Are Mormons Insecure?

The first time it happened was toward the end of my senior year of high school. I’d been back at church just over a year when I decided to meet up with some non-Mormon friends from my days of “inactivity.” As I pulled out of the parking lot in an area unfamiliar to me, I turned the wrong way onto a one-way street. Filled with the anxiety of an inexperienced driver, I panicked, slammed on the brakes and frantically yelled, “What do I do?” 

“Pull to the side,” Allison snapped in an annoyed tone that suggested the solution was obvious. After I pulled over, I waited until it was clear to turn the car around and soon we were safely headed in the right direction.

Just as my heart rate was returning to normal, my friend Renee said in a smug tone, “That’s why you need that church of yours, because you’re so insecure.”

Her words pierced me. My heart rate shot up again and my cheeks flushed.

I’d never had this accusation thrown at me before, although, it wouldn't be the last time. At different times since then, people have repeated the same idea to me in various ways. Despite the circumstance that prompts them, their message has been clear: I’m Mormon because I’m weak. I’m just some thoughtless sheep blindly following the flock.

But in this instance, the hurt came because I knew it was partly true.  Maybe I did need the gospel more than others precisely because I was wracked with insecurities. But I wasn’t going to let her think she had me beat.

“Oh, and the way you cling to your loser boyfriend and smoke all that pot comes from a place of real confidence, I’m sure,” I struck back.

Over time, I realized that I attacked when those critical of my faith journey made judgments that part of me feared were true. In this case, I realized that the accusation of insecurity leading me to God was kind of true. And it took a while for me also to realize that having insecurities is OK, good even, when they lead us to God.

Sometimes, it’s true, God simply helps us get better at things we are bad at, turning our weaknesses into strengths in an obvious way. But other times, our weaknesses become strengths simply by discovering their important role in our spiritual journey.

5 Ways God Reveals Our Weaknesses as Strengths

1. God consecrates our experiences for our gain. That means that all that we’ve been through, including the inevitable heartache of life, the consequences of sin, and our insecurities can be used for our gain when we recognize that God truly is our father and trust that He cares for us personally. That’s the caveat though, we have to turn to Him because, through the Spirit, He teaches us how to use the knowledge of our experience to better our lives and help those around us. Think of Moses and Paul and how God used their worldly training and augmented it for His own purposes and, in so doing, made Moses and Paul great spiritually, despite their weaknesses. It’s beautiful and merciful in an eternal way. Think of how God blessed the Canaanite harlot, Rahab, because she recognized the power and reality of the God of Israel and helped the Israelite spies escape Jericho. Despite the difficulties of this story to our modern sensibilities (everyone in the city is destroyed except Rahab’s family), its miraculous because God uses Rahab’s resourcefulness and even blesses her abundantly despite her obvious weaknesses. Through Rahab’s line is born Joseph, earthly father-figure to Jesus. God indeed uses all that we are for good when we turn to him.  

2. Our Weaknesses teach us to have empathy for others. Because I have hurt and felt insecure, I am sensitive to others that are feeling down and left out. Those who have been marginalized know the sting of being overlooked and under-appreciated. I try to be diligent in my parenting to teach my children to consider how others feel instead of judging others for their differences.

3. Weaknesses keep us turning to God in humility. My insecurities have helped me know that I can’t do it all on my own. I rely on God and turn to him in a way a less insecure person might not. And if I start to forget God, and begin to think I can do it on my own, in His mercy, He quickly reminds me that, with Him, miracles happen and I can do so much more. He rejoices in blessing my life. Our weaknesses serve the same purpose that the Lamanites did to the Nephites: they act as a scourge that stirs us up to remembrance of our God. Turning to God means trusting in His goodness and opening ourselves to the reality of His love. As soon as we believe he will bless our lives, he will.

4. Weaknesses force us to learn how to use the atonement of Jesus Christ.  Most people talk of believing in Christ but really do not use the atonement to better their lives and themselves.  When we are desperate for rescue from the pain of weakness, we put in the work to figure out how Christ’s sacrifice can benefit us every single day. For me, using the atonement looks like me praying and telling God, in the name of Jesus, that I give my particular worry, (I name the worry specifically) to the Savior. Let’s say for example that I’d been engaging in negative self-talk surrounding my body. Because this has been a pattern of mine for so long, and its one so easily triggered by our culture, this old pattern of self-shaming creeps back in from time to time. When it does, I pray more and ask for forgiveness for forgetting my true worth. I ask for help to remember that I am a spirit daughter of Heavenly Parents, and mostly, I ask for help to love and accept myself for where I’m at, mistakes and all. It is key to maintain love and respect for oneself when we make mistakes because Satan’s trick is to get us to start berating ourselves and no healing can begin unless we recognize that our divinity and worth can’t ever be diminished. Finally, I set out to make sure I’m caring for myself as the spiritual royalty that I truly am.

5. Weakness forces us to learn to love and accept ourselves in our imperfection. So many of us withhold love from ourselves because of our weaknesses. We dis-like parts of ourselves and are naively sure that if we punish ourselves enough, we will be motivated to change the parts of ourselves we hate.  But there comes a day when, tired of battling ourselves, we begin to realize that if we can’t love and accept ourselves as we are, insecurities and all, then we cannot heal, truly feel love or love another. We must make peace with all aspects of ourselves to be fully present in our relationships with our spouses, our children and our friends. So many people are numbing themselves because they can’t stand parts of themselves. But the fact is, God gives us these weaknesses so that we will learn to love ourselves unconditionally and turn to Him. We might have bad habits that we’d like to change, but hating ourselves for having those habits only makes breaking the habit more difficult, even impossible. It is not until we recognize, respect and revere the divine part of ourselves (our spirit), that we can begin to break the habits that aren’t in line with the divine being we know ourselves to be.

Sure, it seems a paradox that through our insecurities and weaknesses God can truly teach us how divine we really are. But upon reflection, that idea doesn’t seem so far fetched when we remember the words of Jacob, “God show[s] us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace…that we have power to do [all] things.”

One Talent

Recently, the moments in which I enumerate all that I have not accomplished have become more frequent. I sometimes have these moments when I see friends and FB associates approaching mastery (an idea I’ve become obsessed with) as they finish their years of “apprenticeship.”  This one’s an editor and writes beautiful prose with ease. That one’s a professor of art and paints beautifully. Another quilts and runs quilting workshops. Still another is an activist striving to make positive changes in the community.  Not me. I’m just trying not to flip out or sink into depression. Sanity is my magnum opus.

In these low moments, I try really hard to say things to myself like, “But don’t worry, you have this beautiful family. They are your work.” But all the people I envy, including the millionaire direct marketers and those of Instagram fame also have families and are great mothers. So, then I try to tell myself, “Don’t compare, we all start from a different place. You don’t need to be doing anything other than following the path that is right for you.” And while I know that is true, that wisdom seldom works to set my mind right. So, I try to think about something else, because I can’t find any personal accomplishment or material possession that will satisfy my ego in the treacherous game of comparison. So, I turn off my phone and do something to get my head space right again: exercise, write, get stuff done, or pray. If I want to wallow deeper, I eat simple carbs and call to commiserate with a friend.

Obviously, we know that it’s a bad idea to compare ourselves with others. But we still do it…all the time. A good indication that we are comparing is when we find ourselves criticizing, either ourselves or the person we’re comparing ourselves to.

How, people, do we get away from this self-destructive comparing?

Part of the answer is found in The Parable of the Talents in which Jesus teaches that talents are innate abilities that the He gives to us. We are responsible for using our talents which helps them to grow and multiply.

In the parable, the Lord gives the first servant five talents.  The servant doubles them and the Lord is pleased and promises to make the servant ruler over many things because he has been “faithful over a few.” To me, these five-talent people are born beautiful and everything comes easy to them. They are musical, athletic, smart, and have probably started a charity. They are the ones we loathe on social media, but masochistically, can’t get enough of.

The Lord gives his second servant two talents, which the servant doubles and the Lord is pleased and makes him ruler over many things. This is the middle-class of talent levels.  Most people think they belong to this category. This group might have one or two talents to list on a resume or win an award for. But the other talents they have are things like ‘good listener’ and ‘organizes closets well.'

Finally, the Lord gives the last servant one talent, he buries it out of fear he’ll lose it. The Lord chastises him and takes it away. These are the people, like me, who are wondrously unathletic, try to gain a musical talent but don’t really make it, and don’t quite have the discipline to be the academic we’re sure we were meant to be. One-talent people don’t have awards or impressive CV’s to share. They might, if pressed, come up with one of those quasi-talents to list such as ‘likes cultural activity’ or ‘appreciates beauty.’

I railed against this parable for a long time. It seemed so unfair that some get to be born into talent-privilege where the system seems set up to help one multiply her talents. Think of the Gwyneth Paltrow’s of the world. Born beautiful by most standards, has a movie producer dad and Steven Spielberg as a Godfather. Girl, you better be winning Oscars. How hard is it to be these people? I get it--the grass is always greener... But the parable tells us, we come into this world with different amounts of capabilities and gifts; that reality is what bothered me for so long.

Could it be true that I’m just not as good and capable as other people? That these Mormon women I’ve been comparing myself to really just come with more talents? Does this parable confirm what I’ve suspected all along, that they really are better than me? 

I haven’t fully come to terms with the answers to these questions. However, I’ve learned that worrying about how I stack up against others and not thanking God for what talents I do have are forms of burying my talents. Not recognizing the source of any gift I have is akin to hiding it beneath the earth or under a bushel.  The moment I begin questioning if my progress and aptitude are as good or better than another person’s, I halt my ability to grow my own talents. Comparing feels so awful because we shift our focus from one that is virtuous to one that is vindictive. Comparing inevitably gives birth to the twin vices of envy and jealousy and no character growth occurs when we keep company with them.  

To be clear, more capable does not mean more worthy; all souls are great in the sight of God, but we can each seek to please Him by using our capabilities to fulfill our unique purpose here on earth.

The idea in The Parable of the Talents that helps me the most when I’m tempted to compare my accomplishments with others’ is that the Lord doesn’t care how many talents we end up with, only that we’ve doubled what we were given.  The person with one talent, only needs to turn that into two. So, I only need to recognize the one I am already blessed with and develop it into another talent. That’s doable. And the Lord will delight in my efforts. We also have the additional promise that the Lord will add gifts as necessary, but he can’t if we bury our talent out of fear that we will never be as great as our Instagram friends or the Johnson’s who make it on time to church each week, perform the special musical number as a family, all while looking like they stepped out of a magazine.

Surely, I will continue to compare myself with others from time to time, even though I’ll make an earnest effort not to.  But, the difference now, and what it has taken me all of 39 years to realize, is that being me, glaring flaws and all, is ok. I get to be me…develop me, and add upon the gifts that are uniquely mine. It is very freeing to finally realize that I don’t have to do this Mormon thing like anyone else, this faith thing like anyone else, or this life thing like anyone else. I get to claim my religious experience, my spirituality, and my existence; that is how I use my talent and multiply it.