As I have read through others stories, I have noticed that the majority of people here left the church for intellectual reasons. I left the church because the “spirit told me”. I know that I need to explain that statement because it sounds so crazy (and it is). In order to understand my story, I need to give some background.

            I was always the example of what a Mormon boy should be. I never got into any trouble as a teenager, attended every meeting, went on a mission, been married in the temple – the whole 9 yards. I had joined the military and talked friends into discussions with missionaries. After 8 years in the Army Reserves I was even doing all the paperwork to become a chaplain. I was an institute of religion graduate and enrolled into Liberty University’s chaplain program.

            My army unit received a warning order in October of 2002. In it we were to prepare for possible deployment to Kuwait/Iraq. That really worried me. I was beginning my third year of teaching, which I love. I had two small boys at home who loved spending time with their dad. I was the scoutmaster for my ward. We had just moved into our first home. Leaving for who knows how long did not appeal to me. As reservists, the possibility for a two year deployment is not out of the realm of possibilities. Two years away from my young sons, wife, career, students and neighbors was not a pleasant thought. So I did what any good latter-day saint would do. I prayed. Then I prayed some more. On Christmas Eve 2002 I prayed my heart out. After a couple of tearful hours, I felt something. I felt like I had an answer to my prayer. I even asked in prayer if I understood it to be correct. “So I’m not going to be deployed?”, was the question. My feelings told me that must be right.

            Now I haven’t had many experiences getting the Holy Ghost’s attention. The couple of times I had “spiritual experiences” felt just like this “answer”. So I was convinced that because God doesn’t lie, I was going to be safe from deployment. I even bore my testimony in church that next Sunday that I had received an answer to my prayer and that I could rely on it.

            I made sure that, as a “thanks” to God, I did my home teaching early the next couple months. Also, I doubled my monthly temple attendance as an added bonus. I felt that as long as I had faith all would work out right. After all, “for I solemnly declare to you that if you have faith like a mustard-seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Remove from this place to that,’ and it will remove”. So as long as I used every ounce of my faith, God would surely not let me down.  February 4^th at 1:05 PM I was paged at work about a phone message. I answered the phone. “We are being deployed. Pack up your stuff. You need to be at the drill hall tomorrow at 0700 hours.” I honestly did not believe it. I had placed all my faith and reliance in my “spiritual answer”. How could this be? Was this a test from God? After running to the office to inform the school administration that I would be gone for a while, I ran to the adjacent seminary building. I needed clarification. I wanted answers. I was as positive that God had answered my prayers as I was the church was true! So how could this be? I found a seminary teacher who did not have a class that hour and asked for a blessing. He asked another teacher to assist him in the blessing. The other teacher was on the phone with a friend and forty minutes later, he finally joined us. That was a little upsetting since I had limited hours to pack and say my “goodbyes” to friends and family. The whole time I was listening to my blessing, I could only feel disappointed and disillusioned. All I really wanted to hear was why this happened. “Give me a good excuse to believe that God is still there and knows my situation – that He’s on it”, I kept thinking. Unfortunately, after at least 10 minutes of generic drivel, the blessing was over. I was no closer to any answer. The comfort that I was looking for would have to wait.              

       I drove home in tears. I was angry and sad and still trying to make sense of it all. My automatic response was to question myself. Had I let my faith waver? Had I let some imperceptible sin slip? Was I being punished for something I did years before? After a while, my thoughts changed. Maybe that wasn’t an answer to a prayer. But if that wasn’t an answer then I wasn’t answered back when I asked if the Book of Mormon was true. It also wasn’t an answer about Joseph Smith either. Since both experiences were just the same, how could I tell if I really had an answer from God or just good feelings? That questioning was not pleasant to think too much about, so I blamed myself for a while again. 

     My wife and I arrived home at the same time that day. She could tell that I was distraught despite the fact that I had quit crying. I told her what had happened. I also muttered something like, “How could this happen when I was told I’d be staying?” She called our bishop. He came over and chatted with me. I briefly told him my concern. I even said, “I feel like my whole testimony is crap. My faith is left in tatters”. He asked if I still believed at all. I said that I did but that my doubts right now were as big as my desire to believe. He assured me that it was all I needed. He then gave me another blessing. I hoped that since he knew the story, maybe I would get the words of comfort that I needed from him. But again, I would be disappointed by the results. Not one word about my answer or how this could be – even if it was saying that I just was wrong.  I talked with him a little bit longer. After I had brought up a few more concerns, he said, “I think that deep down you always knew you were going to be called up”. That statement both hurt and infuriated me. Though I said nothing at the time, I was thinking, “No! You idiot! Don’t you get it? THAT is why I’m so distraught right now. I really had placed all my eggs in this one basket. I had no reason to doubt that God would not honor is promise. I’m not upset because I was wrong about the “interpretation” of my answer as much as being blind-sided by the results.” I felt like I had just been kneed in the groin by a vindictive god. He couldn’t see that there was no “deep down” doubt. I really had placed all my reliance in this “answer” of mine.

       Now I knew that I was wrong. The unit was already loading up and on the move. It wasn’t just a mistake. So now all I could do was hope that either this was just a test on God’s part to see if I would still believe in my answer, or ask God for some of that comfort promised through the Holy Spirit. I decided to go for broke and hang onto what little faith I had left that it was just a test. Each passing day brought bigger and bigger doubts. Finally I was in Kuwait. We arrived in Kuwait in the middle of February. This was before there was a war. President Bush had issued several dates demanding that inspectors be allowed into Iraq. Each one was ignored by Saddam Hussein. We kept hoping the guy would pull his head out, but no luck. I remember at least 3 big deadlines came and went. We were sure that the next hour would kick off the war. But it wasn’t until March 20^th (my wedding anniversary) that the war really started. The bulk of the fighting did not take nearly as long as expected or have the casualties anticipated. So my unit did not have anything to do while the fighting went on. By May, we were seriously looking for something to do. I’ve discovered that the only thing worse that sitting in 135 degree misery with nothing to do, is to sit in 135 degree misery and mourn the loss of your religion while you have nothing to do. A job, any job would have kept me busy and taken my mind off the stupidity of my situation.

     Since we had nothing to do, I thought that now would be a good time to talk with a chaplain about my religious crisis. All but two guys in my unit are LDS. The company commander (a major) even introduced himself months earlier when we did the change of command with a LDS prayer while we were in formation. This same commander, who I told about my shock of being called up, did not like the idea of me going to a chaplain for help. Despite his objections, I went to the chaplain. I explained my situation to him. He gave me yet another blessing as generic as the other two and asked me to come to his evening religion classes. I really wanted to believe again. I continually was looking for an excuse, any excuse to explain away all my doubts. Most of them involved something being wrong with me.

     The chaplain’s classes made me fell better just because now I had somebody that knew what I was going through and seemed to care. After two weeks of this however, the chaplain was called home for a family emergency. Again, I was on my own to deal with my doubts. A protestant chaplain took the place of the guy called home. He was one of only two people who ever showed genuine concern for my situation. He wasn’t ever sure what to say to console me. I could tell that he was thinking the whole time, “why can’t this guy accept what he already knows?” He knew that I doubted everything I’d ever been taught. He worked with me for a couple of weeks and then I was moved to Baghdad, then Tikrit. The other guy who showed real interest in my situation was a buddy of mine who left the empty sea (MTC) of thought because the BoM seemed a sham to him. He has since become a Buddhist. He told me one story that gave me more comfort than all the lame crap I got daily from the LDS guys.

        To preface the story though he clarified that Buddhists do not believe in heaven or hell. But to tell the story, he would pretend. The story goes that a man was granted a wish (who knows why). For his one wish, he asked to see heaven and hell. Immediately he was shown hell. In front of him was a huge banquet. The table reached forever in each direction. The people however, were miserable. Each time they grabbed something, their chopsticks would grow to several feet long. No matter how they tried, they could not stretch enough to get a single bite. Everyone was miserable. Satisfied that he understood hell, the man asked to see heaven. To his surprise, it looked just like hell. The difference was that the people were all very happy (plenty of loud laughter). The difference was simply this; when the chopsticks would grow, each person would simply feed someone down the table from them (the end). His point was that no matter how bad the situation, Buddhists try to still be happy. He didn’t say that he could be happy as long as he obeyed the eight fold path – nope. He would seek his own happiness. It was weird to me to hear of happy not connected to conditions.

       Unfortunately, he ended up in Kirkuk and I was in Tikrit. We did get to visit every couple of weeks when I made a run (once even alone in a little SUV) for money to pay the local linguists – but that’s another story. I can’t even guess as to how many thousand prayers I uttered in that awful desert. I sometimes wonder why I kept it up when each prayer just brought more and more disappointment. I look back and think I must be the stupidest man alive. Not one of my prayers for comfort brought any. The feeling of abandonment simply grew. Finally one night in Tikrit I decided to do like we had done as missionaries. We would have investigators pray to know if the Book of Mormon was true and use the words “right now”. So I asked God if he was there and cared a whit about me and made sure to include that I wanted to know right now. I will never forget that night. It was a particularly hot night with a low of 115 degrees early that morning. We had no power yet (early days of the Iraq conflict were not pretty for the soldiers there) or running water. I was too hot to sleep and looking for serious answers. After my prayer, I stayed kneeling and listened to my “heart and mind” intently for any kind of answer. After about half an hour, I came to the conclusion that I did get an answer. The lack of an answer all these months WAS an answer. I decided that either God was a vindictive a$$hole or there was no god.

         The lack of a god seemed more appealing, but either way, that night I knew I was alone. Instead of making me unhappy that I now truly knew I was alone, it made me feel relieved – almost liberated. There is something gratifying about being able to tell yourself that the emperor has no clothing. There is no more pretending or lying to myself to keep that alive. They say that the most pernicious lies are the ones we tell ourselves. That freedom from the imaginary crutch I had been using really was liberating. Now I could see that if I wanted something done, putting energy into prayer and church was a waste of time and effort. I always try to keep things simple. It is easy to get lost in a complicated question or answer. Simplicity is powerful. There isn’t a way out of it. Simple questions like, “is there a god?” allow for little or no wiggle room. I’m still not 100% clear on that answer, but I do know that the LDS god does not exist. I’m still checking into other thoughts on who/what god is. For now though having any answer is nice. I can now no longer believe in the LDS church anymore than I can the tooth fairy – no matter how hard I try to make myself believe. That realization is what gives me the confidence to send in this letter. I can not go back in time and prove or disprove Joseph’s stories. I can not prove or disprove the book of Mormon. But what I can control is right here and right now. I can ask for answers to prayers (“knock and it shall be opened”). This is how I see it; pretend that one of my sons and I go out camping. We end up out in the woods and it is pitch black out. He is unable to see a thing. If he asks, “Dad, are you there?”, what kind of a father would I be if I just stood there silent? I could never, ever do that to one of my kids. So how is it that a perfect, loving “father in heaven” can do that to his kids that he loves infinitely more than I do mine? It doesn’t jive.

             It is still a grieving process. It took me a long time (and in ways still hurts) to get over the loss of my imaginary friend. The night I realized that the God I had learned about in Sunday school was not real, he “died”. Someone I felt I could talk to and confide in was no more. And rather than receive comfort for my loss, I get scorn and guilt trips from friends and family. “You know that it’s all true. You just don’t want to admit it”, they say (the nice ones – the worst I won’t even share). I just couldn’t get past the gnawing idea that the church might not have anything to it.  It wasn’t easy to accept that fact. I always thought that church and God made people good. Now I can see that it is much better to do good things because you want to than to do it because you are commanded to. A guy who accepts the scoutmaster job and does it to look good to his community and avoid the wrath of God isn’t nearly as good as the guy who takes the scoutmaster job and does it because he wants to teach young men how to be better people.

           And even if there is a God somewhere out there, will he not judge me on the desires of my heart? Doesn’t he know what my experiences were? Isn’t my situation unique in some way? If I deal dishonestly with my own heart isn’t that worse? Does he look at the fact that I have integrity? I will not pretend to believe what I do not and can not believe. I feel like Winston Smith in the novel 1984 undoing years of doublethink by Big Brother. I’m excited to read new stories on this site every day. It is so refreshing to experience honest freedom. I have the freedom to be good because I want to be good. I returned home unwilling to pray, or do any of the “churchy” stuff. That unfortunately has really hurt my marriage. My wife and I had a fantastic marriage. We were married for five years before I was deployed to Iraq. Our biggest disagreement was about what color the towels should be in the bathroom. We got along like a dream. That was one of the most difficult parts of being gone for 13 months. We were very close. She always knew what I was thinking.

         When I came home, our relationship turned cold. Don’t get me wrong. I still love my wife. She just makes it clear that she is disappointed that I’m not the man she married. The last six years have been difficult. I still attended meetings with her (I skipped the priesthood meeting part). Mostly I kept it up for the kid’s sake. They don’t need me telling them there is no Santa Claus. They’re too young to go through that. Someday maybe I will tell them my story, but I don’t have plans for it. I figure that if they find the church to be a good thing in their lives, why should I take that from them? I refused to take any calling. I remember that only weeks after my return, the bishop called me into his office. I was kind of hoping that he had some new wisdom for me. After all, he is the same guy who gave me a blessing before I left. He knew my story. I was really shocked when he said he felt inspired to call me as a ward mission leader. I told him flat out NO. He was just about to look for another calling then for me, but I interrupted and said that I wouldn’t accept any of his church callings until I had some answers. His response shocked me more that his gall in asking me to be a mission leader. He said, “you probably won’t ever find answers to your questions.” That at least was the first honest answer I had from a church leader.  

            I finally told my wife this story two weeks ago (thanks to you here on this site for the courage). She has known for years that I just go through the motions. 

     I often wonder why it took me so long to figure it out. How many others in church are consumed by doubt too? These are big promises they throw around. How many others are saying during the tithing meeting, “when did the windows of heaven open up for me and pour out such a big blessing that I couldn’t find room to receive it?” My favorite questionable promises were the ones made while I was deployed. The stake president of our area promised us that we would be home in a few months and that there really wouldn’t be much of a war. Once we did get back, we were all promised great blessings for serving our country. I’m still waiting for mine. The best thing that has happened to me since my return has been the fact that my wife is still with me even after I expressed all my doubts. For more than six years I have been almost paralyzed by fear. I could just imagine my wife in her disappointment running to the bishop and then all hell (or is it outer darkness) breaking loose. I am so relieved that she has not only stayed with me, but has shown real understanding.

I began by saying that the thing that gets most people to join is what got me to leave. Hopefully now my point is clear. The same “spirit” trick that missionaries use to get hopeful, emotional people to confuse their emotions and join a group under false assumptions, yes, that same trick backfired and caused me to realize the truth. You just can’t twist those facts up. I did get deployed to Iraq. There isn’t a fuzzy ground there. It is a clear “yes”. That isn’t one you can say, “well it will be fulfilled in the afterlife”, like so many say when a patriarchal blessing is obviously false. The answer to my prayer was not truth. As it has been said on here before, emotions are real, but do not equal truth. It was likely a release of endorphins after hours of worry about going to Iraq. That happy release of endorphins is probably more to blame for more baptisms than anything else. I was naive to believe that religion is the relationship between man and god. It appears to be the relation between man and his own endorphins.