It's Okay - Call Me Wheels

I had been in Morgantown for almost two weeks when it happened.

I was wandering around campus in between my classes, searching for the well-hidden access ramps to buildings I hadn't yet explored, when someone I'd met at church the previous week shouted my name and ran across the street to join me.

In the hour that followed, he became my first friend in my new home. We talked about Kim Possible, life on a farm vs. life in a city, and what it meant to be a Mormon at a party school. Our conversation was hilariously awkward, just like any first conversation should be, and shortly before we parted ways, he asked "the question." 

For years, I dreaded "the question." I resented my disability, and talking about what happened to me was the last thing I ever wanted to do.

In the months after my baptism and before I moved to Morgantown, as my life was turned upside down and I learned more than I'd ever wanted to know about myself, I had come to accept my disability and to feel at peace with its cause. But I hadn't had to talk about it -- everyone in my small town already knew, and the handful of people I'd met hadn't been interested in the details. 

My initial response to "the question" that day... well, it wasn't so great. I said something like "It's called Charcot-Marie-Tooth and it's kind of like muscular dystrophy but not really... and there's nothing wrong with my teeth." 

My new friend chuckled somewhat nervously at the tooth comment and asked if I'd always been in a wheelchair. "No, I could walk until I was eleven. I had to have surgery and the doctor screwed up and I couldn't walk anymore after that." 

He hesitated for a moment before making his next comment: "So after that you still converted? I don't know if I would have been able to do that."

Long pause. "Well... I decided eight years of bitterness was enough for me."

"Really? I think I would have gone for at least twelve."

And just like that, talking about it became okay. The spell of silence about my disability was broken. I was damaged, I was healing, and it was okay to laugh.

The word "cripple" entered my everyday vocabulary, and it felt right. The sassy t-shirt that screams "hey, my legs don't work and I can laugh about it so you can too" was pulled out of the closet.

Eventually, the friend who had so awkwardly asked "the question" that first time began calling me Wheels (it could have at least been more original, for crying out loud) and making cripple jokes of his own, and every time I hear one I'm reminded of that pivotal moment.

No, my feet don't work.

No, I don't want to go for a run.

Yes, it's funny because I'm in a wheelchair.

Yes, I'm finally okay. 

Trial of My Faith

On August 6, 2011, I was baptized as a follower of Christ and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On August 5, 2012, I was prepared to resign my membership in the Church.

How did I get from point A to point B in one year? How did I go from being sure of my decision to be baptized to wanting to throw it all away? How could anyone have a major crisis of faith after just a year?

There were several factors, but looking back, the one that felt the most painful to me at that time was family.

My religion places a huge emphasis on families. Our temples are all about enabling families to be together forever in Heaven. We're taught that motherhood is a gift, and that having a family is one of the most important things we can do in this life. That focus on families as the center of everything is great -- at least, it's great for other people. As an ideal, I agree with it, but when it comes to me... I'd rather not hear it.

On that day -- August 5th -- the Relief Society in the family ward I attended at the time sang the song that I refer to in my journal as "That Stupid Song." It wasn't an uncommon hymn in that ward. (Thank goodness my student ward has better taste...) On that day, I couldn't even bear to write the name of the hymn. "Families Can Be Together Forever."

I remember saying "not this again" as we turned to it in the hymnals. Before the first verse was over, I was crying, and by the end of the song, I was fleeing the church. I spent fifteen minutes sitting in my car in the church parking lot, sobbing, half-hoping someone would notice but fully prepared to scream at anyone who came near me.

Finally, I pulled myself together enough to drive. I was supposed to be following the missionaries to a member's house for dinner, but as we left, I had no plans of ending up anywhere that Mormons were. Hearing that song at that moment was the final straw for me. I was going to leave the Church, go back to my old ways, and hope that doing so would magically fix the problems that really existed long before my baptism. I didn't know what else to do.

This is what I wrote that evening:

I don’t know what made me choose to go with them. Each time they turned, I thought to myself “I can wait and make up my mind at the next intersection” and followed them. At the next-to-last turn, I thought “okay, when they turn onto the last street, I can go straight, and this will be over.” Then they turned… and I followed them.

I went into the house. I listened to what the missionaries and the Muellers had to say — I didn’t comment, but I listened, and I remembered. I remembered the love I’ve felt from my Heavenly Father, I remembered the day I accepted Christ as my Savior, and I remembered the day I was blessed to have the Spirit with me always.

It still hurts. Oh, it hurts. I suffer every day, and I can’t honestly say that I love this church. But I do know the restored gospel is true, and I do know I’m a better person today because I accepted my Heavenly Father and my Savior one year ago.

Six months later, it still hurts. I'm not sure if the pain of the word "family" will ever completely fade. I still have moments of pain and anger and weakness, but I am beginning to heal. I do love this church. It's taught me the things that I needed to learn in order to allow Heavenly Father to change my life, and that change has been incredible. The sadness is every bit as real as it was that Sunday afternoon, but it isn't as acute. I survived that trial of my faith.

Today, I'm grateful for this church. I'm grateful for the gospel. I'm grateful for the family that accepted a lost teenage girl with open arms and open hearts, and for the family that raised me to be the person I am today. I'm grateful for the missionaries who helped me, even without knowing it. Most of all, I'm grateful for Christ. I know that no matter how much "That Stupid Song" hurts my heart, He is the one person who can completely understand my brokenness and love me anyway. He's felt this pain. The Atonement is real.

One-line talks.

Every week in church I take notes on all of the talks. Sometimes I write down a few words; sometimes I fill up a page or more. As I read over my notes today, I decided to try to condense each talk from the past few weeks into one key sentence that spoke to me. Then, because I'm me and I can't leave it at that, I wrote down why that message matters to me.

1. We need to become who we are.
--> Who we are on the most basic level is already determined. We're children of our Heavenly Father, and we chose to accept the Plan of Salvation and come to live on earth. The things that happen to us throughout our mortal lives shape us, but we should strive to remember who we are eternally and not just who we are at this moment.

2. Our initial experiences with the gospel are the bedrock of a testimony that should never cease growing.
--> I don't feel like a "new member" anymore. There's doctrine I don't know and a plethora of experiences I haven't had (giving a talk, going to the temple, etc), but much of the "newness" of the Church has worn off. Despite that, I'm not far removed from my initial experiences with the gospel, and I clearly remember a time when my testimony of the basic truths of the gospel was so shaky I wasn't sure it would ever stand on its own. Less than two years later, my testimony has grown in strength from that of a toothpick to a brick. Over time, that testimony will increase, and my "basic testimony" that God exists and He loves us is always going to be the foundation.

3. Individually, the members of the Quorum of the Twelve are regular people, but the power of the priesthood and their collective calling sets them apart as a group.
--> Thinking of them this way makes them both more relatable and more powerful in my mind. Each of them alone is only one link in a chain, but Heavenly Father has brought them together to be a conduit of His power.

4. When members of the Church ask how someone is, we really want to know.
--> I had never thought about that before it was said in church, but it's true. Many ask how people are but feel inconvenienced if they receive an honest answer, but members of the Church seem to really want to know. We don't just go to church to worship God and renew our covenants; it's also a time to uplift our brothers and sisters.

5. We can stand by Joseph Smith by striving to live in a way that shows gratitude for what he did.
--> It took me a long time to gain a testimony of Joseph Smith. Yes, I knew he was a prophet, but I didn't completely understand that he was also a man. He sacrificed everything to do the work Heavenly Father asked him to do, and none of us would know the truth of the gospel without him. To show our gratitude, we should stand by him in our actions.

6. Why are we willing to trade our souls for temporary physical pleasure?
--> This one hits me hard, as I'm sure it does everyone else. The type of physical pleasure varies, but we're all guilty of this at some time in our lives. I often struggle to consider the eternal perspective when making a decision, but ultimately it is of far greater significance than any other concern.

7. "Gray area" can quickly become very dark.
--> By nature, I'm a "gray area" kind of person. I never used to believe in good or evil, and I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that everything isn't gray area. However, I am learning that there are some things that can't be gray, no matter how much I try to convince myself that they are. I'm either growing closer to God or falling further away, but I can't stand still.

8. Christ took on our pains, afflictions, and temptations of every kind, not just the ones we often think of as covered by the atonement.
--> I tend to think of "the atonement" as something Christ did to take away our sins, period. In reality, it's more than that. Christ suffered every type of pain, not just the pain of sin. The atonement is unlimited.

9. By bringing together a perfect God and an imperfect person, we become one and His infinite can change our finite.
--> I'm a reformed math person, so the mathematical concept -- infinity + any number = infinity -- appeals to me. Nothing we do can ever change God, but God's existence changes us.

My testimony.

At the beginning of the year, I decided that near the beginning of each of the next twelve months I would record my testimony in my journal. The idea is that at the end of the year, I'll be able to read those twelve journal entries and see how my testimony has developed throughout 2013. Obviously, right now I'm on month two, and I wrote the entry for February last Sunday. What's interesting to me is that my testimony has already noticeably grown in just the past seven days.

My "February Testimony" talks about the power of Heavenly Father to change lives. As a convert who struggled with living the commandments for a while after my baptism, that's something that has weighed heavily on my mind, and as I've finally begun to recognize the fruition of my efforts in the past few months, my testimony of that principle has blossomed. I put in the blood, sweat, and tears to get to where I am today, but all of that would have been for naught without my loving Heavenly Father's guidance. Just thinking about where I was spiritually four years ago, two years ago, eighteen months ago, and even six months ago compared to today allows me to know that God exists and that He can do incredible things with our lives when we become humble enough to allow Him to have control.

In the past week, I've learned that Heavenly Father can change lives in another way as well. I had an experience this week that I'm reluctant to talk about in detail because of how sacred it is to me, but it cemented my testimony of my Heavenly Father's love for me. Once again, I gathered the courage to ask for His help. Just as in the first example, I was driven to do so out of desperation -- I was backed into a corner and had nowhere else to turn. This time, the struggle wasn't with sin, but I was still trying to deal with it on my own, refusing to admit that I needed Him. When I finally humbled myself enough to request Heavenly Father's help, I received a blessing that far surpassed what I expected, asked for, or even dared to hope. As He had before, God accepted my humble plea for help and turned it into something so miraculous that I still haven't fully comprehended its scope.

I know that God exists, I know that He loves me, and I know that He answers prayers. I prayed for help, and He changed my life. He doesn't ask for much, and the blessings He gives in return are great.

I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I'm grateful for failed plans.

A year ago, I was ready to leave West Virginia and start over. I had been accepted to college in Utah. I had friends there. I knew that going there would allow me to put my past behind me and immerse myself in my religion, surrounded by people who shared my beliefs and values.

Obviously, that didn’t happen. As always, or so it felt, I ended up in the place I least wanted to be. Many of the most painful days of my life were spent in this city. People I never wanted to see again lived here. It was a party school, and I wanted nothing to do with it. The “new me” didn’t belong here.

In Morgantown, I’m not surrounded by the gospel. There are fifty members of my religion attending my school, instead of thousands. There are bottles of liquor in my kitchen, cigarette butts on the floor outside my door, and a bloodstain in the hallway. The people I attend class with, work with, and see every day don’t believe the same things I do. There’s nobody here who cares if I say my prayers or read my scriptures. If I stopped going church, two or three people might call me, but the vast majority of the people I interact with day-to-day would neither know nor care.

Every day — every moment — I have to make a decision. The decision isn’t made for me, by social pressure or a church-run school or a cultural assumption that everyone believes what I believe. Here, I have the opportunity to exercise my agency at all times. I could get up in the morning, put on a mini skirt and tank top, and go to class, and nobody would think anything of it. (Okay, that’s probably not true today.) I could stop by the campus bookstore in between my classes and buy a coffee, like everyone else. I could buy cigarettes, drink alcohol, do drugs, or have sex, and I wouldn’t stand out. I could put away my scriptures, pierce just about anything I was brave enough to put a needle through, and never worry about going to the temple or taking sacrament, and for all but a handful of people, it would be no big deal.

Would I have made as many bad decisions as I have in the past six months if I’d been in Utah? Probably not. Doing the right thing might not be easy there, but it wouldn’t take as much effort. There wouldn’t be as much of a daily, conscious choice between living the gospel according to my beliefs or living like everyone else, because at least half of the people there would be living at least partially according to my beliefs. I wouldn’t have made as many bad decisions, but I wouldn’t have made as many decisions at all. Reading the scriptures daily, going to institute classes three days a week, and living the commandments as well as I can wouldn't have been something I had to work to make myself do, and by working for it, I've come to appreciate it in a way I otherwise wouldn't have.

When I’m asked about WVU and I say I love it here, I’m not just saying that to be positive about where I ended up. I love it here! It isn’t perfect. It’s hard and it’s lonely, but it’s exactly where I belong. I would have grown in Utah, but somehow, in the midst of all the darkness, I grew even stronger here.