Where I Briefly Discuss Church Stuff

I don't normally blog about church stuff, so skip this one if it's touchy for you, but this was on my mind so I wanted to put it in writing.

Have I mentioned I teach Sunday School?

Don't laugh.

In the LDS church you get asked to volunteer your time and/or talents in callings.  Not as serious and life-altering as "callings" in the book The Giver, one of my childhood favorites, but still occasionally ominous and surprising.

I used to have a simple calling.  I would check in by email with ladies in the church and see if they'd completed their monthly visiting teaching (a system in which ladies in the church check in on the needs of other ladies in the church and their families).  All these things are probably explained much, much better on the church website, but I'm not attempting to share doctrine, just give a quick, general background.

So a few months ago, I was asked to consider the calling of Sunday School teacher for the Gospel Essentials class.  I'd teach once a month and rotate with three other teachers.  This is the class for people new to or just  "investigating" the church.  I accepted.  Then I wondered what I was in for.

If you've known me for a while then you know that I've spent the last ten years figuring out my faith and swinging throughout the whole spectrum of belief.  At eighteen I had no doubts.  I had no uncertainties.  I even wrote one of my college application essays on The Happiest Day of My Life - the day my family and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the Washington DC temple.

At age nineteen my world crashed around me.  Things I'd bottled so deep inside I'd nearly forgotten they were real came exploding to the surface. Everything I'd believed before started to make no sense.  I wanted to feel alive, feel happy, feel.... anything.

Since then I've mostly existed in a state of in-between.  I bounced back from that low point, thanks to supportive friends and family, and managed to hold myself together.  I'd have months or years where I went to church dutifully every week.  I spoke in Stake Conference once in college.  I toured the NYC temple before it was dedicated.  But then I lived in NYC and hardly attended a church meeting, let alone the temple.

Still, through it all, there have been things I've felt that I could never deny feeling.  Even if I still have questions.  Even if some things never make full sense.  And there are people I have met who are like me.  Who believe and worship with a certain level of distance.  Not so much to walk away, but not so little to be perfectly satisfied.

But when I was angry at God, or at least thought that was who I was angry with, because having a baby wasn't going how I wanted, I took some time to do soul searching.

Obviously, not everyone's soul searching leads to the same place.  For me, I had to wrestle with a question.  IF, one day, I were to be blessed with a baby (regardless of the means), what would I tell him?  When he inevitably asked me where we go when we die, or where we come from, or why good things happen to bad people, or any of the classic questions, I needed to know what I'd answer.

I had months to consider this, and given PDG's nonverbal status, I still technically have a long while to decide how I'll respond.  But what I found, for me, after the years of wondering and back-and-forth and prayers that felt answered or ignored and those that never even got offered, was a direction.

Last November, twenty years after that day I was sealed to my family, I found myself back inside the Washington DC temple.  I felt happy and blessed and loved.  I know that J-Man will likely never share that part of me.  I know that most of my friends won't.  I know that some will judge me negatively because of this part of me.

Most importantly, though, I know that no matter where I find myself with the church, the people who love me will always love me.  For that I'm thankful.

And as I continue figuring out the details of what I truly believe, and what I can commit to believing enough to teach my son, I'm enjoying this calling.  Oh, and don't worry, I'm not going to chase you down and make you come to my class.  Unless you're my husband.  Then you have to come and hold PDG.  But you don't have to participate.  And I'll make sure the missionaries don't get too excited about your attendance.  And I totally won't make you change the TV channel later that day so that you can watch as much football as you want.  Until I get a new calling.  Then back to the negotiating table, mister.