We active folks are happy. We don’t know it tho. My 2 return missionary sons left the church in their late 20’s. Shortly after, they spiraled into alcoholism, drug addiction, lost their jobs, got evicted with their families, ultimately divorced, and virtually lost everything. Alcoholism caught up to my former daughter in law and she has 3-4 months to live due to heart disease. She’s 44 and will be leaving 3 kids behind. Like most, they thought that leaving the church would make them happy. Now they look back and realize they were happy when they embraced the church
Thank you for your thoughts. This is good stuff. I left the faith for seven years, but then experienced a reconversion. Genuinely loving and thoughtful family members made my return less fraught than it could have been. I believe all of us need to consider our relationships with the individuals who are leaving or simply on the fringes as part of our ministering. We can all do better.
We active folks are happy. We don’t know it tho. My 2 return missionary sons left the church in their late 20’s. Shortly after, they spiraled into alcoholism, drug addiction, lost their jobs, got evicted with their families, ultimately divorced, and virtually lost everything. Alcoholism caught up to my former daughter in law and she has 3-4 months to live due to heart disease. She’s 44 and will be leaving 3 kids behind. Like most, they thought that leaving the church would make them happy. Now they look back and realize they were happy when they embraced the church
Thank you for your thoughts. This is good stuff. I left the faith for seven years, but then experienced a reconversion. Genuinely loving and thoughtful family members made my return less fraught than it could have been. I believe all of us need to consider our relationships with the individuals who are leaving or simply on the fringes as part of our ministering. We can all do better.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic. My wife and I had a great conversation about this after listening.