When the kids would get off to school and I would finally find myself alone, I would get out my scriptures, kneel down and pray that they would help me find comfort. I would start reading and it seemed like every scripture said something about being damned, repent ye vile sinner, hell and damnation. I kept asking myself, what have I done that is so awful that the message is a call to repentance. I knew I was not perfect in any sense but I was trying fanatically. I could not imagine that I was much worse than anyone else I knew. I tryed to turn to my patriarchal blessing, it seemed to be completely null and void. I wondered how that could be. Every thing in it except maybe my lineage seemed to not apply anymore. It says that I will be a light to my generation. I had always tried to live as an example. Growing up out of Utah gave me a heightened sense that others were always watching and judging the church by my own action and I took that responsibility seriously. Now, how could I be a light when I was engulfed by darkness. Now I was the “poor woman with the inactive husband.” People in the ward that knew us, knew what we had been were shocked about what was happening. Many people would ask me what happened, what had hubby done for this to happen, the bishop told me that people asked him often for an explantion. He asked me a couple of times what hubby could have done to fall so hard. None of it made sense to him so the only way he could explain it was to assume that he had done something bad. A man of my hubby’s stature could not walk away unless he had committed some awful sin. I often had that question myself but I knew my hubby and I had the Lord telling me to “Just love him” and to stay with him.
I went from being looked up to to being pitied. Church was agonizing for me. I went for my kids but I cried the whole time I was there. Every talked and lesson seemed to be focused on eternal families. I finally asked to be released from my lame-duck enrichment leader calling and could not take on another calling at that time. I did not know how I could teach and bear testimony of things that did not apply to me anymore. I stopped reading scriptures because I could not bear the constant chastisement they gave me. Each time I would resolve to start reading them again, it was the same thing. There was no comfort in them anymore. I had built my testimony and my life around my love of the scriptures and now they were my enemy. I decided that I needed to go the temple. I had not been since it all began so I went with a new found hope. Iwas looking for comfort and solace. I got my “new-name” and it was the same name that I had when I did my own endowment. The last time I had had that name, my husband-to-be is the one that pulled me through the veil. It was tne night before we were sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. By the time I made it up the stairs, I was ready to collapse. I had come to the temple to find answers and peace and instead, I got a slap in the face! I felt that God was rubbing my pain in my face. It was proof that I was alone. That I no longer had an eternal companion. I sobbed for probably 15 minutes before I could enter the chapel. A patron handed me a kleenex but that was all anyone did to help me. I finally pulled it together and entered and did the session. Once in the Celestial room, I broke down again. I cried for a very long time. I did not want to go home. I did not want to live. I wanted to die and I begged and pleaded that the Lord would take me right there. He did not.
After a very long time, I dont know how long, I finally dragged myself out and went home. I never returned again for 2-3 years.
