Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?

Somewhere along the line in the kingdom of Mormondom, somebody decided that when we die we will see a movie of our lives. We will sit there with Jesus and God, sharing popcorn and sometimes God will say, "Oooh, yeah. I remember that. You really shouldn't have had that impure thought" or "Bought gas on Sunday, I just docked you 10 points." Then Jesus chimes in and says, "Oh, come on, Dad. Maybe you could let him off easy for that one." And thus we strike the perfect balance between Justice and Mercy, the two eternal moral imperatives.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say... I do not believe that is how judgement will play out. I mention this for a reason. Stay with me here.

Everything I understand about God and Jesus and their united mission (Moses 1:38,  Isaiah 53:5) tells me there is more to life than an infinite list of "good"s and "bad"s that have been recorded during our lives that culminate in some final balance that will tip the scale of our eternal destiny one way or another. The God I worship and love is a teacher. His ultimate goal, His work and His glory is to take us from the moment we let Him in, and set out on a divine tutorial with us. That tutorial starts with a spirit, eternal but young and simple, and ends with a fully developed, immortal human being, shaped and molded, trained up and knocked around, then polished into becoming the very best he or she can be.

The gospel is too often taught in terms of black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. Anyone who's reading this blog knows that life is full of complex situations, tailored personally to challenge and stimulate the growth of the person experiencing them. I have a wonderful friend who was the closest thing I had to a big brother through my divorce... besides my big brothers, who are great... but they were not really around. Every now and then when I was up to my eyeballs and nauseated by the blackening skies ahead of me I would send him a text saying something like, "Do you think it's wrong to get a divorce? I mean, won't God be mad at me? A covenant is a really big deal, you know?"

My friend would wisely respond with comments to the effect of, "I think you underestimate how much God knows the human heart and how forgiving He can be. Divorce is one potential solution to a problem. Sometimes it's the best one."

He's in pretty good company with this mentality. I've been listening to conference talks on my iphone lately when I can't sleep. Last night I heard Elder Holland say, "In the words of that prophet (Joseph Smith) I too declare our Heavenly Father is more liberal in His views and boundless in His mercies and blessings than we are ready to believe or receive." (The Grandeur of God, General Conference, October 2003.)

I feel like I'm coming to a place now where I am starting to understand that God is an infinitely knowledgeable, merciful, just Man with a mission. He teaches us in black and white, but I believe that's for our own safety. Training wheels. We are designed to develop in our spirituality to become able to discern for ourselves what is truth, and then have the integrity to act according to it. The stark categories of "good" and "bad" give way to fine tuning oneself to God's will for us in that moment.

One day, very near the end of my marriage, I went to the temple looking for some clarity. I wanted so badly for God to say, "If you're righteous enough, if you two just get back to reading and praying more, be more dedicated to service in the church, if you look to me with all your hearts, your marriage can be healed," but God is wise and He knew better. What He told me instead when I asked was, "I don't want any marriage to end, but there comes a point where you have to protect yourself."

Maybe it's because I'm so literal that I've had such a hard time with this. A peak into the mind of me would show you separate bins for right and wrong. I'm always sorting and striving for the "right" bin. But when it came time to sort "divorce" into one or the other, I was nearly paralyzed for the better part of a year. My operating system would flash "wrong" in red and move on to the next decision, but as time went on, again and again and again the thought came up for classification. Should I get divorced? How can it be wrong when staying married feels so incredibly wrong too?

So for those of you out there who are a bit rigid like me, a little black and white and stuck on this categorizing thing, I leave you with this thought: the thing that is right is the thing that brings us closer to God, closer to peace, closer to healing, closer to being whole, always. There is no movie, in the end. There's only a being, cultivated by the life she lived. Every choice she made to come closer to Christ was the right one.

Actually, He never said it would be easy or worth it. (Don't worry though, I'm pretty sure it is.)

I have some thoughts to share on a particular phenomenon I've observed during my short stint in Divorced Mormon Land. When a person crosses over into this place of desolation, one of the many, many things that can happen is that the entire operating system on which he has been running his life goes on the fritz. Here's an example for you.

I remember one day when I was in massage school in California I was chatting up a woman who was in her mid 40s and living life divorced. While petrisaging a trapezius I glibly spouted off my simplistic theory regarding how to have a successful marriage. I should know, after all, I had been married two seconds by that point. These are the words I recall toppling out of my mouth.

"Well, I just think... I mean... okay. You ask God, is this the guy for me? And then you wait for your answer. If He says it's okay, then it must be. I mean, two people can work anything out with God, right? So unless he, like, hits you or something, then you just work it out. And you can, because God will help you. He wouldn't let you have a trial you can't handle, you know?"

Luckily, the woman was kind and gracious and gave me a somewhat knowing half smile, then let it slide.

I tell you what though, I believed it. I had served a mission based off a variation of that kind of faith. I'd picked life paths and made major decisions retaining in remembrance these ideas. I'd deliberately stepped out into the great unknown again and again in little and big ways trying and testing this theory. I believed it so much by that 25th year of my life that I had it inscribed on our wedding rings. His, fashioned after birch bark and mine, a mother of pearl inlaid leaf. "If the root be Holy" and "So are the branches" respectively; a verse from Romans. This wasn't a passing thought for me, it was sinew.

Divorce derails our operating system for life like nothing else I know. What else can possibly cause a person to feel so incredibly rejected, confused, broken hearted and alone all at once? What else can leave a soul so scared and unable to trust for a time? When we hit this moment, or maybe it feels like this moment hits us, what do we do?

Well, I don't know about everyone, but I know about me. I called into question everything I had once thought to be solid and reexamined it with a fine toothed comb. In this numb kind of stupor I thought for hours and hours on end while watching nauseating amounts of Netflix and knitting 702 scarfs for Christmas gifts: Is that real? Was I wrong about that too? Is anything worth working for? Investing in? Can anything be trusted?

This process cannot be undertaken without addressing the most epic and fundamental of LDS doctrines and beliefs, and yes, I went there too.

I had a companion on my mission that remains to this day the most like Jesus (sans beard) of any human I have ever met. I love her in a way I have never loved any other person. She used to say to me, "Truth is Truth...that's what makes it Truth," and even after all these shananagins, I agree. Truth is distinct. Truth is discernible. Truth resonates. Truth can be trusted. And if you are searching for it, Truth wins out in the end. Because of this I am never afraid to pause, when life demands it, and reevaluate or double check my math in making this most epic of all commitments to be a fully active Latter Day Saint. A woman doesn't give up her sexy underwear willie nilly. There is a good deal of thought that goes into this, even still, and in all this thought, I've come again and again to this:

There is doctrine, corroborated, Godly, Spiritually sound and trustable. Then, there's what people think is doctrine. One will, in fact, sustain you. The other will confuse you when rubber hits the road, and maybe break your heart. My favorite example is in the above title of this post. Find me the verse that says, "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it" and I will buy you a pie. It's not in there. Neither is, "God will not give us any trial we can't handle" (it's temptation, there is a difference) or "Everything happens for a reason". These can be lovely, doubtlessly well intended sentiments, but if having my world rocked a few times by seriously difficult things has taught me anything it's the following.

If you want to make it through the extremities of what human beings can put each other through, you better know your religion. Warm fuzzies from Young Women's lessons are intended to be a gateway drug, not  long term sustenance. The world we live in requires us to be mentally present enough to be discerning, to be thoughtful and engaged and introspective about what we are doing with our daily lives. Thank God (literally) we have something that can be put to the test and not found wanting. Thank God for the Book of Mormon, for the Bible, for His Spirit, for prayer, and for every conference address Elder Holland has ever given. (I'm almost through them all now. I have an awesome app for that. Ask me!) Thank God that the Plan of Salvation, even if it or our leaders don't discuss divorce explicitly, explains where we should look and what we should do when life kicks us in the teeth. I used to think of the gospel of Jesus Christ as something pretty to look at, but obsolete in moments that shook me to the depth of my character. Thank God I learned better.

The statement's half true. Christ didn't say it would be easy, because He knew intimately how insanely difficult it could be. He lived through the moment where, even in the presence of an angel sent to strengthen Him, "being in agony He (Jesus Christ Himself) prayed more earnestly." (Luke 22:44) That was for you and that was for me.

In the broken down moments, the moments of previously unfathomable distress and despair, in the moments where all our best selves can think to do is pray more earnestly, we have a choice. We can ruminate on what a well intended teacher spouted off in a thoughtless moment that now seems sickeningly saccharine. We can delve into the areas we all have of our testimonies that are yet green, perhaps dark, underdeveloped or unexplored. Or, we can reach for light, for truth, for stability and safety. This is not some desperate act of a delusional, wounded being to lie his way into a false sense of security. It is an act of clarity and incalculable courage--commendable and brave. We can reach for God and watch brilliant truth resonate it's way into our souls, one moment at a time, luminescent and satiating.

That truth, that light changes us into beings capable of love where once all we could feel was pain. It heals the things we do not believe can be healed, and if we cling to it, live for it, sacrifice for it, it will change us into beings so full of love that we become capable of abiding a celestial glory. In the end, that, I would say, is worth it.

My Story

I met The Mr. literally days after returning home from my mission. I was raised in an active LDS home. At age 8 my denim jumper wearing, FHE chart touting mom left my Stake President Counselor dad and took (most of) my siblings and I with her. There was another marriage, first one for my mom which also ended in divorce, then one for my dad which remains intact. This upbringing left a hole in my soul that took one look at The Mr's eccentric, enthusiastic, quirky, bearded self and swallowed him whole.

When we met he already had his mission call, which by no means inhibited us from finding any and all quasi-secluded site to make out in for a grand total of one month that glorious summer. Then, he was gone. I told him I wouldn't wait, that I was headed to the Mormon Mecca of Provo, but that I did love him. He professed his love in endlessly idiosyncratic and endearing ways and told me his heart was mine, if I'd have it, then and in two years.

Two of the things I said I'd never do, because they were stupid, were 1) Wait for a missionary and 2) Get married really fast. 100 letters and 2 years and 3 months later, almost to the day, we were sealed in the temple. I was stoked out of my mind and completely oblivious to the 87 incompatibilities my brain, blown out on oxytocin inducing love rants, kisses and caresses had overlooked.

Now, I want to start this blog off right, so let me clearly state that this is not an ex-spouse bashing blog or a place to try to out do each other in tales of marital mutiny. If you're here it's safe to say your worse half has done something significant to piss you off or break your heart. I believe you. In crafting this blog and online community I'm deliberately choosing to cultivate an honest, open dialogue, civil and respectful. So I will summarize those 87 incompatibilities by confessing that I had absolutely no idea when I married him that he hated Bob Dylan and that his favorite band was Nickelback.

Yes, you read that correctly. Nickleback... as in concert going, ring tone sporting, huge fan of Nickleback.

Needless to say, after almost exactly two more years of serious marital struggles, we made like Jacob in the Book of Mormon and bid our Adieus. (Seriously, have you ever noticed that about Jacob? Throws me every time.) I was heartbroken. He was heartbroken. Such is the nature of divorce.

I now live in the Northwest in a city with a vibrant arts and music scene, endless farmer's markets and all the delicious food you could ever imagine. We've got sickeningly beautiful nature to explore, art museums, excellent public transit, and a number one slot in the race for the "Most Depressed and Suicidal City." It rains here. A lot. So much that when the sun peaks out for more than 18 minutes you see ecstatic folks sporting khaki shorts and columbia fleeces running and/or biking amuck all over town.

My apartment walls are teal, my couch is authentically retro and orange, my floors are hard wood and checkered tile, just like I like them. I have a lovely roommate who understands my excessive need for sleep and ice cream at this time in my life and a Siamese cat named Samson that has officially turned me into a cat lady, and I don't even care. I do dishes when I want to and spend my money however I see fit. I work full time and support myself just fine. I teach in Relief Society once a month in the singles ward I attended six years ago and I celebrate the anniversary of my divorce every month with thai food.

I grieve, I cry, I get happy, I feel relieved. I gain clarity and then I lose it. I get angry. I get hurt. I get hopeless. Then I spend an afternoon out of my house and laughing and I feel normal for a while. Life is slowly but surely coming to a place of routine and forward motion. They're baby steps, but they're baby steps toward a brighter life.