Comments on: The trauma of bearing my testimony.

By: Barb

Barb — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:56:47 +0000

Susan, from what the feedback was from the ward, it sounds like people need to hear your testimony. Don’t worry about what you think about what you said or what people may say to you directly. Be grateful that you can be an instrument in the hand of God.

I don’t think I ever had that racing heart and pounding heart at Church. It was super hard to stand to bear my testimony at first and even more difficult to walk up to the front. However, it became much easier after a few times back when I was in the practice.

G, thanks for some good news.

By: Susan M

Susan M — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:46:39 +0000

That’s really neat, G. I know I’ve had times where I felt like people were praying for me, only to find out later that my mother-in-law had put our names on the temple prayer list.

By: G

Sat, 10 May 2008 17:06:36 +0000

I am coming back to the church.
This is due to a few powerful things and one of them being that I found out that more people than I thought had been praying for me. And when I say “more” I mean all the members of my small ward.
When I get re-baptized I don’t feel like having everybody there. It has nothing to do with love but with the fact that they were not there when I was excommunicated, they did not attend it. Why should they be there for this? I feel it is a personal thing and I feel as comfortable about them witnessing it as I would feel comfortable walking naked among them.
But it the mean time I wanted to tell them how much grateful I am for their prayers.
So over month ago I stood up in sacrament meeting and told them that I know that some have prayed a lot for me. Some have only prayed a little for me. Some may have not prayed for me at all but they thought about me.
I told them that I knew that.
I wanted to tell them that they made me acquire a real and strong testimony of prayer but I don’t think I was able to voice it. So I told them “thank you” and “I am fine now”.
We are a small unit and I could read in their eyes that all of them have prayed a least once.

By: Bookslinger

Bookslinger — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:00:28 +0000

Susan M: You’ve already described elsewhere how you and your husband (and kids) are different than the majority of other active members in your ward, like you don’t fit in. But that means you’re just another member of the body. Sometimes we take the concept of unity too far, and become (or think we have to become) homogenous, thinking we have to be just like everyone else in terms of gifts, responsibilities, assignments, and standard-operating-procedures. But, we can be just as diverse as the parts (members) of the human body.

We don’t have to adopt the Utah sing-song rythm of public speaking. We don’t have to use the over-earnest “Primary voice.”

I sort of feel a kinship with you and your husband. Our ways of service and communication can be a bit different than “Mormon Standard”, but still well within doctrinal parameters. Our different-ness, especially seeing things from a different perspective (but still within a gospel view) can be very refreshing to others when the monotony of the beehive gets to them, or even us.

“Amazing Grace”, “The Old Rugged Cross”, “Onward Christian Soldiers”, “When the Saints go Marching In” may not be in welcome or appropriate in Sacrament meeting, but there’s nothing wrong with a special “Gospel Music Night” including those numbers organized at a ward or stake level. Kind of like Gladys Knight’s Saints United Voices. We’re allowed to get together and sing outside of the 3-hour Sunday block, and by doing so are not restricted to Sacrament meeting-type songs.

So don’t be afraid to think outside the box! There’s plenty of examples in the scriptures that we could follow, but we just don’t have time for them in our normal schedule and in our traditional Wasatch-front-based cultural milleau.

There’s talk of doing a Glady’s Knight style “Gospel Music Sing-along” in our stake.

By: Kim Siever

Kim Siever — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:06:39 +0000

Re: #7

See what happens when I imagine people’s stories while reading them.

By: Seth R.

Seth R. — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:52:29 +0000

Last time I was up, I made the point that the diversity of spiritual gifts Paul lays out in Corinthians meant that it was not “given” to everyone in the audience to “know of themselves” that the Church was true.

By: Susan M

Susan M — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:39:30 +0000

Haha. Why is that?

By: Seth R.

Seth R. — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:38:29 +0000

I think the audience is more nervous than I am when I take the stand.

By: Susan M

Susan M — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:08:59 +0000

Bookslinger: That’s a cool and terrifying thought.

Tracy: I wish they all could be like that.

Mark B: Most of the wards I’ve been in have had those roving mikes, I just realized it’s only the one I attend now that doesn’t.

By: JA Benson

JA Benson — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:21:01 +0000

Hey Mark B. I remember the mikes too. They were for the old people. The custom was that if an elderly member desired to bear their testimony (it seems like they always did) they sat in the first few rows to utilize the mike. I remember the praactice was still in use in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s in Midvale Utah.