When I finally met the missionaries at age 29, I knew immediately that I’d found the true Church! I had a mother who’d been raised in the Episcopal Church, and a father who didn’t believe anything that wasn’t tangible. However, they apparently agreed on one thing: to have me “baptized” in the Episcopal Church when I six weeks old. By the time I was old enough to walk and talk, I was dropped off at that church every Sunday to attend church services—alone. I remember how scary it was, yet there was something inside those walls that was important. I just didn’t know what.

I was the third out of four children, and the only one who lived. However, because I wasn’t the boy my father had wanted, he never offered me any love, support, protection, or respect. Since my mother always stood by him, no one was there for me as I grew up.

When I was three, I “discovered” the piano located in the back room of my parent’s home. My mother gave me permission to play it . . . if I used one finger at a time. I did, but that got boring after a while. She showed me where C and G are located, and I practiced playing those two notes with my right hand, over and over again. One day, I saw someone playing the piano on TV using all their fingers on both hands. I was fascinated, and wanted to know how to do it. My mother showed me C and G chords to play in my left hand, and soon I was playing one note in my right hand accompanied by a chord in my left hand. One day I was going so fast I got mixed up, and realized that G sounded good with both chords, but C didn’t! I was overwhelmed and told my mother it was just “too hard” for me. However, by the time I was six, she’d found a piano teacher and I started taking lessons.

About this same time, my grandmother told my father he’d better stop sending me to that “catholic” church. So, my parents started attending the Lutheran church down the street. By the time I was eleven, I was playing for Sunday school, and at fifteen I was hired as the official church organist. I didn’t like it, because I had to practice with the choir, who met on Thursday nights, and play for two services every Sunday. The worst part of the year came on Easter when I had to get up at 3:30 A.M. so I could play for the sunrise service at 6:00. I really wanted to quit, but wasn’t allowed to. I began to dread Sundays—despite the handsome paycheck I received each month.

Then I got a brilliant idea! The Confirmation exam was coming up, and if I failed it I couldn’t become a member, and they wouldn’t be able to make me the organist. I made a point of purposefully failing that test, yet they made me the organist anyway. There went all respect for those people and that church.

While I learned some simple truths about God and Jesus Christ in that church, I never understood or could make any sense of a “triune God,” One that was “three people in one.” I was totally confused, and would ask the minister over and over again to clarify this, but he never did.

One day after I’d become the organist, the missionaries dropped by. They’d come by before, but I never let them in because my mother went to the grocery store that time of day and had told me to never let anyone in when she wasn’t there. However, one day they came while she was at home, so I finally got to invite them in. After she told them how “important” I was at the Lutheran Church, she asked them to leave. I was really disappointed because I felt their special Spirit, and wanted to know more.

When I was seventeen, I started college. Halfway through the spring semester, I convinced my parents to let me move into the college dorms. I was closer to classes, and would have to stop playing for that church! Hooray! Freedom at last! The semester, however, was coming to an end, and my parents were really pressuring me to move back with them. I balked and they withdrew financial support. So I asked around the music department for a church organist position. I found an Episcopal church, which I decided to join. I told the priest I’d been baptized as an infant, but he couldn’t find any records, so I was “baptized” again!

Money was still an issue, so I turned to one of my college professors, who agreed to let me to live with her and her husband during the summer. At the same time, I was dating one of the music majors, and married him that fall. He was a member of the Church of Christ and told me my baptisms weren’t “official” because I hadn’t been immersed. So, I got baptized a third time, shortly before we were married.

Ten months after the wedding, our son was born. While growing up, my parents had told me over and over how much they looked forward to being grandparents someday. Yet, after my son was born, they accused me of having to get married, and told me I was a horrible mother. Four and a half years later the marriage ended, and I figured the best thing I could do for my son was let him live with his father. I completed all the legal arrangements, but now they said I had abandoned my son. Nevertheless, I continued grad school and finished my M.A. plus three teaching credentials.

After graduation, I secured a teaching position, and my professional life was shaping up nicely. My personal life, however, was a disaster. I decided to look into Parents Without Partners, and went to one of their meetings. I bumped into someone who told me all about the wonderful people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints he’d met while serving in the Air Force in England. I was impressed, and after dating for nearly a year, we got married. However, about a year into that marriage, he started to pressure me to start a family. After all the grief my parents had given me, I said “No way!” He got mad and moved out. I was devastated and honestly didn’t know what to do. After a few months, I asked him to come back and agreed to have a baby. He said that, while he was gone, he had decided to return to the Air Force so we’d have good medical insurance. The price for that, however, was for him to attend several months of out-of-state training. As he was preparing to leave, two things happened that changed my life forever.

First, when he came back he said we needed to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Soon, the missionaries came over and started the discussions. I’ll never forget the first time they came, because I graciously offered them a choice of coffee, tea, or some of the fine liquors I had in my pantry! I was disappointed at their refusal, yet when they taught us about the Word of Wisdom, it all made sense to me! However, they were very patient with all my questions, and we were baptized a short time later.

Second, on one particular Friday in March, I came home from teaching school and went directly to the stables to ride my horse, which I did every day. However, this time I decided to try the new area I’d heard about from other riders. After about an hour or so, I decided to go home, and took a shortcut through some tall grass. The next thing I remember was waking up in the Intensive Care unit of the hospital. Someone said there was evidence at the scene that my horse had slipped and fallen on some hidden grass-covered concrete, and I’d been thrown to the ground. I sustained a fractured skull, concussion, and multiple cuts and bruises. Luckily, the Elders had given me a blessing, in which I was promised to make a complete recovery—and I did.

When I came home from the hospital, everything was different. I had to really concentrate on simple things like walking, talking, chewing, swallowing, and hand-eye coordination. When I sat down to practice the piano, I felt I was “all thumbs”—almost as if I’d never achieved any expertise. While working through that, I also realized I had a deep desire, at this time, to be a wife and mother instead of a professional musician.

I also found out I was pregnant—and apparently had been before my horse fell. Had I known that, I would never have gone riding. Yet, despite all the injuries I sustained, I had not lost that child, which seemed significant. I decided this must be the direction I’m supposed to take, so I stopped questioning everything and concentrated on preparing for the birth of this baby.

Meanwhile, my husband left for the Midwest and I was left alone. Shortly afterwards, I started receiving some “mystery” phone calls from a woman who said she “had a surprise” for me. I was puzzled, but pretty much put it out of my mind.

Ten days before Christmas, I gave birth to a son—alone. My husband came back from the Air Force training a few months later, and announced he didn’t want to go to church anymore. Instead, he planned to buy a camper and go fishing and camping on the weekends. However, I kept going to church, alone. One afternoon while preparing to visit my husband’s parents, I walked into my infant son’s room. While walking across the living room floor, my mind was literally opened and knowledge poured in, that my husband had been unfaithful. When I asked, he admitted it was true. Once again, my life was taking a turn for the worse. I asked him to leave, and filed for divorce. Again.

My parents then said I needed to move near them. I couldn’t find a good excuse, so I sold the house and co-invested with my father in a small house near them. I couldn’t find a teaching position, so I finally took a low-paying job nearby. I continued to search for teaching positions, and about a month before Christmas was offered a position close to where I used to live. As I planned to move, my father handed me a “bill” for babysitting, food, and diapers they’d used while watching my son. He also said he was selling the house, taking back every dime of his money, and that, if anything was left over, I could have it.

Even though I felt pretty worthless, I continued to attend all of my meetings and enjoyed lots of love and support from my ward. They were truly the only family I had!

I started teaching and moved in with a college girlfriend, and a sister in my ward watched my son. I became active in the YSA program and attended every dance, fireside, and project they planned—yet had no dates or phone calls for more than four years. At one particular dance, I talked and danced with someone I’d met about a year earlier, but I hadn’t really talked to him because every time I saw him he had dozens of women around him! However, we danced together most of that evening, and I invited him to come over for dinner. After learning he had my “prerequisites” of having 1) a genuine testimony of the Gospel, and 2) an active Temple Recommend, we continued to date for two weeks. After that, we agreed to meet at the Temple one Saturday. After the session, he proposed—and I accepted! We were sealed two months later, with my son being sealed to us on the same day. About a year later, my son’s natural father gave permission for my sweetheart to legally adopt him.

One night, shortly after our marriage, we stayed up very late trying to decide what we wanted to do when we “grew up.” He decided to complete an MBA and became a manager in procurement. I completed a second bachelor’s degree, an M.S., and a Psy.D. in order to become a licensed marriage and family therapist. It took us both eight years to complete our education, because we went part time so one of us was always at home with the kids.

Now, it has been thirty (very short) years, and both sons and their two sisters have married, and we have a total of six grandchildren. We also have the privilege of being Temple workers, helping to perform sacred ordinances in our Heavenly Father’s Holy House on a weekly basis. Neither one of us could have ever known this amount of love, peace, and tranquility without having the Gospel in our lives. We strive daily to live Heavenly Father’s commandments, and to bear our testimonies to the world by our manner of dress, the way we talk, and the company we keep, in addition to attending meetings and fulfilling our callings.

———————————————–

C. J. (Carol) Cole, Psy.D., LMFT, is a psychologist and marriage and family therapist based in Fountain Valley, California. Educated at California State University, Long Beach, and at the American Behavioral Studies Institute in Tustin, California, her specialties include the treatment of depression, anxiety, trauma, and abuse, and of substance abuse and addiction; prevention of, and healing from, divorce; parenting skills; eating disorders; and the like. She has also taught music and piano in the public school system and at the college level.

Posted July 2010