09/07/2026
*TRIGGER WARNING*
“I grew up in a ‘yours, mine and ours’ family of 16 kids.
It’s not easy to blend two massive families and amongst the chaos I was a victim of SA by family member.
This went on for four years.
When I finally told my parents about it, I was told to keep it under wraps so that I would not be taken away and given back to my father.
We were raised very religious and to fear God in all our actions.
Through my childhood years, my testimony was built in fear, not in faith.
In high school, I began to feel that God had not actually been there for me all long.
I really never got to fully process the abuse until I was married.
I would go to therapy and during the process, I began to feel that I had been abandoned by God during those childhood years.
I read the CES letter and other anti-Mormon literature and started to feel that it was easier to dismiss God’s existence, than to believe that he abandoned me.
I told my husband that I was leaving the church and we had many conversations about what I was reading.
As I pushed God away my husband fought to prove to me that God wasn’t a God of fear but of love.
That he had never abandoned me.
That he had a greater purpose for me.
This was a hard time in our marriage.
With our marriage on the line I decided to read the Book of Mormon because I needed to know once and for all if it was true.
God testified to me that it was true and that he had been there for me all along.
He sent good people to help me see His love, to relearn of him and that he was waiting with open arms to welcome me back.
Looking back I know that He was always there.
I can see those moments when he made his love known.
I just needed to look.”
-Bailey