This is part of my series on spiritual experiences and mental illness.
All my life, I’ve been sensitive to the Spirit and I’ve had some marvelous experiences. I’ve also had some promptings that turned out to be wrong.
For example, on the plane on the way home from my mission, I got a strong prompting that I would marry one specific elder because he was the only one spiritually strong enough to match me. (Look, I’d noticed that I was different and off-putting, more spiritual than most, maybe too spiritual.) Once we were home, I wrote him a letter — just a friendly ‘hi how are you’ type of letter. I didn’t mention a prompting. He never wrote me back. I was briefly sad, but rationalized that the prompting was probably not really a prompting. After all, I’d gotten the prompting while watching the in-flight movie on the way home from my mission. I hadn’t yet been released as a missionary, and so watching the in-flight movie was a sin. Of course I wouldn’t get a real prompting while sinning! Duh! I was glad I hadn’t embarrassed myself by mentioning the prompting to anyone else. Besides sinning, it was probably also wishful thinking. With some time and perspective, it was easy to write that one off as a product of my subconscious.
During the same span of years that I wrote about in my previous post, God’s Love; God’s Anger, I got another strong prompting. One of my children was going to die. I was furious with this prompting. It wasn’t fair! All the other challenges I’d faced in my relationships, and I had to go through this one too?!? Not cool, God, not cool at all. But the prompting kept coming. For months, I fought it. I cried and stormed and rejected it. All to no avail. One morning, I knelt in prayer and said to God, “Thy will be done.” I was immediately flooded with peace. I knew I would be supported through the trial of my child’s death.
I didn’t know which child would die until some months later. As I finished a temple session, passed through the veil, and entered the Celestial Room, I suddenly and calmly knew that it would be my youngest child, and he would die before he reached the age of accountability. The story of Hannah giving Samuel to the Lord came strongly to my mind. Heavenly Father wanted this child back in heaven, and who was I to say no? Hannah gave Samuel away; God wasn’t asking me to do anything that other mothers hadn’t done. I felt so much peace. Even as I grieved, I felt peace and God’s love.
This revelation changed my parenting. My youngest was my easiest child by far (meaning he needed me less). I intentionally started to savor every interaction with him. I didn’t want any regrets once he was gone — like yelling at him, or telling him ‘no’ too often. This mellowed my parenting for his older siblings too. If he was going to die before he was eight years old, then at most, I only had about five years with him. We needed as many happy memories as possible. I did my best.
I went back through my journals for this time period and found a couple of beautiful promptings that I recorded, like this one: “Thoughts of [Child] dying have resurfaced a lot these past few days. It comes mixed with the sad comfort that if he does die, I would know for sure that I would have at least one family member in the Celestial Kingdom. I would miss him so much. Every so often, [Child] asks questions about dying or about seeing Jesus again. His siblings never do that.”
A few years after the initial prompting, I felt that I should buy life insurance on him to pay for his funeral. I was still out of work, and so was his father. I certainly wasn’t going to ask for any help from my family. I wanted to be able to have a decent funeral. I bought a life insurance policy on him for enough to cover funeral expenses plus about three months of our living expenses. The premium was $20 per month.
Then … he turned eight years old. By this time, I was done with Church and didn’t really want to baptize him. He wanted to be baptized though. So we baptized him. The prompting specifically told me that he would die in his innocent years. I had prayed about that many times over the years and that conviction never faltered. I was puzzled that he was still here. (Despite getting fed up with Church, I still believed in my connection to Heavenly Father and all the revelations I’d gotten over the years.) Though I wrote about it in my journal frequently, I only ever told two people about that prompting. I never told him, of course not! This was one of those things that I kept sacred, like Mary did after the shepherds came to see the Christ child. Luke 2:19: “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
When he was 12 years old, after paying monthly premiums for six years, I finally cancelled the life insurance. I’ve still never told him about this.
What happened to my spirituality? My personal revelations? All those other times I’d gotten guidance that was inspired and correct? Basically, WTF God? The revelation that my child would die wasn’t an easily dismissed momentary thought, like the one about marrying an elder from my mission. This one persisted for YEARS, and was constantly reaffirmed. Prayer and fasting, the extra revelation in the temple about which child and when he would die, the peace I felt when I surrendered to the idea that my child would die, the prompting to buy life insurance so I could pay for his funeral. There was NO difference between how this revelation felt and how all my other revelations felt.
God did not explain himself to me. So we were done. I do not want his advice anymore. Yes, believing my child was going to die made me a better mother, but that was still an epically sucky thing to do to me.
Personal revelation is unreliable. One principle that I took from the book about the military experimenting with paranormal abilities is that that kind of stuff is unreliable. There were some epic experiences that blow your mind. There are also things that are irrelevant or just plain wrong. They all come from the same source and you can only tell the difference in hindsight.
Also, I passed Abraham’s test. I did NOT try to sacrifice my child. Don’t burden your kids with your spirituality and obedience. That’s the lesson I take from Abraham.
[footnote] I hope nothing in this post caused any pain to a parent who has had to deal with the death of a child. If I’ve said something insensitive, please let me know and I’ll change it and apologize.
Questions:
- Do you want to tell a story about a prompting you had that turned out to be wrong?
- Did it cause harm? Or just embarrassment?
- Do (did) you ever talk to anyone about promptings? Do (did) you have any friends or family who tell you about their promptings?
- What’s the current way to excuse God from answering prayers? When I quit attending Church, the platitude was “God always answers prayers! He says yes, no, or I have something better in mind.”
4. What’s the current way to excuse God from answering prayers?
Same excuse, just rebranded: if the prayer is answered, God gets the credit; if it isn’t, God’s timing, wisdom, or a “better plan” gets the credit. There’s no possible outcome that would count as evidence against the claim. It’s a belief system designed to be unfalsifiable, and therefore maintain your interest.
It’s easy to have feelings, desires, emotions, or premonitions. It’s hard to think things through, weigh the consequences, or explore the possibilities. People say they have revelations to do one thing or another, but what is the personal revelation based on? I’m sure it needs to be a mixture of both, but I think it should be less feelings and more thinking.
My ex-wife once made a bid on a house. She put earnest money down, filled out the loan paperwork, but never told me about it until I had to sign some papers and give a real down payment. I didn’t sign. She was furious and asked me how she could get one revelation and I get another from the same God. I just said we worshiped different Gods. She had strong feelings about buying the house. It was nice, much nicer than the house we lived in, but I thought about the payment, utilities, insurance, and how she wouldn’t get a job to help pay for it. It would have taken over half my take-home pay just to pay the mortgage.
I wonder if “personal revelation” is just something we use to justify and give weight to what we want or maybe even to face what we fear, instead of just thinking our decisions are just that, decisions we make. Personal revelation makes us divinely important. A decision is not as divine.
Ok my mission i had a set of… Premonitions, I guess? That are kind of silly in hindsight.
I was not ready to go on a mission. I thought I was, I’ve was a fairly independent teen and had more or less handled my own affairs through most of high school, but the first few weeks of my mission were a shock. In hindsight, the first transfer (6 weeks) I was a zombie of anxiety-induced passivism.
When the first transfer came, the anxiety kicked back in, hard. I was terrified I would end up with a disobedient (gasp!) or otherwise disagreeable companion. I prayed hard about it. The night before the transfer, I had a sort of mental picture of a person from behind; tall, light brown hair, thin. The next day, I met my companion, who was, in every aspect, the person I had seen from behind the night before.
That transfer went better. I started to acclimate, even playing pranks on my rather consciencious senior companion. We both had car keys, but he always drove (I think this was a rule?) and I figured out how to disable the lock honk when pressing the lock button on the car. I would stare off into the distance, waiting for him to unlock the car, silently locking it immediately after he unlocked it, so he couldn’t open the door. Ha! Never told him. Sorry elder I’ve-forgotten-your-name.
Anyway, since the night-before thing worked the first time, I tried it every other time I got a new companion. I would try to visualize them the night before, and I would always get a kind of image of what they look like from behind; hair color, height, general build. I even started writing it in my journal, so I couldn’t fool myself as easily the next day. It was right every time , even when I had a red-headed companion!
As a, well, horny, barely 20-something I thought maybe this would work on who my ‘eternal helpmeet’ (gag) would be. So, one night, I tried it out. It worked! My wife of nearly 20 years matches the picture I had in my head very closely.
This is the only 100% success rate I’ve ever had on… Revelation? Being a psychic? Premonitions? Luck? Augury? It didn’t seem to be all that connected with the church (or with birds, I suppose) but I was, and remain, convinced that the thoughts came from somewhere, even if from my own subconscious, though I’m not sure how to explain that.
For reasons I explained on another of Janey’s posts on the topic. I intentionally avoid making real-life decisions based only on non-verifiable thoughts/feelings, and have for most of my life. So I don’t have specific experiences where I know they were wrong, I treat them all like they’re (probably) wrong, and promptly forget about them.
Do you want to tell a story about a prompting you had that turned out to be wrong?
1)Do you want to tell a story about a prompting you had that turned out to be wrong?
Not me personally, but this happened to my grandparents. My grandparents lived in a rural community in NC, and they got word that a new nuclear power plant would be built on their land. My grandpa repaired multimedia equipment for all the county schools, but was let go because the county wanted private contractors instead. They offered my grandpa a job as a high school science teacher (since he already had a bachelor’s in science) and my grandma got an offer to be a florist near her hometown. This would mean that even though they couldn’t live on their land anymore, they wouldn’t have to move too far to maintain their lives (school, social, etc…). My grandma got a “yes” prompting, my grandpa got a “no” prompting. Grandpa had no desire to be a teacher, and he REALLY wanted to work on the Church farm in the adjacent county instead. Since he was the Priesthood holder, his personal revelation trumped my grandma’s.
So, my grandparents and their 6 kids moved to a trailer in an adjacent county to work on the Church farm. My grandpa was convinced that the Church would eventually use the land for a temple, so that meant that he made the right decision with his prompting. Well, barely a few years later, the Church sold that farm, and yet again my grandpa had no job. So, to put food on the table, he became a *drumroll please*……………..science teacher. And the temple? Well, two decades after they moved, the temple was built near where they were originally from (only 10 minutes away from their old house). So, had my grandpa gotten over is apprehensiveness over teaching sooner and listed to my grandpa’s prompting, not only would have they have been more stable financially, but they would also be a lot closer to the temple. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my grandpa and he taught me a lot of valuable lessons in life, but that decision caused a lot of unnecessary hardship for his family.
And sorry for posting to soon with my previous comment. This new comment system submitted my comment too early as I was filling my username……
This is so interesting. I have a close association with someone who also had a “your child is going to die soon” revelation. They revealed that revelation to all that child’s siblings. I personally had healthy dose of skepticism about it and a few other things this person would learn by the “the spirit.” 15 years later and that child is still alive and well with that death prompting all forgotten about now. There are a lot of promptings this person has followed with unquestioning obedience in their life that has brought a lot of sorrow and pain. They remain convinced of their love for God and that doing these things are a necessary sacrifice.
I feel like all the stories in church about successful promptings are rife with selection bias. It’s not that I don’t believe they can happened, I just don’t find God a reliable partner so I don’t really seek his counsel anymore. And so far things are fine. And if they took a turn for the worst, I probably still wouldn’t seek God’s counsel as he didn’t really do anything to create that trust relationship with me in the first place. Yet, I still remain ever fascinated with God and would be open to an honest conversation with him should he desire that–and by that I don’t mean a silly prayer and then reading the scriptures, I mean an actual sit down with clear communication where I don’t have to guess if God is actually speaking to me or not.
When I was 25 I had what I thought to be a prompting that I would end up being with a particular girl. It did not come to pass. As I reflect on it more, I feel as if I was crazy for thinking that. After that experience I began to really question what the point of personal revelation was. Surprise good and bad things would happen. Without me knowing in advance. Was personal revelation even real?
Repeatedly I would hear stories in Elders Quorum about how someone has received a job offer that seemed like a perfect fit, but when they went and prayed about it, they felt a prompting to turn it down. It really made no sense.
A girl I was dating seemed like a perfect fit for me. But I made the mistake of going on a date to the temple with her where she obviously prayed about me and received a prompting that I wasn’t the one. In hindsight I’m glad it didn’t happen between us. She was very superstitious and fanatical in her beliefs.
I now don’t believe in personal revelation or promptigns. And I think a lot of people make really stupid decisions because they think they’re having personal revelation hiding their every step in life.
Eventually one lives long enough to observe that feelings and “revelation” are not well correlated. I once was presented a financial deal. The details were sketchy but boy did I feel good about it. I mean I really felt like it made sense. The deal was an expensive mistake.
On the other hand, every time I’ve signed the papers for buying a car or house I’ve felt awful. I’m a nervous wreck! And yet those decisions have worked out very well.
Great post! And I am really, really sorry about the revelation about your child’s death. That sounds horrific.
I am not sure what I believe about personal revelation. Does it happen for other people? I don’t want to claim that for them, either way. Does it happen for me? I don’t… think so?
When I need to make a choice, I usually know what I want. I think about it carefully, game out what all could happen (to a fault), and I often “feel good” about the decisions that I make. I don’t think that qualifies as revelation though. Or maybe it does and I just need to expand my definition?
To Hawkgrrrl’s post, and to an earlier one of yours, I’ve had maybe a handful of premonitions that could have been lucky guesses, or maybe even my brain working things out ahead of conscious thought.
So color me skeptical but uncertain.
Sometimes I think the ability to have spiritual/mystical experiences is innate. Just as some of us are born colorblind, some of us just don’t have access to certain types of spiritual experience. That’s me, maybe. On the whole, I’m okay with that state of affairs.
@BradD
That unlocked a memory I haven’t thought about in years. I thought I might have promised in the preexistence that I’d marry a certain person, but I was never completely sure that was a real revelation and I didn’t think it fair to hold me to promises I didn’t remember making about a life I had no experience about, so it wasn’t that big a deal to me that it didn’t work out. We never even dated. (That part was a bit disappointing because that was one of the less than ten people I’ve been romantically attracted to in my life. Also, cute.)
“ Don’t burden your kids with your spirituality and obedience “ – Janey. Mic drop! Really love that idea.
Even when I was an ABM it seemed that many people would blame bad decisions on personal revelation. If I follow the spirit and the decision is a disaster I don’t have to take responsibility for it – there is some higher purpose and I’m just being righteous.
you know, I wish I’d know you all decades ago. If I’d had this attitude about personal revelation in my younger years, wow, things would have been different. Of course, I would have been side-eyeing all of you judgmentally for being so faithless and uninspired because that’s what I used to be like, but still.
@Janey
The fact that a verse of Scripture popped into my mind that turned out not to exist made me more skeptical than I might otherwise have been.