Jenna didn’t realize that having a faith crisis could nurture her faith and help it to grow in productive, developmental ways. It wasn’t until her sister chose to leave the Church that Jenna had to reevaluate her definition of what faith is. Jenna beautifully describes how she learned that healthy faith grows, matures, and progresses as we do.
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Faith Is Not Blind: This is the Faith Is Not Blind Podcast. I’m Sarah d’Evegnée and I’m here in the Washington DC area with Janna. Janna is going to talk a little bit about her faith crisis, but I’d like to give a little context before we start. Janna is going to talk about how sometimes a faith crisis can sort of sneak up on you and how it might not always be a result of some of the behaviors or that we might assume it’s a result of. I’m really pleased that Janna is here to share her story and to help us understand what we call a faith crisis a little better.
To start off with, because there’s so much to talk about with your personal experiences, I’d like you to talk about when you were an adolescent and your experiences with your family. At that time in your life, what was your expectation about what a faith crisis might look like? And then how did your expectations change when some of your family members had a kind of faith crisis?
Janna: I was so young and I had no thought about what a faith crisis was. I kind of had an idea that it happened, but I assumed that maybe the person wanted it to happen, like they weren’t fully invested in the Church and weren’t “all in.” Or that they had done something so that the Spirit couldn’t be with them and that they were more susceptible to mistruths–things that weren’t true. So that answers that part of the questions. Do you want to know about my own spiritual development?
Faith Is Not Blind: Why don’t you talk about your experience with your sister?
Janna: Okay. So when I was when I was younger, my brothers distanced themselves from the Church, and as I got older–it was about four years or so ago–my sister let me know that she no longer believed in the Church. This was interesting because this came at a time for me when I had really started to commit myself to the Lord in a way that I hadn’t before. It’s not that I wasn’t always a very active and believing person in the Church, but it was like I had the sense that I hadn’t yet fully committed myself to the Savior and to that path of discipleship. And so I had started to study the scriptures with the intent to change and be changed.
Faith Is Not Blind: With real intent, like Moroni says.
Janna: Yes. And all of a sudden I understood what that meant. And the Spirit was my tutor and I was changing and becoming better. And I had felt that I needed to say a prayer to Heavenly Father to ask him if he would teach me something that I didn’t yet know or that I was ready to know.
Faith Is Not Blind: Which is such a brave question.
Janna: Or naive.
Faith Is Not Blind: Brave or naive, depending on how you look at it.
Janna: Thank you for putting that spin on it. But I kept going after that prayer and I meant it and I felt that I was ready for it. And so what happened in the next two weeks was that I got a message from my mom and my sister separately– they didn’t plan this–in which they both let me know that they were no longer active in the Church. And it was hard for the obvious reasons, but it was hard also because they were people who you just knew never would leave.
Faith Is Not Blind: So it contradicted the previous expectation that you had had that they must have done something to deserve it or that they had wanted it somehow. It was sort of a contradiction of your expectation.
Janna: Yes. And I knew that if they had left, it must have been for some substantial reason. And it was all so hard because at that point I had certain struggles with the Church, certain frustrations over women’s issues. I had read the Essays that the Church had put out.
Faith Is Not Blind: The Gospel Topics Essays?
Janna: Yes. And I had what I felt were some reasonable concerns about them. I didn’t feel like I had unreasonable expectations of early Church leaders or that what I was learning about them didn’t meet those expectations. I think I struggled with things that a reasonable person with reasonable expectations would struggle to reconcile with the Church and its claims.
Faith Is Not Blind: So with your mom and your sister, how did their spin on the reasonability of their decision affect you?
Janna: So with my sister, it felt like I was her in some ways because her reasons for leaving were what would have been my reasons if I had chosen to leave. So it felt like I was seeing an alternate version of myself walk away. And in that moment I felt the Spirit very much. It was strange because as she was telling me, even though it was very hard and painful, I felt a lot of comfort from the Spirit. And I felt the Spirit tell me that I should not try to convince her that she was wrong, that this experience was very painful for her and I shouldn’t make it harder in any way. And that what I needed to do was to love her and make sure that she knew that our relationship wasn’t going to change in any way, which was her big fear. And so that’s what I did.
Faith Is Not Blind: So you were a safe place for her.
Janna: She would say so, I think.
Faith Is Not Blind: And you showed compassion, which in some ways again contradicted your previous expectations. So you were able to let go of expectations, which is a sign of maturity. You allowed her to be an individual.
Janna: It may not have been a sign of maturity, but the Spirit made it be clear enough to me that I had no problem doing it. I felt no desire to try to convince her that she was wrong. It was that strong.
Faith Is Not Blind: She had been such a strong, stalwart member before. And you knew her well enough to know that it was painful. That’s very telling. Talk a little bit about how that foreshadowed your own experience not long after that.
Janna: So what happened for me at that point was that I ended this conversation with her and then it kind of felt like any kind of doubt that I’d had in the past kind of crept up on me in that moment. It was like the spiritual ground just fell out from underneath me. And within a matter of days really, I was in a full-blown spiritual crisis. I just could not believe it, partly because right before this happened, I was at what I considered a very strong point.
Faith Is Not Blind: You had described it as having real intent.
Janna: Yes. I was sure that I had nothing to be ashamed of, and that shaped how I handled the crisis. I decided to be very open about it, and I assumed that if I had experienced this as a person who loved the Gospel and who believed, then there must be other people that were experiencing this too. So for their sake as much as mine, I decided that I would be open about it.
Faith Is Not Blind: What did you learn as you talk to other people, even as you were experiencing that grief?
Janna: So I asked my husband for a blessing. And in that blessing, I received some very unusual counsel, and that was to reach out to friends and ask them not what they believed, but why they believed what they believed. So I sent out an email to several friends who I really respected–and I do respect–and I asked them why they believe what they believe. And I was surprised by the number of responses I got back from people who said that they weren’t sure that they did believe. And then I thought, “Why does Heavenly Father want me to ask them?” As fragile as I was, I didn’t know why I was getting this counsel. Why would He have me do this and then go into an even weaker State? And if I’m honest, I think it did. I think it put me into a weaker state for a while than I was before. So it was interesting.
Faith Is Not Blind: What happened as you talked to those people, even in your weakness? What did you learn about faith crises and the ability to talk about them?
Janna: Well, I learned that we should talk about them. I learned that people need to talk about them. I had a friend who felt so much shame about the idea that she was having a faith crisis that she actually wouldn’t write back to me about it. She wanted to go for a walk. She didn’t want to have it documented. She was having her own struggles. And I just thought, “Oh my goodness. Why are we so secretive about this?”
Faith Is Not Blind: Well, let me turn that around and have you answer that question. Why do you think they were so ashamed about it? Why do you think that people might be too ashamed to talk about it?
Janna: Maybe shame isn’t all of it. Maybe it’s fear. And there’s the idea that if we’re going through a faith crisis then it somehow reflects on some kind of weakness. Either I wasn’t doing enough of the right things or I was doing too many of the wrong things, otherwise I wouldn’t be going through this. But I think it can also just be fear because we think, “Oh my goodness. I can’t even look at this. The stakes are so high that I just can’t deal with it. And what if I tell my spouse and then they lose it? Or what if everything is lost because of this?”
Faith Is Not Blind: So there’s all this fear and trepidation going into it, and then also wondering, “Am I indulging this somehow if I talk about it.?” So how did it help you to talk about it with friends and with your husband? How did it help you to talk about it, first of all? And then second of all, what was helpful as you talked to people?
Janna: Part of the blessing that my husband gave me to was that he asked me to talk with people who I related to who were strong in the Gospel. And I did that and I found a lot of people shared some of the concerns that I had about Church History and about women’s issues, but they had found ways to maintain our testimonies. So that was helpful. What was the other part of your question?
Faith Is Not Blind: How did people respond in a way that was helpful, especially your husband?
Janna: What my husband said to me when I made it more evident that I was struggling was very simple. He just said, “Well, our faith can’t stay the same.” And it seems like not very much of a response, like, “That’s all you have to say about it?” But to me, that was perfect because it was just a simple acknowledgment that this is part of the Plan of Salvation. Part of the Plan is for us to be tried. And I think that if our ultimate ultimate goal is to become like Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother–I don’t know what we think it takes to become like Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, but Elder Maxwell talked about how sometimes we think that we can just “ride to paradise in a golf cart.” Well, that is not really what it looks like. We don’t get there by having easy experiences.
Faith Is Not Blind: So as this came to pass in your own life, your faith didn’t stay the same. What does it feel like to have evolving faith? If it’s not “riding to paradise in a golf cart,” what does it feel like?
Janna: It probably feels different for different people but I can say what it felt like for me. Because it was such a shock for it to come in the way that it did, and as fast and hard as it came, I felt paralyzed. I did not know how to pray. I would go to pray and literally all I could say was, “I don’t know what to say.” And then I would wait for something to come and nothing would. And then I was like, “I don’t know what to say” and then I would just end the prayer. And what I really wanted, what I hoped desperately for, was to know that it was possible to have been the kind of member of the Church that I was–who was “in it,” who had already very critically considered my beliefs–and then go through such a disillusionment and a crisis of faith and come out okay. I didn’t want to come out of it in spiritual tatters but still be believing. Or be jaded but still believing.
Faith Is Not Blind: Because that’s not an evolution of your faith.
Janna: No. It’s not. That’s just survival and not very good survival. I wanted to be able to come out of this and to be stronger for it. But I hadn’t ever seen that from someone. I had a hard time even finding it in the scriptures. I didn’t know if it was possible. And so I ultimately had to decide to figure out on my own if it was possible.
Faith Is Not Blind: And what did you find out?
Janna: Well, so what I did was I started to go back to the very basics. And I started to ask myself if there was anything I was sure of. And if I was sure, what were those things? Why was I sure about them? And what was I not sure of any more? And why wasn’t I sure of them anymore? And what does that mean? Then I started to go on. But I was happy that there were some things that I was really sure of, but they were very basic.
They did not include things like, “Was this the true restored Church of Christ?” I had harder questions to grapple with. But one of the things that I felt like Heavenly Father really wanted me to learn in the process of having my testimony stripped down to the very basics was that the things that I was most sure of were the things that he wanted me to care about the most, and that those were the most important things. Because there are a lot of things that matter, but to very different degrees. If Brother So-and-So doesn’t wear a tie to church, I suppose that could be an indication of his commitment, but I kind of doubt it. And even if it were, that’s not the thing to be worrying about right now. But things that really matter–that are really worth my attention–are things like the condition of my heart and the way that I relate to my family and the way that I treat other people. Do I make sure that Brother So-and-So, despite his differences, feels valued and loved and knows that he is supposed to be here–those kinds of things. And it was interesting because as I made that realization about what really matters most, it helped me. Even if I still am frustrated about certain things in Church History and feel like they should not have happened, it put those things in perspective for me in terms of what it is that Heavenly Father is looking for in me. Is He hoping that in the next life I’m going to be able to look at Him and say, “I had a conviction that the Church is infallible?” or “I had a conviction that Church leaders never made meaningful mistakes?” I don’t think that’s what He is as concerned about as much as how converted to the Savior I was. And how much of Him was reflected in me. And when I realized that those were the things that mattered, I understood that those are the things that mattered so much more than anything else. And so it helped me think that the fact that we get it wrong sometimes seems very normal to me. It seems very expected to me, even as a Church. We are so far from who God is and who Heavenly Mother is. Even if we live this incredible life, at the end of it we are still going to be nowhere near where they are. So it’s pretty miraculous to me that we get it as right as we do as often as we do.
Faith Is Not Blind: So I have two last questions I want to ask you. The first one is about how your husband talked about faith doesn’t stay the same, and then you talked about how you think the most important thing is how much we are like the Savior. So how has the process of your faith evolving changed your relationship with the Savior so that you can become more like Him? What is your relationship with Him like now?
Janna: I think that I understand a lot more how loving and merciful He is. And I think I understand more that He is what they say He is–the Alpha and the Omega. He is the light. He is the truth. Everything starts with Him and everything ends with Him, which is very comforting. I think the more that you get to know Him, the more you realize that we’re all in pretty good hands.
Faith IS Not Blind: Yes. And He has engraven us upon those hands.
Janna: Yes. And He knows me. I have learned through this that He is willing to work with people. And He will take you wherever you are. Believe me, I have felt that very much as I’ve looked at my family and the choices that they’ve made and in the experiences that they’ve gone through and as I’ve considered what I’ve gone through. I have felt the extent of His patience and love and flexibility.
Faith Is Not Blind: My last question is: for the people who have not gone through a faith crises before, what do you wish they knew more of so that they could handle those who are going through it with a little bit more care and compassion?
Janna: I wish that they made fewer assumptions. President Uchtdorf talked about this years ago. There are many reasons why people go through a faith crisis. I wish that they would allow for more conversations in faith-promoting settings–so in church where we’ve had the sacrament and where the Spirit is present. Elder Ballard talked about knowing the Gospel Topic Essays like the back of our hand and then talking about them in the Church, and I think we’re still kind of afraid to do that. And of course we have to be careful about how we talk about issues that are tough for people, but I wish that we could create a better space to talk about these things productively. Because it’s possible for a faith crisis to be destructive, but it’s very possible for a faith crisis to be productive. And there’s a lot that we can do to make them normal. They really are very normal. The more that we learn about people’s experiences, the more that we learn that this happens.
Faith Is Not Blind: And it seems like your faith crisis has been productive. I love thinking about you searching for someone who had gone through it before. And now you get to be that person. I think of the Pioneers who used to plant crops that they didn’t harvest. They planted them so that the people who came after them would have something to harvest. So thank you for being an example for someone who’s coming along behind you.
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