My Yoke is Easy

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; ... and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30.

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light." I haven't understood this verse in the New Testament until just recently. In our Sunday School class, our teacher showed a picture of two oxen yoked together. She also said that when there were two yoked together, the two had the capacity to pull a larger load than just 2 x one oxen. I also learned that when 2 oxen are yoked together, there is usually an older, experienced ox yoked with a younger inexperienced ox. That way the one can help the other learn how to pull the cart, not going too fast or too slowly. It finally made sense to me.

As we come unto Jesus Christ and learn of him and become yoked to him, he really does cause our burdens to become light. He helps us carry them. He knows the pitfalls of life to avoid and knows how to pull the load more efficiently. He keeps us from running faster than we have strength and he helps us to slow down and enjoy the journey.

When life gets us down, when we feel less than perfect and regret things we've said or done, when we're feeling stressed, depressed, unloved, confused, discouraged, or whatever it may be, if we try to carry our burdens by ourselves, we may feel even more stressed, discouraged and exhausted. But the answer to every dilemma is always Jesus Christ. He is the way. He is the way out of our difficulties. He knows us. He loves us and He knows what the solution is to whatever is causing us to feel down.

As we accept his yoke and learn of him, we are able to access his power to overcome whatever trial we're going through. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Philippians 4:13

I love him. I'm so grateful for his presence in my life. Now as I picture him beside me, I feel that my burdens really have become lighter and I feel the peace and rest that he speaks of.

Looking at Church History through the lens of the present

Looking at Church History through the lens of the present can be a real stumbling block to some people's testimonies.  Why is that?  If the issues were brought up one at a time, they would probably be able to get past it, and find answers to satisfy them, but there are websites and podcasts that have made it their mission to bring to light the things in the past that they feel negate the beauties of the gospel in the present.  I appreciate the website https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/ which helps put the past into perspective and also helps me to see which statements made by anti-Mormon sources are true, which ones are totally false, which ones have twisted the truth to mean something different and which are simply mistakes/errors.  The articles are fully sourced so the reader can look things up for themselves and come to their own conclusions.  I am grateful for this resource to help me hold on to and build my own faith and also clear out wrong assumptions I have had.

My Personal Faith Journey

As a teenager, I went through the normal stage of questioning what my parents taught me.  There were lots of churches on the earth, so how could I know that my church was the right one?  About this time when I was starting to wonder and doubt, I got my Patriarchal Blessing.  I think during that blessing it may have been one of the first times I really felt the Holy Ghost.  I left the Patriarch's home feeling confident that the Church was true.  I remember having twinges of doubt from time to time after that, but when I would hear the prophet speak, I would feel the Holy Ghost witnessing to me that he was truly a prophet of God.

 My dad gave me a father's blessing once as a teenager, telling me that I would serve a mission for the church.  I remember feeling very panicky about that.  I didn't want to serve a mission!  I was shy and I also didn't know enough about the gospel to be able to teach it to someone else!  Luckily (I thought at the time) I got married at the age of 19 so couldn't serve a mission because at that time girls had to wait until they were 21 to serve a mission.

We raised our children in the Church, teaching them the gospel.  We had regular Family Home Evenings, Family Scripture Study and Family Prayers and did our best to be good parents and live according to the council of our church leaders.  I thought our prophet and the apostles were perfect and never made any mistakes.  I thought our local church leaders (i.e. bishop and Relief Society President) were practically perfect people. I never saw or heard that they weren't so I continued to believe that until I was called to be a Ward Relief Society President.  I knew I wasn't perfect, so that was a beginning of knowing that local church leaders weren't perfect.  However, I continued to believe that the prophet and apostles were perfect.

Through the years I learned how to recognize personal revelation.  As Relief Society President, it was crucial as I made Visiting Teaching assignments.  It was crucial as a mother to know how to teach my children to do what was right.  My prayers became more effective as I grew in faith.  And with stronger faith, my prayers were answered more quickly.  And as my prayers were answered more quickly, it strengthened my faith and the cycle continued.  

The day came when my children were all grown and my husband and I were called to serve a mission for our church.  This was to be a temple mission, not a proselyting mission, so I still didn't need to teach the gospel.  Not too many months into that mission, our oldest son let us know that he didn't believe in the church any more.  This rocked my world.  I didn't know what to think!  We had taught him the best we knew how.  The church had blessed our lives and given us happiness, purpose and guidance.  What did we do wrong?  How had this happened?  I did all in my power to change his mind, with the result of causing him to not want to have much to do with me.

Our temple mission gave us plenty of spare time, so I spent my time reading and studying and trying to figure out why our son had decided the church wasn't true.  He suggested a few documents to read that reflected some of his beliefs.  This caused a bit of a crisis of faith for me, as I tried to determine if he could be right.  I read talks by early church leaders that were a bit disturbing as I had never heard them before.  As I read documents by disaffected members who would quote early and modern church leaders, I went to the original source and discovered that some of those quotes were taken out of context and weren't bad when in context.  That just made me feel like these disgruntled members were just trying to shine a bad light on these leaders.  So my faith stayed intact at that time.

Serving with us on that temple mission was a well-known church history historian who started giving the temple missionaries and other missionaries serving in the area lectures on the early lives of the modern day prophets, starting with Joseph Smith.  That was the beginning of my understanding that our leaders weren't all perfect.  They were and are human and can make mistakes just the same as anyone else.  They just know enough to repent more frequently and try to do better, just as we all need to repent frequently and try to do better every day.

These past several years have been hard ones spiritually and emotionally because some of my other children have also rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ which we taught them throughout their childhood.  Though it has been painful, for me it was a good thing for my own spiritual progression, because it caused me to really examine the teachings of my church and the history of it and the scriptures and come to an understanding of what exactly I believed and why.  It became painful and dark as I read through much anti Mormon literature, most by disaffected members.  I read the explanations by church leaders as to why things in the history of the church happened, to try to understand better.  I have tried to look at all of it logically, and with an open mind to determine if my children could be right, that the church isn't true.  

But if the church isn't true, what were the spiritual experiences I have had throughout my life?  They think I have been so indoctrinated that I wouldn't even consider that the church wasn't true.  They think my mind is closed to the idea.  But they are wrong.  I have studied and pondered and prayed to know the truth and have come through it all with a deeper, stronger faith, with a stronger foundation.  My faith before this experience was weak in comparison, but now it is strong.  The one thing that clinches it for me is the Book of Mormon.     

My faith that Joseph Smith was a true prophet comes from my faith in the Book of Mormon.  As I read from the Book of Mormon every day I know that Joseph could not have written it himself.  There is too much wisdom and knowledge that Joseph could not have known as a farmer with very little schooling.  He could have written it if he was inspired of God, but if he was inspired of God, why would he lie about it and say that he translated the book rather than that he wrote it under the inspiration of God?  If he was an evil man, I don't believe he could have written such beautiful words. 

I wrote this blogpost over 2 years ago!  I am through with being fearful of posting my thoughts and feelings. I will continue to post my progression as I search for light and truth.