Testimony Envy

I hate to admit it, but I have testimony envy. You know, when you hear someone speak in church and their testimony seems much better or stronger than yours, and you think to yourself, "How come I haven't had an experience like that?" Or, "Why does she have such a strong witness of the gospel and I still have doubts from time to time?"

Today a new couple in our ward spoke in church, and they gave two of the most inspiring talks I've heard in quite a while. They are converts who joined the church in their mid-twenties in California, during the '70s. They'd both been previously divorced and were trying to make their marriage and 'blended" family work, but were struggling. So they decided they would try church, but didn't know where to go. A friend from work suggested they meet with the missionaries, and a few months later they were baptized.

The thing that impressed me most was that when they prayed to find out whether the church and Book of Mormon were true, they did so together. At the same time, in the same way, they both received the same answer -- and they said they knew joining the church was what God wanted them to do. At the time, between the two of them, they knew just five members of the church, and they hadn't even attended a meeting yet. They didn't know anything about "lay-clergy" or what being a Mormon would require of them. They just knew that they had to do it.

I loved their story, but at the same time I felt a twinge of jealousy as I listened to them. I was born and raised in the church, and for most of my life I just took for granted that the church was true. Everything made sense, and the testimonies I heard were impressive and inspiring. When I was 14, I read the Book of Mormon from front to back in just three weeks, in response to a challenge from my Sunday School teachers to finish it by the end of the year. I'm sure a lot of it went over my head, but I think enough of it stayed with me that I comprehended the basic message. I knew all about Moroni's challenge in the last chapter of the book, even before I got there. But now I'd finally read the book and I felt ready to take the challenge and receive the same answer everyone else talks about ineir conversion stories. So I prayed -- as sincerely as my 14-year-old mind knew how. Nothing.

I was really disappointed. I thought maybe I'd done something wrong. I studied more and tried again. Nothing.

It bothered me, but I didn't stop praying, and I didn't conclude the church wasn't true. I just thought somehow I wasn't ready or able to receive an answer from God. In the meantime, it was about this time of my life that I began to be a more spiritual person. I sought out and received my patriarchal blessing, which was probably the most spiritual thing to happen to me at that point of my life. There was definitely a strong, warm, comforting spirit in the room at the time the patriarch blessed me.

About a year later, my family moved to Norway. I was young, lonely and a dumb teenager. But I was also very sensitive to the idea of "sin" and began to feel very guilty about some of the things I'd been involved in. I felt the need to confess and repent, and I took what I felt were the right steps to do it. It was hard, but I'll never forget how relieved and "light" (in both senses of the word) I felt afterward. It was amazing.

Still, whenever I prayed and asked for specific answers to questions, or to know whether the church was true -- no response.

At least, the responses never came during or right after prayer. But it as during this time in my life that I began to have more frequent spiritual experiences. Sometimes in sacrament meeting I'd feel the Spirit strongly, or while singing hymns or church choir music. I would occasionally bear my testimony, and often during or after I had strong feelings that seemed to confirm what I was saying was true.

It's sometimes still discouraging to think about on all the times when I've prayed for a specific answer and nothing came. But then I remember all the times when God seemed to speak to me during other times or in other, unlooked for ways. I've come to realize that God speaks to me on his terms -- not mine. During my mission, there was the time my greenie companion and I bore testimony to a woman we were teaching in Norway, and the Spirit came so powerfully into the room that it really felt like the temperature increased and I thought my chest was on fire. She didn't just notice it -- she stopped and stared at us and said, "What is this? I've never felt anything like this before." I think it actually scared her a little, it was so powerful.

There was the time I was coming back from Las Vegas, of all places, and my friends and I had stopped for church in St. George and attended a local sacrament meeting. I wasn't feeling particularly spiritual at the time, but suddenly during the administration of the sacrament I could feel the Lord's love, forgiveness and (perhaps best of all) awareness of me as an individual. It was completely unexpected, and it seemed to come as a gift, "just because."

I could cite several other experiences throughout my life when the Spirit touched me strongly. When I look back know, I'm grateful those experiences haven't come when I was asking for them. I think God knows me well enough to realize that I might second-guess or doubt answers or feelings that come when I'm "waiting" for them. I would be prone to think I'd imagined it. But it's much harder to rationalize away a feeling or experience that comes when you're not necessarily looking or waiting for it.

And so I thank God for knowing me, and speaking to me at times and in ways that are best for me personally. I'm sure I'll still experience a little "righteous jealousy" when I hear people talk about God answering their prayers in the moment. But I also know He answers my prayers and talks to me -- when I'm ready to receive it, but not always when I place the order.