Hello,
It's too late and I should go to bed, but I've been trawling LDSforums and thought I should introduce myself (it's only polite you know).
I'm Jen and a life-long member who married an agnostic and didn't go to church for 11 years. Eventually we split ways and I decided to investigate the church to see if there was anything about it that interested me, or if I wanted to finally give up religion for good. I didn't want this to be for my mom or my very LDS brothers and sisters, but for me. If it didn't gel... so be it.
I went back to church 2 years ago, Christmas. Took my 2 year old and my 6 year old and gussied us up and found a chapel and sat in the back row.
Oh dang, I'm tearing up just writing this down. Shoot.
Ok, so back row. - and I sang my fool heart out. I sang those Christmas songs like they were the last songs I would ever sing. When sacrament was over, the male choir director came right up to me and said "you sang so loud, I could see your fillings." The spirit bore witness to me right then and there that these were good people, they weren't perfect, just like me. And that this was HIS church and these were HIS people and "Jen, you KNOW where you're supposed to be, so just be there already!"
Sometimes the Lord uses plain language.
It wasn't that easy, I had a lot of years of negative views of Christianity thrown at me from my ex-husband and that's tough to shake. But I did go back, week after week, and I studied and really prayed, and I got a quieter, deeper answer than I'd ever had. I didn't tell my family I was active for many months; it took me that long to be ready to apologize.
Anyhow, I just want to tell people that you CAN come back. The Lord is big on second chances. And he'll bless you more than you know. I went from a broken marriage and an empty heart to a Temple marriage with my second husband (the best husband known on this or any other planet you can think of) and a true peace that I've never known in my life. I may have been baptized at 8, but I was converted at 35.
Thanks for this site and thanks everyone for posting. It's made my week.
Mrs.Dr.Shot (Jen)
