5th
Generation Mormon who became a Christian:
Nola Taylor
I grew up in the Mormon Church,
better known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was a
5th generation Mormon on one side of the family and 4th or 5th on the other
side. I grew up memorizing the Articles of Faith of the denomination, as
well as other "doctrines" as they were made available by the
Presidency of the church through revelation, primarily in the era of David
O. McKay.
As a teen-ager, I became disillusioned, not only
in the tenets of the organization, but in the people, including my own
family members, who were a part of the denomination in the tri-town area
that I lived in. I saw too many who proclaimed faith in the teachings, but
did not follow them. At this time, we moved into an old farmhouse my
parents had purchased, in which I found a number of Christian magazines and
books, and in reading them, my suspicions regarding the teaching of
Mormonism that it was "the one true church" brought me under
further conviction. Adding to this spiritual struggle was the fact of the
Viet Nam war, and the fear I had as many young men I knew were being called
into service by our country. The question that haunted my adolescent mind
was, how can they treat males differently from females, if all were found
guilty, and moreover, how could they call this adultery when our
denomination had so proudly taught me that Brigham Young, one of the first
leaders of the church, had several wives and children in a house in Utah
called "the beehive"? This caused me to wonder exactly what adultery
and fornication were all about.
I left our little tri-community area shortly after
graduating from high school, and lived a rather promiscuous life in a
larger town several miles away, which also had a large L.D.S. community, as
do most towns in northern Wyoming. I never attended church or MIA there, as
I had "skipped" most of the MIA classes as a teenager, anyway, in
my rebellion toward the church.
In 1972, I met a young man, moved in with him, and
immediately got pregnant. We weren't married until our baby boy was almost
four months old, and we had moved back to the community I had grown up in.
I still had no interest in the church, although, as our family grew, I
began to wonder about the need to have the children in church.
We moved several times, and on the day that my
third son and I came home from the hospital, my husband went to work in a
mining camp six hours from us, and we were separated for almost nine
months, with occasional weekends together. Finally, the day came when
we could move to the mining camp, and I was excited at the prospect of
being a family once again. However, discouragement set in when I realized
that I had developed a life-style which revolved around my home and
children, while my husband had adapted to the loneliness of mining camp
life by creating a new lifestyle for himself in which he spent long hours
at the bar or out on the prairies with the men he worked with, during his
free time after work and on days off.
Suffice it to say, our marriage was on the rocks
… I threw his belongings out into the front yard and locked him out of
the house on two occasions, and was seriously contemplating divorce, when I
met two Christian ladies who changed the direction of my thinking, and
caused me to question my responsibility in holding our marriage together.
Over a period of several months, these two Christian ladies shared with
me how God had worked in each of their lives, and eventually, I gave
in to their urgings to attend the small Southern Baptist Church they
belonged to.
On that morning, May 21, 1979,sitting there in the
double-wide mobile that served as the church in that prairie mining town, I
again came under great conviction that there was more to this "church
thing", and for the first time I heard the True Gospel preached.
During the invitation I stood trembling, not even knowing what an
invitation was about, and the Holy Spirit took hold of me in a way I’d
never known before. When the invitation began, the congregation was singing
words to a hymn I’d never heard … "Nothing But the Blood" ,
and that song continued to bring conviction with words that said that
NOTHING could take care of the needs in my life, except the shed blood of
Jesus Christ, and although I clutched my 1-year-old tightly in my arms to
keep from having to move, the Lord had another purpose. When the invitation
was extended, I turned, handing my baby into the arms of a friend who had
come with me, and I went forward and took the Pastor’s hands with tears
washing down my face, and told him that I needed to know Jesus in that
personal way he had spoken of in his message. So, he knelt with me there,
while the strains of "Nothing But the Blood" continued on the
piano, and led me in prayer as I asked the True Jesus Christ of the Bible
to come into my heart and change my life.
When I stood to my feet, it was as if the weight
of the world had been lifted from me, and as people came forward to greet
me, I found the love I so desperately needed in my life at that moment…and
for the first time in my life, I knew absolute peace.
When my husband returned home that evening from
work, I had the house in order, the kids fed and in bed, and was ready to
give him the news about what had taken place in my life. I’m not sure
what I expected, but the reaction I got was not what I’d hoped for. His
response was, "That’s ok for you, if that’s what you want, just
don’t be preaching it to me." Discouraged, but still feeling the
peace of God, I gave it back to Jesus, and prayed my first prayer as a
Believer, asking God to work the same miracle in my husband’s life that
He had worked in my own. I shared what had happened with my Christian
friends, who encouraged me to continue to faithfully attend church and to
pray for my husband. They took on the mission then of discipling me, and
over the weeks, with their encouragement, my faith grew, and I continued to
grow in Christ. I began by attending on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, as
well, and asked others to pray with me for my husband, and was excited to
attend several revival services and send my kids to VBS over the summer.
On July 4th, I was to be baptized in the Little
Medicine Bow River, but my husband wanted to join friends from work and
their families on a fishing/camping trip. I compromised by saying the kids
and I would join him if he would promise to be back in time for me to be
baptized, an asked him to come with me for that. He said he would. However,
as the afternoon wore on, he did not return to the camp site from fishing
upstream with a friend, and so, in frustration, and nearly in tears, I
loaded the kids into our pickup truck, backed out and started to leave the
campground. He came around a bend in the creek, and asked me where I was
going. I reminded him of the baptism, and he told me he wanted to stay at
the camp, so we got into an argument. I reminded him of his earlier
promise, and giving in, he climbed into the truck with me, and drove back
to the church with me, where we boarded the church bus and drove out to the
river for baptism. My husband was impressed with the friendliness and joy
in the people he met that day, and several weeks later, when I was home,
not feeling well, he had to pick up the boys from Sunday School, and stayed
to hear the end of a sermon. Then, I invited him to attend a revival
service and dinner one night. Much to my surprise, he agreed to go, and
that night he gave his heart to Christ, as well.
Since then, although we’ve struggled, we’ve
grown and our marriage is what God intended marriage to be. We’ve been
married almost 26 years, and although there have been struggles, we have
worked through the difficulties, and have come to love and appreciate one
another more and more in those years. In addition, he surrendered to the
ministry just a few years later, went to a Christian College for 3 years,
and is now teaching Youth and is a Promise Keepers Point Man, helps lead a
men’s ministry, and carries out several positions of responsibility in
our church. The Lord saw fit to give us another son shortly after we were
both saved, and we’ve seen all of our boys accept Christ, and pray daily
for Him to "work out their salvation" by growing them as He has
us.
Our God is a gracious God of mercy, light and
love, who is not willing that any should perish, but that all should have
eternal life. He has equipped me to minister to other women, especially
women who are in difficult marriages, and to minister, along with my
husband to many "foundlings" in our world. We have adopted
another son, who is a young adult now, and is not saved. We covet your
prayers for him. God has also restored to us a relationship with my
husbands daughter from his first marriage; she and I are very close. Most
recently, the Lord has called me to establish a Children’s Church
ministry in our local church, which has never had one. I covet your prayers
in that effort, as well.
It is my prayer that "all who are in the
darkness will see the light. If you are in the darkness of a cult or a
denomination who’s primary focus is not in leading you to a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ, then I would encourage you to pray, asking
God to give you that relationship, and to guide you to a place of service
in Him. Please contact me at : crochetgranny@hotmail.com
if I can answer questions or minister to you in any way.
In His Service,
AMEN.
Nola Taylor
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