportunities to draw upon the Atonement, and many of those blessings may only be available to you through other righteous individuals the Lord has prepared to help succor you. I read an interesting bit about a common mentality among Mormon men with SSA. One expert has noted, especially regarding those who may have transgressed along the way, though it applies to all: "Sometimes their approach seems to be, 'I can accept the Atonement of Jesus Christ after I've...overcome this. But not right now. I've got to overcome this on my own, and then the Atonement will be available to me.' It's the equivalent of saying, 'I can accept the Atonement as soon as I prove I don't need it.'" Sounds a lot like dragging a broken arm around, doesn't it? Be humble and willing to accept the Lord's help, which may come through others!!!

Today I am grateful God enlisted me to be in His service to my friend, drawing upon the lessons I've learned from my own trials without even having to disclose those trials. I'm just as grateful for a kind and loving bishop who served God today as well by humbly serving me.

My best,

Obadiah (see a few footnotes below)

*In case you were wondering, while I believe that there are fascinating comparisons to be made between SSA & ADD, I don't believe that there is a link, and from everything I've looked into, it doesn't seem like anyone else does either. I've definitely seen them as two completely different and unrelated aspects of my life and there are have been plenty of ADD people without SSA and SSA people without ADD. I just got lucky in the trials-with-acronyms roulette game... plus insomnia. :)

**Regarding a little more of my philosophy on medicating ADD, I share the following from Elder Oaks from general conference April 2010 (this passage just seemed a little too lengthy to put right in the main body of an already lengthy blog post):
"The use of medical science is not at odds with our prayers of faith and our reliance on priesthood blessings. When a person requested a priesthood blessing, Brigham Young would ask, 'Have you used any remedies?' To those who said no because 'we wish the Elders to lay hands upon us, and we have faith that we shall be healed,' President Young replied: 'That is very inconsistent according to my faith. If we are sick, and ask the Lord to heal us, and to do all for us that is necessary to be done, according to my understanding of the Gospel of salvation, I might as well ask the Lord to cause my wheat and corn to grow, without my plowing the ground and casting in the seed. It appears consistent to me to apply every remedy that comes within the range of my knowledge, and [then] to ask my Father in Heaven … to sanctify that application to the healing of my body.'"