A little bit more polished . . .

I was reflecting today on some experiences that I've had the last few years and I have decided to share some of those thoughts that I've had with you.  What I'm about to share is intensely personal and it's not something that anyone outside of a few extremely close friends and family members know, but I feel like the time is right to share this experience with you.

A few years ago I had an interesting experience which shook my testimony to the very core.  I had thought that my testimony was unshakeable, yet the ramifications of this experience struck at the very foundation of my testimony and brought it to its knees.  Within the span of about one week I underwent a total transformation from being completely solid in the gospel to being essentially an atheist.  I was legitimately about 97% sure that the church was not true and about 85% sure that the existence of a God was nothing more than wishful thinking on man's part.

This was easily the most devastating experience that I have ever had.  It is difficult to describe what it was like because unless you have experienced it yourself in such great contrast then you truly can't even begin to imagine it.  It wasn't just my belief system and way of life that was demolished, but my entire personal identity that was dissolved.  It is truly amazing how much of the person that you are, even down to the most miniscule belief, was formed by the principles that you have been taught your entire life.  If you take away those, what do you really have left?  In the weeks to come I found myself completely at a loss, unable to determine who I really was once everything else had been stripped away.  For example, was I really a compassionate person, or had I only been driven to serve others because of a selfish desire to achieve some greater reward someday?  If the moral guidelines that had been my foundation my entire life were based on false principles, then what was the premise for societal morals, and what moral structure was I bound to?  And what obligations did I have to myself and to my fellow man, if this life was nothing more than a passing chance in the universe, with nothing to follow?

These were only a few of the many questions that I wrestled with in the weeks, and eventually months, that followed.  Rebuilding my testimony was not easy, because I was extremely mistrusting and wary of being tricked.  Ultimately, I was praying so hard for an answer, yet I was unable to receive it because I was unwilling to open myself up and let the spirit back into my life to give me that answer.  One of the most surprising things to me is that the utter destruction of my rock solid testimony took less than one week, yet it took me the next year and a half to clear away the rubble, lay a fresh new foundation, and begin to build again.  Given the chance, though, would I go back and change that experience, painful and nearly devastating as it was, so that it never happened?  Would I trade my pristine old testimony for the new one that I have carefully rebuilt, brick by brick?  Not on your life.  I have learned more about myself, the nature of each member of the Godhead, the atonement of my Savior, and the meaning and purpose of this life than I ever could have discovered in a lifetime of never having doubts.  My faith is more real, my trust in my Savior more true, and my relationship with my Heavenly Father more deep than it ever could have been before.  My patience has increased, my empathy and understanding for others has magnified, and, having been knocked down to my knees, I'm a little bit more humbled than I was before.

The adversities, trials, and errors we make along the way are what shape us into the person that God intends for us to become.  We never know what we are really made of or what inner strength we possess until we are given a mountain to climb that pushes us to our limits.  And it is only through the tumult of the currents and being ground against other rocks that a rock ultimately becomes perfectly smooth and polished.