Stay
Stay
Once we returned to Utah, my husband completed his physical therapy and chose a new career path. I finished my college education, and we settled into what felt like a somewhat normal life. With his medical retirement, he never had a full-time job, which gave him ample time to travel and seek out every opportunity for Military Space-A flights to various destinations. I went with him on a few trips, however, with the goal of finishing my degree and working a part-time job I could rarely go with him, which sadly, he seemed fine with.
We welcomed our first daughter a few years after his accident and our second daughter was born four years later, so with two young children to care for I figured this should be the time to settle down and focus on them, however, he continued to travel and didn't see a problem leaving us behind. Because of this I felt like a single mom most of the time, however, anytime I brought it up he would say there was no use both of us being stuck at home and that the benefit of being medically retired was that he could travel for free. I understood his desire to travel, I think this was part of the reason he wanted to become a pilot, however, we now had kids to care for and I didn't want to raise them alone. I learned quickly, however, that there was no use arguing this point. He did what he wanted to do and if I said too much I was told I was trying to control him (exactly what I always feared I would be accused of). This brought on a lot of anxiety and I feared that we were back to square one with our relationship. Although this time I felt even more panic since I now had two little girls to think of, so with this in mind I learned to stay quiet and just enjoy the time I had with them while he was gone.
In the meantime we bought a house and settled into a community where I had hoped to have support and stability. It was nice to be in a place we were going to stay for a while, however, the church ward we moved into once again gave me the calling of Primary Teacher where I remained for nearly the entire 12 years we lived there. While I didn't mind working with the primary kids, it again, made it challenging to connect with other adults. Also, my visiting teachers—women from the ward who were supposed to check in monthly—never reached out, and living just outside the main neighborhood made it hard to find the support I desperately needed. With my husband frequently away, I often felt lonely, managing everything on my own. It was incredibly isolating, especially when I felt I couldn’t rely on the church. In the Mormon community, your ward is your family, your neighbors, your support system. Without that, you have no community.
To complicate matters, my husband became somewhat of a local hero for surviving a lightning strike. Don’t get me wrong; as I shared in my previous post, it was a terrifying experience, and we were grateful he was alive. However, as the story was retold time and again, I felt increasingly like a peripheral figure in our own narrative. He was invited to speak in church numerous times, which would have been fine, except he still didn’t believe in the Church. It felt odd for him to discuss God’s miracles when he didn’t even believe in God. This only intensified the loneliness and confusion I felt in that ward. Why, when I longed to be part of this church community, did God place me in a situation where I felt like an outsider? It was like peering through a window at a world that seemed neither genuine nor attainable, leading me to question whether this church was truly for me.
Sitting in Sacrament Meeting surrounded by families discussing how they could be together forever only amplified my doubts. I had mentioned earlier that my parents didn’t attend church or marry in the temple, and now I found myself married to someone who also didn’t believe in the Church or the temple. According to church doctrine, this posed a significant problem: I wouldn’t be with my parents or my husband in the afterlife. I began to wonder, what would happen to me? Who would I be with? Ultimately, I realized that no one in the church truly knows. I didn't know anyone with my circumstances, which made me feel even more excluded.
In response to this turmoil, I began to cling more tightly to the version of God I had always known—a God who loves everyone, regardless of their background. A God who cares little about outward appearances but knows and loves us for who we truly are inside. A God who prioritizes how we live our lives over rigid religious rules and doctrines, a God who would never exclude anyone from heaven because they didn't fit a certain mold. I started to wonder if, rather than leaving me behind, God was guiding me away from a life that wasn’t meant for me.
This marked the beginning of my journey in a new direction, allowing my intuition to lead me rather than adhering strictly to religion or the expectations of others. My prayer transformed into: “Lord, I’m letting go of what I always thought I was supposed to do and trusting you to guide me where you want me to go.”
Looking back, I see that this prayer was preparing me for the challenges that lay ahead. I had to learn to trust the God I knew to navigate what was coming next and to Stay with me no matter what...
"The wind may blow, but I won't break..."
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