Sunflowers

I had a question asked of me this week from a friend of mine.  We were discussing how some people in their family were leaving the church, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or commonly known and referred to as the Mormon church.  As we were discussing this, Brad and I found ourselves defending the family member and just stating to them, leaving the church for someone is more complicated than one would think.  There are many complex issues that could cause one to leave the church and asked them to be gentle with said family member.  When Brad and I were talking about said issues, we were speaking specifically about the history of the church and the controversies that surround some of that history.  Some have left the church specifically because of this feeling that the church can no longer be true.  Our friend then asked the critical question, "So what if it isn't even true.  It's still good isn't it?  Look at what he is doing to his family.  Is it worth it?"  Both Brad and I responded that if this is where you are at then you are correct in staying in the church but that when it touches your family in some way then the "so what if it isn't all true" suddenly becomes VERY important.  

Two years ago I would stand strongly on the "so what if it isn't all true" side 100%.   Now I don't know really where I stand.  So far I am still standing in the church.  I have found many books that have increased my faith and I have some people who I have thrown lifelines to that have helped buoy me up.  That being said, I am having to reconstruct my whole version of faith and who I am as I have boldly faced the history of the church and the reality that sometimes people in the church and its inspired leader make mistakes.

This morning I was listening to a Mormon Stories podcast that I had almost abandoned.  I say I had almost abandoned it because she felt so angry to me at the beginning of the podcast and I really don't like when anger enters into the rational of why a person leaves the church.  I am a very analytical and emotion free person.  That hasn't always benefited me but when I weigh out pros and cons of situations it comes in handy.  So I had almost abandoned the podcast.  However I stuck it out until the end and suddenly with 30 minutes left I started crying and I couldn't stop the tears from coming.  This woman's personal story that she was telling and her feelings surrounding it so paralleled what occurred within my family that I realized in that moment Brad and I have been hurt more than I thought and that this hurt is deeper than I at first understood.  I then knew I had to write this down so that people can understand what it is that actually transpired and perhaps correct policies or behavior in the church that maybe wasn't meant to be harmful but really is.

Imagine raising a family in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  You raise them in the church because you love the church, you believe its teachings and you feel it is good.  You see the good fruit it produces.  The teachings from the church brought about your marriage, brought about the number of children you have, brought about your education and your culture.  You really can't separate the teachings you learned as a child and implemented in your life from you and who you are and the blessings you feel fortunate to have.  You give all that you can to the church.  You attend every Sunday, you serve where you are able and you prepare your children for baptism, missions and the temple where hopefully they will one day make covenants with God and marry their spouse.  The Church of Jesus Christ is BIG on family.  It is one of our greatest strengths.  It is taught from a young age that families will be together forever in the eternities.  It is taught that the covenants we make in the temple seal us to our families with an unbreakable bond for the eternities...not only me to my husband but me to my ancestors and to my future progeny when they make the covenant.  The importance of sons receiving the priesthood, god's power to act in his name, from their father is also taught and we often speak about being able to trace the receiving of the priesthood from father to son all the way back to Joseph Smith who received it from the original apostles Peter, James and John and John the baptist.  You have taught that to your children.  You know you are not perfect.  In fact, for example, you have stopped paying tithing for a while.  Not necessarily at first because you don't believe in the church per se but rather because you are attempting to work through some things before you start paying again, which you do plan to.

Also imagine you are the type of Dad that takes every spare moment you have and you spend it with your children.  You are the type of Mom that spends many a sleepless night talking to your children when they are troubled just to walk them through it.  You are the parent that cares immensely about your child.  Not even work comes before them but rather it comes with them.  You bore this child, you taught this child, you played with this child.  They are themselves but again, it is hard to separate what is truly them at 19 and what are your teachings.  99% of us who have been parents know what it means for someone to raise a child and love that child like nothing else.  

This is where Brad and I found ourselves in June of 2019.  Jordan was preparing to serve a mission to the Phillipines.  A mission we were very excited for and happy that he chose to serve.  A mission we were paying for because we felt that if he was doing a good thing and we had the means to support him in that good thing, we should pay for that.  We believed 100% a mission was a good thing.  Brad didn't have a temple recommend at the time because of the tithing thing and knew he wouldn't be able to go through the temple the first time with Jordan.  This was something he knew all along.  He still wanted to pay tithing when he was ready and not just so he could take his son through the temple.  Brad's honesty always wins out in every situation.  I had a temple recommend so I would attend with Jordan and his grandparents were both there.  I mention this part because I believe it is important to our story, the fact that Brad knew and accepted the fact that he would be unable to attend Jordan's first trip to the temple.  Imagine how a father like Brad, who is so close to his children, feels about this.  It was not easy for him but he felt like it was best for Jordan.

To explain the next part I have to explain what the priesthood is, what blessing are and some of our history to explain how Brad feels about priesthood blessings.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the priesthood is the power, given to men, to act in God's name.  When I say it is the power given to men, we literally place our hands upon the head of the man/young man and ordain them to the priesthood and ordain them to a station within our church, deacon, teacher, priest, elder, high priest.  We are instructed within the church that the priesthood is meant to be used as God would use it to do good, lift others, serve, when you use the priesthood in an abusive manner, for example to wield power or authority or to control, the spirit of the Lord is grieved and your use of priesthood power is no good and not sanctioned by the Lord.  What do we use the priesthood power for?  For the most part we use it to bless and to perform ordinances.  We use it to bless a person that is worried.  For example, men are encouraged to give children father's blessings, using their priesthood, before they start a new school year.  We use it to bless and heal the sick.  We are not taught that it replaces medicine but rather that the Lord can help heal along with the proper medical protocols.  When we have someone that is going into surgery they will frequently ask for a blessing and the men of our church give that blessing.  We use it for ordinances.  We know, through the scriptures, that someone who baptizes, for example, must have the proper authority to do so and we believe that the priesthood is this proper authority.  So, we use this priesthood to baptize our children and give the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Brad and I were married in 1998.  Sometime during that first year of marriage, I became pregnant.  I was due in August 1999.  I was about three months along when I was in an accident where I was rear-ended coming home from student teaching.  After the accident, I began bleeding and went to the emergency room.  I found out that everything was okay at the moment but that I may miscarry the baby.  I asked for a blessing from Brad in that moment and he gave me one where he blessed that the baby would be born.  I miscarried the next day.  Brad didn't understand why I still miscarried and felt like he must not have been worthy to give the blessing he did.  I took it another way, I felt like if the baby wasn't to come now, it would most certainly come later in our life.  However, because of that experience, Brad stopped giving priesthood blessings of healing.  He still had faith in using his priesthood for ordinances and baptized his children and ordained each of his sons to the priesthood when it was time.  Those moments of performing ordinances were very sacred experiences to him.

Back to Jordan and his mission preparation.  When you leave for a mission and you are a male, you must be ordained an Elder.  To be ordained to the office of an Elder you receive what is called the Melchezidek priesthood.  Again, as I stated before, it has been spoken of many times in our church about how special it is to receive this priesthood and receive it from your father, who received it from his father (or someone else if he is the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and can be traced all the way back to Joseph Smith who received it from Peter, James and John who received it from Jesus Christ himself.  As with the other ordinances, Brad planned on giving his son the Melchezidek priesthood.  One evening we were discussing this with Jordan trying to pin down a date for the ordination to happen when Jordan said to us, "Bishop said you couldn't ordain me to the Melchezidek priesthood."  Brad stopped and asked Jordan to repeat himself which Jordan did.  The bishop had told Jordan that Brad was unable to ordain Jordan because he didn't hold a temple recommend.  Remember, Brad was not paying tithing.  Before I move on, I don't want you to think this was the bishop's fault.  I don't blame the bishop.  He was just following the rule (20.1.2) from the church's leadership handbook.  He certainly could have spoken to us and made sure we were aware of the rule but he had not culpability in this other than following rule 20.1.2 WHICH WE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW EXISTED.  Yes, you read that right, after being 44 years and 43 years as members in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints we were unaware of rule 20.1.2 which didn't say you couldn't perform the ordinance of passing on the Melchezidek priesthood if you didn't hold a temple recommend but does say that you must be temple worthy.  It also says if you are not temple worthy, and hold the Melchezidek priesthood you can still stand in the circle but cannot be the voice.

It is like time stopped in our home for a moment as Brad tried to process what that meant.  In his eyes, it meant that he had failed his son.  It meant that his name wouldn't be above Jordan's name when looking at his lineage of the priesthood like his dad's name was above his.  It meant he broke the link.

Again, as I mentioned I had never heard of the rule so I searched for where I might find it.  I googled it, I called our friend, John, who had been bishop.  I called our old bishop, who was now in the stake presidency, to see if he knew of it.  None of them knew where the rule was.  Some of them didn't know it existed.  My old bishop said he'd have to get back to me.  He did get back to me but I found it before.  In the leadership church handbook at that time, it was rule 20.1.2 and only leadership had access to this handbook.  This has changed now. We have an updated handbook, still has this same rule that hasn't changed, but it is available for all church members to access.  Our friend John said it had to do with worthiness and that if he was bishop he would say Brad was worthy.  He encouraged Brad to contact the stake president so he could have a chance to step in if necessary.

This whole thing didn't make any sense to me.  Brad and I had both served missions, we'd both been active, participating members of the church and we didn't know this rule?  I even vaguely remembered a general conference talk from Elder Boyd K. Packer that discussed the importance of it being the father who gives the Elder the Melchezidek priesthood.  I searched for the talk and found it.  The Power of the Priesthood was given in April 2010 by Elder Boyd K. Packer.  Brad and I spoke late into the night about what all this implied.  Many tears were shed as we agonized over how our church and its leaders, who taught us so emphatically the importance of the family, who we tried to do our best to follow, were now keeping Brad, Jordan's father, from being the one who ordained him to the Melchezidek priesthood.  Even worse, if he wasn't worthy to be the voice why was he worthy to be in the circle of men participating in the event?  It felt like a punishment.  At the end of the day, Brad decided he would try to meet with our stake president.

If you go into an meeting with a leader in our church to get approval to perform a certain ordinance it means you feel you are worthy and Brad felt every bit worthy to perform the ordination of the Melchezidek priesthood for Jordan.  He felt so worthy, that as a 44 year old man, father and doctor he was willing to submit to an interview by someone who was called to judge whether he was truly worthy or not.  This was a BIG deal for Brad.  Anyone who knows Brad well will tell you he doesn't deal well with authority.  These interviews are painful for Brad but he loved Jordan so much and saw the thing as so important he was willing to subject himself to judgement from a man who didn't even know Brad.  Again, Brad, knowing our church and its restrictions felt completely worthy.

He went into the meeting with the stake president and told him everything about himself.  He wanted the stake president to know him as a man, as a father and as a church member.  It was so extensive that the meeting lasted 3 hours.  However, at the end of the meeting, the stake president told Brad that he still found him to be "willfully disobedient" by having not paid tithing and told him he wouldn't be able to perform the ordinance.

That night was devastating for us.  Not as many tears were shed as the night we first found out there was a question regarding this, but many tears were shed nonetheless.  Brad made the point that "if my voice isn't good enough for my son's ordination then my voice is not good enough for the church."  

The stake president called back the following day and asked to meet with Brad.  Brad went as asked.  The stake president told him that after he went home the prior evening that he didn't feel right about what had happened so he called the area authority.  (Our church is very organized from member, to relief society or elders quorum president, to bishop, to stake president, to area authority (70s), to apostles, to the prophet)  The area authority had told them to let Brad perform the ordinance this one time.  The stake president also told Brad that when Ben served a mission, unless he was paying tithing, he would not be able to perform the ordinance then.

It didn't feel like a victory.  Too much had already been lost.  Brad was able to ordain Jordan and planned for Jordan to ordain his brother when Ben went on a mission.  For the next six months Brad seriously contemplated on whether his voice was good enough for the church and asked to be released from his calling as Sunday School Teacher in the ward this past January.  A few months later, Brad decided that he needed a break for a while from the church.

So you see, in a situation like this, when it touches your family so deeply, yes, it begins to matter what is true and what is not.

As for me, I'm still standing in the church but my head spins with what is true and what is not.  

So why did I title this post sunflowers?  Let me share a little story with you.

One morning on my mission traveling to a zone meeting in Lujan, Argentina I was especially distraught. I can't remember why I was distraught.  I only remember I was crying. I remember I was crying because one of friends and former companions who was on the train with me that morning sang me the following song:

It's alright to cry.  Crying takes the sad out of you.

It's alright to cry.  It might make you feel better.

Tear drops from your eye washing all the sad out of you.

It's alright to cry.  It might make you feel better.

I still sing that song to my children when they are sad.  Anyway on that particular difficult morning we passed by a beautiful field of sunflowers.  The beauty and vastness of the flowers hit me in a profound way that morning.  It was as if Heavenly Father was speaking to me directly saying, "Hello Chelsey.  I see you. I love you.  Keep going."  Even though all on the train could see the field and all on the train were probably enjoying the same beauty I was, it felt like my own personal gift from God.  Ever since then, I have felt especially attached to the sunflower. To me it is a symbol of hope.

This process of introspection that I have gone through the past year has been really difficult.  In this process I am searching for sunflowers where I can.  I am grateful to have found books such as Planted and Crossings.  I am grateful for the friends who just let me think a little and have given me some breathing room without abandoning me.  I am grateful for a small scripture in the Book of Mormon that states, "I know that he(referring to God) loveth his children; nevertheless I do not know the meaning of all things." and another scripture that states, "Behold this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."  I am grateful for books like Rough Stone Rolling even though they are hard.  Should I stay and should my children stay I want them to embrace the church warts and all.  That being said, I am looking for sunflowers.  They offer me hope.