I Have Felt

I spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet. I read a lot, I work online, and sometimes, my only connection with people is through Facebook or random blog posts. Because of this, I come across some pretty interesting comment sections, videos, and posts by people about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I made a decision a long time ago without even realizing that I had made that decision. I decided I was not going to let anyone take my faith away from me. I avoid reading negative things about Mormons or Mormon doctrine. I don't indulge the comments from people who speak about Joseph Smith, the Restoration, or modern-day prophets with derision.

I have my reasons. I like to think. I am an imaginative person. I worry, and I am naturally prone to doubt. I doubt myself, and without any help at all from anyone, I doubt God sometimes. Thoughts like, "What if this is not real?" or "He won't hear my prayer," sneak in all on their own, without the anti-Christ of social media helping them along. They come whether or not I hear questionable things about church history or whether or not somebody does something on Sunday that hurts my feelings.

When those thoughts come, I am faced with a choice. I can choose to follow a path of doubt, or I can follow a path of faith. Because whether or not Joseph Smith made a mistake in the past does not inform my own conviction that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that I need the Atonement in my life. Whether or not some leader at some point said something that was offensive does not change that the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ.

People make mistakes. Every person on this earth, even every prophet, every priest, every seer, needs our Savior, Jesus Christ. Even those who act in God's name cannot possibly act with the perfect knowledge and judgement of the Almighty. I will not leave my covenants with God behind because of the mistakes of man. I will not let anyone take my faith away from me. Bad things happen. People die, things change, people get hurt. I still will not let anyone take my faith away from me.

Perhaps this is why the poem, In Memoriam, resonates so much with me. After suffering unbearable loss, the writer of the poem feels tempted to depart from his faith forever, because he cannot bear that God would allow him to feel so much pain. His doubts and reasonings, however, bring him little peace, until finally he writes:

I found Him not in world or sun,

         Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye;

         Nor thro' the questions men may try,

The petty cobwebs we have spun:

If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,

         I heard a voice, "Believe no more,"

         And heard an ever-breaking shore

That tumbled in the Godless deep,

A warmth within the breast would melt

         The freezing reason's colder part,

         And like a man in wrath the heart

Stood up and answer'd, "I have felt."

And that is the answer. Whenever I see something that might tell my brain that I should leave my

faith behind forever, I choose to answer the "freezing reason" with my deeper conviction: "I have

felt!" Whenever my prayers do not seem to be heard, I choose to keep praying because I have felt. I

choose to ignore the ignorant comments of judgmental church members because I have felt. I choose

to follow the prophet because I have felt. I can answer my own doubts with those three words: "I

have felt." And because I have felt, I can feel again. 

No, like a child in doubt and fear:

         But that blind clamour made me wise;

         Then was I as a child that cries,

But crying, knows his father near;

And what I am beheld again

         What is, and no man understands;

         And out of darkness came the hands

That reach thro' nature, moulding men.