In January, 2001, I dropped out of the Music program at the University of Houston.   Since entering college at BYU in 1997 I had fought overwhelming challenges to become a composer and a musician.  I had set out armed only with love of music, faith in God, and a little bit of talent.  My faith came from two sources.  There was a line in my patriarchal blessing that says I've been blessed with a love of music and that my "musical talent will open doors to preach the gospel and be a joy to family and friends."The discussion of my musical interests and talent is the most specific promise (or exhortation, depending on how you read it) in the blessing.  And the patriarch was the husband of my piano teacher.  The other pillar of my faith came from some prayerful searching and pondering I'd done after my mission.  I had decided to go to college to try and develop my God-given talent and interest in music, but I didn't have much confidence in myself or my abilities.  If I was going to even try, I needed to know that God was on my side.  So I prayed and I felt very, very good about the decisions I'd made.  Off to college I went.

As I undertook my required performance studies, vocal performance, in my case, I developed a pretty severe case of performance anxiety.  By the end of my tenure at BYU, I would spend most of the week worrying about either my upcoming lesson, in which I'd have to sing in front of my teacher, or my upcoming master class, in which I'd have to sing in front of other students.  The anxiety was interfering with my other classes, and had become a major feature of my existence as a singer.  When we moved to Texas, I returned to finish my studies at the University of Houston.  I'd had a decent break from singing, and hoped that things would be different, and they were.  They were much, much worse.  I lasted about three weeks - just long enough that when I dropped out of my Applied Voice class, I couldn't replace it with anything else.  I finished the semester as an instrument-less music major, and began studying English the following semester.

What really shook my faith about this experience wasn't that I developed a debilitating anxiety that I had no hope of overcoming.  It wasn't even that the blessings and therapy and fasting and prayer weren't taking my challenge away.  What shook my faith about this experience was that I had been set on this path by God.  God had told me in my patriarchal blessing that my talent would bless others, and he had, in answer to my prayers, blessed my decision to become a professional musician.  What shook my faith in this experience was the idea that God hadn't seen me through to the end.  There was one set of footsteps in the sand, and it wasn't because He had been carrying me.  I felt abandoned, confused, and hurt. 

And I started praying for understanding and peace.

That was about 8 years ago.  Being unable to continue studying music was (and is) very painful for me. Instead of having my music bless my family and bring them joy, I still find it nearly impossible to sing out loud in front of them. As I have struggled with my feelings, I have often prayed, not even to necessarily understand why I had to be allowed to fail at music, but even just to feel that God still loved me and would help me through the confusion and doubt that I was experiencing. All I really needed was the simple warmth of a spiritual message saying "I'm here."  That "spiritual hug" that people talk about sometimes.

One of the problems I was having was that, given the "spiritual promptings" I'd felt, and the disastrous outcome with no sense of Divine sustenance or even comfort, I wasn't even sure anymore that I could distinguish the voice of the Holy Ghost correctly. I was no longer confident that I could tell where my own thoughts and desires ended, and the Still, Small Voice began.  Were what I'd thought to be spiritual promptings really just my own desires? If so, how could I distinguish them from true promptings so I wouldn't make such a huge and painful mistake again?  More and more, I prayed and plead for God to please help me distiguish between my own feelings and spiritual ones and to please bless me with spiritual experiences that I could trust. 

In the meantime, our family subsisted as I, a UH graduate with an English degree, struggled to find a decent job in a tough economy.  Before long, I began feeling stirrings toward the idea of being a teacher, maybe in high school, maybe at the college level. Spiritual feelings.  A sense of mission; I could do some good in the world and support my family.  Rachel and I prayed and pondered. We made decisions and asked God if they were right. We felt good about everything. We discovered a teaching certification program in North Carolina that would get me into a classroom (and drawing a salary) pretty quickly, and when we prayed about going that route, we both felt very good about it. So, again, acting on faith and the belief that God was guiding us, we moved away from friends and family, further alienated my step-mother by moving even farther east, and embarked on a new and exciting phase of our lives. 

 I loved my studies at WCU, and Rachel loved living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She often said that God sent us there so she could resolve some of her own issues, but her healing came at a cost. The church in Waynesville was - strange. To say the least. God wasn't making any particular efforts to help me heal from my painful experiences as an undergraduate, but He still saw fit to call me as the Elder's Quorum President. I completely drowned in that calling. I was working my way through graduate school, supporting my family, and because of my personal relationship with God at the time, having trouble tapping into any kind of "revelation" that might guide me in the calling. I once spoke through the entire Sacrament Meeting because I was the only one of three speakers who'd shown up.  After the meeting, the concluding speaker (and Young Men's president) came into the chapel.  He'd been sitting in the lobby waiting for me to finish my talk before coming up to sit on the stand.

 But eventually we escaped the Waynesville ward and moved to Greensboro where several amazing experiences confirmed that we were on the right path. I had secured a job quickly, even though I still had a semester of classes left to take and was, as yet, uncertified. We also found a house fairly easily that was close enough to my school I could walk, leaving Rachel with our one car.

Then, school began and all hell broke loose. I was woefully unprepared to deal with what my first semester threw at me - 9th grade students who read at a 2nd or 3rd grade level; classes with twice as many students as was recommended for the curriculum; students with behavior issues that I'd never imagined possible; crack babies who were no longer babies; fights in my room; and a really, really ineffective principal who was unsupportive in ways that mattered most - backing up my disciplinary efforts being at the top of the list. Within days, I was nearly crippled with anxiety - very much like what I experienced as a music major, but ramped WAY up.  Getting out of bed each morning was nearly impossible - to the point that one day, the only way I was able to get myself dressed was by promising myself that the first thing I'd do that morning was to tell the principal I was quitting.  She sent me to a therapist and I was able, barely, to finish out the year.

 The second year was not much better. I had a better handle on things, but I was still getting classrooms full of the worst and neediest students the school had to offer. The atmosphere was toxic. I was losing weight. And I could not, for the life of me, understand why God had sent me into yet another situation that I absolutely could not handle on my own. And I also could not understand why, as I pled for strength and support and help, as I begged God to sustain me and help me succeed, all I felt was anxiety, depression, confusion, and hurt. 

 Instead of helping me understand what had gone wrong in my undergraduate years, God had allowed me to go through a nearly identical (but even more painful) experience - an experience that started with me acting on what I believed to be Holy Promptings, and ended with me crashing and burning.

 I finally left teaching at the end of my 2nd year and found a low-paying but relatively quiet job. From 2007 until now, every Sunday has been confusing and painful for me, as I hear testimonies of God answering prayers for missing lizards and wedding rings, testimonies of God's fidelity in the face of our trials, and the faith of members who KNOW that God is blessing their lives.  Not only have I felt abandoned, but I haven't even been able to get an "I promise it'll all work out" kind of answer to my prayers.

 Several months ago, for the first time, I explained to Rachel all that I had been feeling. She'd had bits and pieces of it over the years, but never the whole picture of the internal struggle I was feeling.  It was hard to talk to her, in part because I was telling her that I haven't been sure that God is speaking to me for nearly a decade, and that I've been trying to feel answers to my prayers, and that for me, at least, God has been profoundly silent. I was telling her that I needed to give it one more go, but that if nothing happened, I was ready to move on.

I'd decided that I needed to approach the gospel as an investigator would, and prayerfully read the Book of Mormon, asking God if it (and the church) is really true. If he answered me, not only would my faith in Mormonism be renewed, but I would finally know that God really was there. 

 I read the Book of Mormon and prayed about the doctrines it taught. When I finished reading on Sunday, October 21st, I went alone up into the mountains to pray, to once again bring my concerns before God, and to ask him if he would please give me some kind of answer that I could distinguish from my own emotions about the church and the Book of Mormon. I needed something, some thread, to cling to. 

I got nothing. 

I have trouble understanding why someone as rebellious as Alma the Younger would see an angel (a frightening experience, to be sure) that would set him back on the strait and narrow, why anti-Christs and liars like Nehor, Sherem, and Korihor receive signs (as ugly and destructive as they are), but someone who sincerely wants to do the right thing by his God, his family, and himself, and who wants to resolve sincere questions about very difficult and painful experiences doesn't even merit a warm-fuzzy. At the conclusion of my day in the mountains, and about 8 years after my initial attempt to follow God's musical plan for me went down in flames, I have been able to draw no other conclusion than that God, if he's out there, isn't really interested in talking to me.  And I have been forced, over these last 8 years, to question every single spiritual event in my life.  Were ANY of my "spiritual" experiences real?  Or were they simply a product of interesting coincidences and endorphins?

I decided that until such time as God begins speaking with me, I can no longer in good conscience continue to be a practicing member of the church. I made this decision that Sunday afternoon, and have felt a profound sense of calmness and peace. I can't say with any conviction that God doesn't exist - you can't prove a negative - but I can say that for all I've felt of him the past several years, it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other.  By deciding to stop clinging to this God who is not helping me, I feel calmer than I have in years. The dissonance inside my head and my heart is gone.  I even find that I can sit in a quiet room for more than two minutes without feeling an overwhelming need to turn on some noise and drown out the silence. 

I have also seen a change in the way I feel about and interact with my children. I'm not sure if Rachel has observed it yet, but I feel much less focused inward, more interested in their lives and problems, and much happier in their company.  I know that in making a decision that is true to my beliefs and convictions at this time, I am more in harmony with myself and everyone around me than I have been in a long, long time.