Hello all and happy new year!
I don't post here often,but as the new year just started and my birthday is tomorrow, I am feeling extra reflective. It has been several years since I was willingly disfellowshipped, and I say willingly because when the judicial committee asked me my thoughts on the organization I told them I thought it was not a god directed organization. This of course led to me being disfellowshipped. I can recall how scared and alone I felt.
Subsequently, my marriage fell apart, I found myself without friends, and felt hopeless. Nonetheless I was positive about my choice and refused to go back. There was no way that I could go back to serving the organization after knowing the truth. I had top push through. I am sure my entire family anticipated me wilting, humbling myself, and returning to the flock with my tail between my legs.
How sadly mistaken they have been.
Since leaving the organization I have completed my masters degree, I am currently a dean in a school, I am pursuing a certification that will allow me to open up my own practice working with children that have autism, i have traveled so much more, I skydive somewhat regularly, I will be backpacking from Peru to Colombia this summer, I was at the World Cup in Brazil this past summer,I am getting involved in a real estate enterprise with several friends, and I have found a woman that I absolutely love ( for some unknown reason she loves me just as deeply), and have surrounded myself with some of the most amazing friends.
This weekend I am hosting a birthday party where all these people will be in attendance. I plan on drinking plenty of scotch and being inebriated in public (gasp)with a bunch of people that love me for me, and not because I am a servant or an elder or pioneer in good standing etc. By no means am I gloating, all I hope is that anyone who is on the fence or afraid of taking that first step out of the organization reads this, and realizes that contrary to what we have been brainwashed to believe there is this beautiful amazing life to be lived, IF we allow ourselves the opportunity.
There is a quote that is dear to my heart which I am actually having tattooed on my body, it is from Khalil Gibran and it says, "Your pain is the breaking of the shell of your understanding". I think that as far as witnesses go nothing can be more accurate. We must go through that initial pain of leaving the organization to gain an understanding of who we TRULY are, what is our true identity, who do we want to be, what do we want out of this life, and the beauty of going through that initial pain is that once we have gone through it our lives belong to us and no one else.
There is nothing more beautiful, more human, and more liberating than deciding for ourselves what and who we want to be. I am eternally grateful for this gift that I gifted myself a few years back when I decided to leave and start living for myself.