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Cassie M
 Coming Out of Mormonism
I am a mom of two beautiful children and wife to an amazing man for over nine years and here is my story about coming out of Mormonism. I am the oldest of 3 siblings. I grew up in a home with the most supportive and loving father and an abusive mother. Straight A’s and perfect behavior was expected. I knew at a very young age that my parent’s marriage was a mess. There were many nights where I would hide in my room while they would fight, praying for my God to fix them. With all that would go on, we were expected to put on the facade of having the perfect family or at least close to it.
My dad did not know the extent of my mother’s abuse toward me until my ninth grade year when she lost it on me before school for borrowing my best friend’s clothes for the day, and a teacher saw me come in late with marks on my arms. That night I walked with my dad and told him what had happened and that the state was going to come to our home. I remember him looking at me heartbroken that he had not seen it. When we got home, my mother was irrationally upset for my father taking his daughter for a walk and accused us of having an affair. Needless to say, my family as I knew it quickly ripped apart at the seams. My parent’s marriage only lasted about one more year after that. Little did I know that the true God was about to change the trajectory of my life.
I was going to work after school one day. I was a junior in high school at this point with a lead role in Saturday’s Warrior with a local theatre and was hit on my driver’s side door at 75 miles per hour. My pelvic bone was cracked in three different places, my left leg was numb, and even worse, I had totaled my dad’s truck that he had just paid off. It took about 3 months to learn to walk again. I lost whatever I was holding onto in my faith. How could this happen with so much that I had already been through?
December of that same year, I got a job at a fast food restaurant to help my dad out with my accident expenses. That same year, we found out that my mother was having an affair with a guy from her work, and with that, my parents divorced.
In the fall of 2000, God brought a man into my life that He would use to share the true gospel with me. He had just gotten back from a semester of Bible college and came in looking for a job at the place where I worked. As we would talk during our shift, I found out that he had graduated from the same high school I went just two years earlier. In fact, we just lived about a block away from each other, and our little siblings had been in almost the same classes together throughout elementary. He asked to come to my senior year school musical, which I had a lead role in, and we started to date after that.
I remember taking him to a family dinner with my whole family, and my uncle asking him if he was going to get me to start going to church again. My boyfriend responded, “I would hope that she would want to go to my church.” I had NO idea what to say. All I knew was to be LDS or nothing, and I wasn’t interested in serving a god that had failed my family and me.
The ride home that night was the first that I would hear about what an evangelical Christian believed. We spent many long nights talking about God and differences between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, and SO many other things. I sadly got stuck for a while on having an eternal family, but his response to me was: “Is it more important to you to have an eternal family or to live eternally with God?” I started to hang out with his family and went to his church. Something was SO DIFFERENT!! My dad was, needless to say, not happy with what was happening in my life. I wanted to spend my time with my boyfriend and his family. I wanted to go to his church where a band played worship music and people listened to a pastor that opened the Bible and taught from it.
I graduated from high school June 2001. After about a year, I don’t know exactly when, but I remember driving in my car and saying out loud, “God, I need you. I am a sinner and I’m tired for trying to be good enough for anyone. I know that there is something different about you. I need Jesus. Thank you for dying on the cross for me… help me… love me.” I didn’t know everything about God or His Bible, but I knew that I wanted it! As the summer went on, things in the Bible and at my boyfriend’s church started to make sense and become clearer.
My boyfriend proposed November 2002, and we were married March 2003 in front of a lite cross with the true gospel message being read at our wedding. My family was there, but this was probably the first marriage that they had even experienced outside of the LDS Church. My husband’s family and our church family went above and beyond for him and I!
My first year of marriage was very rough. I had not realized that I had picked up some things from my mother and had not truly realized what a marriage was. With our realization what was happening, we knew that we needed to work on things to save our marriage. With God as our guide, we started mending. I got involved in a children’s ministry program and started to learn and memorize God’s Word in my heart. We purchased our first house in 2004, and had our son in 2005. I rededicated my life to God after our daughter was born in 2007. We found Lifeline Community Church in January 2008. I was SO scared to even be myself-- afraid that they would learn about the real me, a sinner, a mess-up, and not this Christian who was hungry for His word. I found the most amazing brothers and sisters in Christ at church, who God has used to grow and mold me more into His image.
Am I still sorting LDS teachings out of my head? Yes, but learning so much what the true word of God says.
How has my family reacted with me becoming a believer? They are more involved now with us having kids and they have supported me in some things I have done with my church, but they are not very interested in talking about what I believe.
Has my faith been tested? ABSOLUTELY!! I have been to hell and back, but the difference is that God is with me the entire time!!
The man that God brought into my life is my husband of over nine years now and God has used him to show me so much about God’s love toward me! My children get to grow up in a home with parents that love the Lord and are teaching them about Him everyday! I love having my sisters in Christ that I can call up and tell them that I am having a stinky day as a mom and have them pray with me over the phone!
Acts 16:31 says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” That’s my favorite verse. God opened my eyes and I am SO thankful. I pray that he uses my story to open eyes that have been clouded.
Cassie M
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