Is it ever too late

Public forum for those seeking support for their experience in the LDS Church.
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willb1993
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Joined: 06 Apr 2014, 18:46

Is it ever too late

Post by willb1993 »

If you don't know me, I have basically been drifting off from the church a little bit lately. I don't really keep all the commandments, like I watch Porn, Masturbate and stuff like that. I've had a few beers every now and then, but I find those pretty gross now and don't want to have them again. But basically, I wasn't a full tithe payer last year and so I'm obviously not worthy to enter the Temple at the moment. But that wouldn't really matter because I'm still dealing with a minor injury that doesn't allow me do do baptisms for the dead. I feel like I have failed my parents quite a bit because I wasn't able to serve due to medical concerns. I hear these parents talk about how wonderful of a missionary their son or daughter is and how much of a great time they're having, just makes me feel like crap on the inside to be quite honest. I also struggle with major depression. Going to community college and not having any friends or anyone to do anything with or a girlfriend, it's just hard. I tend to think that the good nice sweet LDS Girls really don't want anything to do with me because I'm not that typical trophy Mormon boy.

I've starting reading the Book Of Mormon for 10 minutes a day. Because I really haven't read the entire thing on my own, and finally feel as if I should at least try to figure out if the church is actually true or not.

I just feel as if it's too late and that God really doesn't love me or whatever. I just feel so dang lost! :cry:
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MockingJay
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Joined: 14 Nov 2013, 06:56
Location: US Southeast

Re: Is it ever too late

Post by MockingJay »

The title of your post is "is it ever too late" I'm assuming you mean is it ever too late to be forgiven and go back to church? The God we're taught about at church loves us no matter what we do. So in that way, it's never too late. Having said that though, it sounds to me from this post and past ones like you have different beliefs from what the church teaches, and you only think you should stay in the church because that's what everyone else wants you to do. Well, I only go to church to make my family happy, but I have NO guilt about my beliefs. I don't worry about whether God loves me or not because I love what I believe and it's right for me. I'm not saying that you have to keep going to church either. That's just what I chose to do. Many here choose not to. It's really up to you. If going makes you so miserable, quit going. Your parents will survive it and still love you, I promise.

I've seen enough of your posts to know that you feel like you have trouble fitting in. My advice to you would be to find a group where you feel like you would fit in. Figure out what interests you have that have nothing to do with the church, then find people with similar interests. You need to learn that you have whether or not you're active in church.

There are so many groups, club and organizations on college campuses. There must be one for you. Look into it. Talk to one of the college counselors. They'll help you find one that fits for you. And as many of us have told you before, getting therapy would probably help a lot.
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Heber13
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Re: Is it ever too late

Post by Heber13 »

willb1993 wrote:I just feel as if it's too late and that God really doesn't love me or whatever. I just feel so dang lost! :cry:
Hang in there willb1993. You have things to learn about life and how to find peace and happiness. Others can't give that to you.

Here is my response to your post:
1) It's never too late. God would not be God if He was giving up on His children who were trying.
2) God loves you. Always. No matter what you do. He loves you just the way you are. He kinda made you that way...so it's OK.
3) Depression and social skills are different than church truths. Work on them at your own pace, but don't think that finding out the church is true will magically change your situation.
4) You are the captain of your ship. God helps those that help themselves. Keep reading and praying, but you need to find ways to be happy in life.
5) I would suggest also reading The Power of Now by Eckhardt Tolle or buddhism or some books to supplement the Book of Mormon. You need to find peace today, not be a prisoner of the past, or comparisons to others, or fear of the future. But today...what do you want to do to be happy? How can you feel OK with yourself, with all your problems, and all your weaknesses, and all your strengths. All of you, just as you are.
6) Keep having faith God has a path and plan for you. He gives you weaknesses to make you stronger. Learn from them.
7) Read Pres Uchtdorph's talk about happiness being our heritage (follow this link).
8) Keep posting here. Finding support is helpful.

You are good, just as you are.

I am 45. I served a mission, many callings, temple marriage, 4 kids, and then my marriage fell apart. I know the feeling of wondering if all is lost. But I promise you it is never too late. I just start a new chapter in my life, turn the page, and start again making life better for me a day at a time.

It is never too late.
Luke: "Why didn't you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father."
Obi-Wan: "Your father... was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."
Luke: "A certain point of view?"
Obi-Wan: "Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to...depend greatly on our point of view."
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hawkgrrrl
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Re: Is it ever too late

Post by hawkgrrrl »

Where there's life, there's hope. It sounds like you're in a rut and the things you spend your time on are contributing to feelings of depression and loneliness. The best thing to do is to shake up your routine and get out of the patterns that aren't working. As to the idea that LDS girls won't want someone who isn't a trophy husband, well, what kind of basis for a relationship is that anyway? That's not love; that's using someone! Life has taught me that we get the love we believe we deserve. I think Paul Rudd said that in a movie (can't remember which one), and it is definitely true. Get to a place where you feel productive and good about yourself, and you'll find yourself surrounded by different people than you are today.
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Gerald
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Re: Is it ever too late

Post by Gerald »

Our Mormon culture (I stress the word "culture" not "religion") unfortunately values certain things. But when you line up those things that are valued we all come up short one way or another. But the truth is that we all have value. One of the great things taught by the Church is the notion that the worth of souls is great. Your soul, my soul, no matter how tattered and worn still has value. Now that may not be the message we get from the folks around us but that is the message we should hear. That's the message we should tell ourselves when our fellow Mormons try to communicate (intentionally or not) the opposite.

One more thing: You say you have failed your parents. Have they communicated that to you or is this an assumption you are making? You obviously know your parents better than I do but as a group, parents tend to just want their kids to be happy. If that happiness has to come in a slightly unexpected shape or color, parents seem to be able to handle it.

Best of luck to you!
So through the dusk of dead, blank-legended And unremunerative years we search to get where life begins, and still we groan because we do not find the living spark where no spark ever was; and thus we die, still searching, like poor old astronomers who totter off to bed and go to sleep, to dream of untriangulated stars.
---Edwin Arlington Robinson---
Ann
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Joined: 09 Sep 2012, 02:17

Re: Is it ever too late

Post by Ann »

willb1993 wrote:
I tend to think that the good nice sweet LDS Girls really don't want anything to do with me because I'm not that typical trophy Mormon boy.
Several of my happy, contented friends married boys who weren't returned missionaries. Most girls don't have just one deal-breaking item on the list that can't be mitigated by other positives. You talked earlier about medication and therapy for depression - do you think those are helping?

I'm glad you came here to talk. It's easy to get into a downward spiral on one's own....
"Preachers err by trying to talk people into belief; better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery." - Joseph Campbell

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

"Therefore they said unto him, How were thine eyes opened? He answered and said unto them, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes...." - John 9:10-11
Roy
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Re: Is it ever too late

Post by Roy »

Hi Will,

In the moment in my life where I felt the lowest, most inadequate and helpless - I felt an answer from God that he loved me and accepted me.

At the time I was in a tailspin because my third child had been born stillborn and I didn't - couldn't protect her. I also felt strongly in that moment of anguish that God loved and accepted her.

This for me was huge! God accepts me despite my failings. God accepts her despite her lack of achievements. From that answer that was personal to me - I extrapolate that God also accepts you. He knows that you struggle and he knows that you have some extra difficulties. I believe that he is not waiting for you to succeed or fail as much as he is loving you through the process.

I know that church culture can be tough. I did not serve a mission until I was 21 and I remember getting heat for it. The entire emerging adult age is just difficult. You are not alone in this. I read that 10% of missionaries that go out return home early. 1 out of 10! My best friend in high school never made it out of the MTC - even though he tried.... twice! I remember him telling me how hard it was for him to get a second date in Utah Valley. He is now married with a beautiful family. You are not disposable. You are a one of a kind masterpiece made by God. I believe that it does get better.

I believe that you had mentioned previously going to therapy. Please continue. You cannot will yourself out of depression (or read the BofM out of it.) It is a level of maturity to seek and ask for the help that you need.

Please move forward in whatever direction is most healthy and fulfilling for you.

Your friend of the isle of misfit toys,

Roy
"It is not so much the pain and suffering of life which crushes the individual as it is its meaninglessness and hopelessness." C. A. Elwood

“It is not the function of religion to answer all the questions about God’s moral government of the universe, but to give one courage, through faith, to go on in the face of questions he never finds the answer to in his present status.” TPC: Harold B. Lee 223

"I struggle now with establishing my faith that God may always be there, but may not always need to intervene" Heber13
Old-Timer
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Re: Is it ever too late

Post by Old-Timer »

It's never too late.

Are you seeing a good counselor / therapist? That can help tremendously, and there is nothing wrong with it.

Repentance simply means change. You are involved in some things that sound like they are not good things for you. They sound like, in your case, they might be bordering on addiction. If you can see a counselor / therapist, do so; if not, at least seek out an addiction recovery program, if necessary.
I see through my glass, darkly - as I play my saxophone in harmony with the other instruments in God's orchestra. (h/t Elder Joseph Wirthlin)

Even if people view many things differently, the core Gospel principles (LOVE; belief in the unseen but hoped; self-reflective change; symbolic cleansing; striving to recognize the will of the divine; never giving up) are universal.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
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wayfarer
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Re: Is it ever too late

Post by wayfarer »

life is a journey, there really isn't any moment that is too late to find the right Way to live.

I agree, a lot, with what has been said here by others. Ray's comment about getting a good counselor or therapist makes a lot of sense. Hawkgrrrl's comment about setting aside self-destructive behaviors and embracing what truly helps you feel joy -- are right on point.

You mention some specific behaviors for which you feel "unworthy", that the Church deems that you don't "keep the commandments." the problem I had when I was younger is that the negative messages about porn, masturbation, and word of wisdom led me to a life of addiction, particularly to alcohol and drugs, to anesthetize my feelings of guilt. You see, we rise and fall to our self image and expectations: if you feel like a sinner, then doing what naturally comes to you will be "sin".

The Apostle Paul says that there is nothing that is sinful in and of itself. This is not about moral relativism, but rather, the fact that certain behaviors that we consider sinful are the result and not the cause of our sinful self image. Once I learned that drinking and drugs were not sins but rather symptoms, then alcohol and drugs had no sway over me. The same is the case with porn and masturbation. It isn't the porn or masturbation that is the problem -- indeed, masturbation, for example, is a normal part of human development -- but it is the idea that having a negative self-image, then we have an unhealthy attitude toward sexuality.

Let me restate what others have said here: God loves you. He (or she) accepts you fully for who you are. He will never give up on you. That has been my experience: when I was in the very depths of addiction to everything you probably can think of, God pulled me out f the bucket and embraced me with a love that goes beyond all I have ever experienced.

I just went through a temple recommend interview. I've done some things for which I'm not proud in the past couple of years. Yet I had already been forgiven by that same spirit that relieved my addiction years ago. It's a mind-game we play -- some will call it the adversary -- but it's the voice that tells us "you are unworthy", "god doesn't love you", or "you are such a sh*t". these are lies we must overcome.

the simple answer is "no" -- it is never too late.
"Those who speak don't know, those who know don't speak." Lao Tzu.
My seat in the bloggernacle: http://wayfaringfool.blogspot.com
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