The Boy With the Shield Tattoo

“I can’t keep seeing you,” I explained somewhat ironically in my church parking lot. “I need to follow The Church’s teachings, and I have to stop. I hope you understand.”

“You won’t be happy. That life won’t make you happy,” was the reply. I could tell that it was painful, but I knew that I was hurting Jesus Christ, I was the cause of many drops of His blood.

“I will be happy doing what God would have me do.”

I then found myself in the first real depression of my life as I turned my back on something that felt so good and so right. I turned my back on the first person I had ever had romantic and intimate feelings for, a man.

The following few weeks found me often in my bishop’s car or office; I was a robot, completely void of emotion regarding it all. It was programmed inside me; anything contrary to the will of The Church must be ceased and must be wiped clean: a blank slate, white snow, without blemish.

As I worked with my bishop to recover my worth within The Church, I informed him that I would be celibate for the rest of my life. I would never have love. I was seventeen. I was immediately removed from my calling, placed on probation and warned I might not be worth sending on a mission to preach the good Word.

I had just over a year before I was to go on my mission and from everything I had heard, a year is the typical amount of time allotted for repenting of sexual sin in order to serve. I would be able to go on time after all! I then informed my bishop that I thought it best if I went and talked to my stake president as soon as possible so that there would be no hold up as time went on. He thought that it might not be necessary but I was insistent and so he helped me set an appointment.

The first time I met with the stake president I felt absolutely nothing. I felt no hand of God. I felt no spirit. I felt no warmth or goodness. I saw a shell of a man. I saw an actor. I saw a man feigning power. I made certain to not let anything go unconfessed. I started back from the moment I was baptized and reconfessed my sins to him, because he saw it was necessary. The words, “and I shall remember them, no more” meant nothing at this time.

After I had finished, he looked at me and explained that he would do what he could to see that I got on a mission, but that I should consider a shorter, less than honorable service mission. I left his office, with little hope, but a resolve that I would do everything I could to change that and make it possible.

Not long after, I received this phone call: “Matthew, come home as soon as you can. Your father received a phone call from the stake president. We need to discuss this.”

My stake president, a “man of God” and supposedly an ethical, honest man destroyed my trust, broke confidentiality and betrayed my faith. By this time, I was legally an adult, but I couldn’t even repent on my own, confess on my own, or follow God on my own.

Needless to say, the conversation did not go well. It was no secret to my parents that I had feelings for men, but they weren’t prepared for me to do something about them. I straightaway began straight-therapy and was taught how to be attracted to women. It was a talent that I needed to cultivate for that recital called “Married for Sex: because the parts were made to fit this way” at which premiere I could “let my light so shine.”

I continued with therapy as well as meeting with my bishop and stake president, despite his total disregard for integrity. I was even made to feel bad for being upset with my stake president and found myself repenting of my anger, because I was to follow my leaders. I was to be a sheep. I was to follow the flock.

People think that I didn’t go on a mission because I just didn’t want to, but I did. I tried so hard. I cried and repented. I relived my shame over and over hoping that The Church would forgive me. I realized after about a year that it wouldn’t. I had been working on my mission papers and went to see my stake president one final time before I was to submit them. He told me that I could go ahead and submit them, and he would sign them, but according to the brethren, my request to serve my Lord would most likely be rejected. At that moment, what little hope I had left, left.

No matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I wanted it, I wasn’t worth sending out to serve God. On the other hand, my straight counterparts, even the ones fornicating weeks before leaving, were. My nineteenth birthday came and went and I continued on faithfully in The Church and disregarded the talk and the questions regarding the nineteen year old male not on a mission.

I may not have been called to serve like my parents, siblings, relatives and friends had wanted, but I look back and I have to count my blessings because I know that I have been called to serve in a much more meaningful way. Since leaving The Church, I have found peace in a life that it condemns, hope for a future with true liberty that it would tear apart, and happiness that it tries to belittle. My mission is to share with others that promise of life, liberty and happiness so that they can find that same peace and hope.