The Truth About Hard Sundays

Have you ever sat in the church parking lot wondering if you had the emotional energy to walk inside?

Maybe you're wrestling toddlers alone because your husband is serving. Maybe he's stopped coming to church altogether. Maybe your teenager is making choices that break your heart, or your adult children have walked away from the faith you taught them. Or maybe you simply feel like you don't belong.

If church has started to feel heavy instead of hopeful, you're not alone.

In this episode, we're talking about why Sundays can feel so hard and why that doesn't mean you're failing. You'll learn the difference between clean pain and dirty pain, how the stories we tell ourselves can make our struggles even heavier, and how to find peace even when your circumstances haven't changed.

We'll also talk about:

• Why church isn't for perfect people
• What to do when you feel judged or out of place
• How the Savior meets us in our hardest Sundays
• A simple mindset shift that can help you stop spinning in shame and self-blame

Whether you're a young mom, sitting alone on the pew, grieving the choices of a child, or simply carrying a burden no one else can see, this episode will remind you that you are not alone and you are deeply loved.

If this episode encourages you, please share it with a friend who might need a little hope this Sunday.

Ready to find more peace?

Book your free Find Connection and Peace Call, and together we'll talk about what's weighing on your heart and help you move toward the peace that's possible, even when life isn't going the way you hoped.

https://calendly.com/sherylee-kartchner/25min

Transcript

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Have you ever sat in the church parking lot and wondered if you even had the emotional energy to walk inside? Not because you don't love the gospel, but because life feels so heavy. Maybe you've spent sacrament meeting walking the hallways with a baby. Or you're sitting by yourself because your husband is sitting on the stand. Maybe your teenager's choices have left you wondering what everyone else is thinking. Or your adult children are no longer attending church and every lesson about eternal families stings a little. Or you simply feel alone. If you've ever thought church feels hard, this episode is for you. Welcome to Open Conversations for LDS Moms. If you're an LDS mom who loves the church, but life or church doesn't feel as simple as it once did, you're in the right place. Here we talk openly about faith, motherhood, heartache, and finding peace when life looks different than you imagined. The pain we carry doesn't come from life itself, but from the thoughts and meaning we attach to it. I'm Sherry Lee, certified life coach and a mom. I am so glad we get to have these conversations together. This is episode 31, The Truth About Hard Sundays. There are a plethora of reasons why church would feel hard. You might be a young mom with toddlers and a baby. Or you're sitting alone because your husband is serving faithfully. Or you're sitting alone because your husband has said he no longer believes and is not coming to church anymore. You might be a parent of teenagers who's making choices that you don't agree with and you feel like you're being judged. Or you're a mom of adult children who have told you they no longer believe. So not only are you sitting alone because they've grown, but you're feeling very lonely because you're wondering what went wrong. You might be a widow or a divorced woman. You could even be a single adult watching everyone else celebrate the things you are praying for. If you struggle with infertility, baby blessings, Mother's Day, primary programs, all beautiful, but still painful. What if you're a caregiver and you have a spouse with dementia or a special needs child? There's mental struggles, depression, chronic illness. You might even be a new convert who is filled with the spirit, but everyone seems to know what they're doing, and you feel like you don't know or don't understand the language. You might even be somebody who's questioning the doctrine. You still want to believe, but it's not landing as easily as it used to. In Doctrine and Covenants 121, verse 7 and 8, it says, My son, peace be unto thy soul. Thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment. I believe that scripture, but when you're in those moments, it feels hard. Of course, I have not experienced every challenge, but I have experienced a lot of them. I have been that new mom, wondering, what am I even doing here? I've got a toddler acting up, baby that's crying, it's their nap time. It was hard. I've also been sitting on the pew by myself with four boys while my husband served. Getting them to church by myself, sitting by myself, taking them home by myself. It was hard. And I'm not saying any of these hard, like one is harder than the other, but when you're in it, it does feel hard. I've also been that mom with teenagers that maybe weren't making choices that I loved, and it felt like everybody was talking about us. I felt alienated, I felt judged, I did not feel loved. There's a quote by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland that he gave in April 2009 General Conference, and it is one of my all-time favorites. He said, because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path, utterly alone, we do not have to do so. He also said, some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It would be amazing if all of our blessings came soon, if the heartache and the hurt and the struggle was just for a moment. And I guess in God's timeline it is, but for us, if you're in the midst of it, it can feel like a long, lonely, hard time. I think part of my struggle was I thought church was for perfect people. And I was trying really hard to do and be that kind of person. But it has been described as a hospital full of sick people. We're all there struggling. We all have different challenges. That does not mean that God is not aware of us and our struggles and what is going on. You could also think of it as a place where weary disciples gather. We're coming together, and it would be so awesome if we could love and support each other without judgment, without shame for whatever that person is going through. In October of 2013, President Dieter F. Uchdorf asked this question. Thankfully, he went on to answer that question. The church is designed to nourish the imperfect, the struggling, and the exhausted. It is filled with people who desire with all their hearts to keep the commandments, even if they haven't mastered them yet. We are all imperfect humans trying our best to have a relationship with our heavenly parents, trying to follow the teachings. And it still can be hard. Later in his talk, President Ukdorf went on to say: if we expect the church to be perfect, we are going to be disappointed. God works through imperfect people. That's all of us. Several years ago, when we had just moved to Arizona, we were living in a rental house, waiting for the spec house that we had purchased to be finished. So we started attending the ward that that home was going to be in because we were only going to be in the other home a few weeks. Our younger two children were freshmen and juniors. We moved them from a town where their high school was about 300 students to a new high school of 2,500. It was a challenge for them. We were struggling finding our way. We felt like the move was the right thing to do. And there were other challenges that were weighing heavy on my heart. And I was worried for my kids. I was hoping because it felt like the right thing to do, that it would be easy. But the right thing does not equate to easy. And I remember sitting in relief society. We'd only been in the ward a few weeks. I really didn't know anybody because we weren't even living in the neighborhood. And it was a big ward. Probably six or seven hundred people with a lot of young families. I was sitting by myself feeling very sad. I didn't realize that I was sad, but I started to tear up and I had a lot of heartache. It felt hard to be at church that day. I had an impression that I have remembered for all these years. I realized that I was not alone in my heartache. They might not have had the same struggle that I had, but I could guarantee as I looked around that room, that no matter what challenge I thought of, I bet I could find a woman in there at that moment that was struggling, that was feeling the hard. Whether she was a young mom, whether she had kids that were making choices she didn't love, she might be a newly divorced woman or struggling in her marriage or feeling alone because her husband is serving and she's spending so much time on Sunday by herself. Whatever the challenges were, I was sure there was somebody there struggling in that hard. And then I also remembered that we have a savior. So we are never alone in our heartache because he understands and knows each one of us. I want to teach you about clean pain versus dirty pain. Clean pain progresses you and moves you through the heartache. We're never going to have pain-free lives. We're supposed to experience pain. If we lose a spouse, we're supposed to feel sorrow. If our child is making choices that we don't love, we're supposed to be sad and discouraged and disappointed. Just because we're members of the church does not mean that we don't have pain. But the clean pain moves us through. It's almost refining. It feels like progress. Dirty pain, on the other hand, keeps you stuck and spinning. And a lot of the challenges that I have had when I have found church to be hard, it's because I was in my own head stuck in a lot of dirty pain. I had a lot of shame. I had a lot of what are they thinking? What are they saying about us? Feeling like I was being judged. Clean pain might look like, I miss my family sitting beside me. Dirty pain sounds like I don't belong here. They're judging me. I failed. What did I do wrong? Everyone else has it figured out. God must be disappointed in me. That will keep you stuck and spinning. So I want you to think about this. What if the hardest part of church isn't always about what is happening, the actual fact of the situation? What if it's what we're making it mean? What if it's our thoughts that are keeping us spinning? It's that story that we're telling ourselves. Yes, there probably are people talking about you or judging you. That is on them. That has nothing to do with you. And if you can let them be them, stay in their own lane and you worry about you, you're there to connect and to renew your covenants with your Heavenly Father. That is your reason for being there. It doesn't matter what other people think or say. Yeah, it can hurt and you can deal with that clean pain of, oh, I don't like knowing that. But it will progress you and not keep you stuck and spinning and looking for ways to fix a problem that probably doesn't need fixed, anyways. I want to share an experience that I had that was a huge lesson for me. One of my sons was making choices that I wasn't loving. A lot of his friends had left on missions and he was not going to be going. He was working away from home for 10 days and then he would come home for three days. It was every other weekend that he was home. When you live in a small town, people seem to know your business more than they do in a bigger city. When he was home on those weekends, he would usually show up for sacrament meeting. It was that third hour when we used to have three hours of church, and ours had sacrament meeting last. He would eventually come into sacrament meeting. And I did feel like people would stare and whisper to each other. A lot of it is the story that I created in my head that I was being judged. But without fail, two women, one had a little bit of a family connection and somebody else that besides just living in the same town, we didn't have a lot of interaction with. A simple small conversation, and then they would go home with their families. I started to notice it and I was so impressed. Instead of talking about and judging him, they came over and did what Christ would do. Said a quick hello, how are you doing? It's good to see you. Here's the key. Not only did I notice, but my son noticed. He asked me one day, do you ever notice that those two ladies always come and say hello to me? And I said, Yeah, I did. It was a simple conversation and it made him feel loved and appreciated. He wasn't a project that needed fixing. If you're struggling, the last thing you want is to feel like you're the ward project. I also had an experience in state conference a few months ago. I did not know this young mom that spoke. And I don't remember the reasoning that her husband wasn't at church. I believe he worked on Sundays, but she had a toddler and then she had twins. And she was talking about how hard it was to come to church. Even getting there was hard. And she talked about how she always ended up in the hallway and really wondered why she was there. And I get that it's hard. I don't know if she didn't want help or if nobody offered, but church can be hard for a plethora of reasons. If you're a new widow or if you've just been divorced, it is going to feel different. It's going to be hard. You're trying to figure things out and see where you even fit. I love what Elder Bednar teaches about the enabling power of the atonement. Sometimes we pray for God to remove what's hard. But what if today he's doing what he did for Alma's people in Mosaiah 24? He didn't remove their burdens immediately, he strengthened them so they could bear them. Maybe that's what he's doing for you today. He's giving you additional strength. In Matthew 11, 28 through 30, it says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. It can feel difficult when you're in the middle of something. You don't even see a light at the end of the tunnel. If you're spending every Sunday out in the hallway with toddlers and babies, it's hard to imagine that season being over. I had a beautiful coaching call with a lady who is older than I am and has grown children. And she said Sundays were so sad for her. It had nothing really to do with going to church. But what was hard was she was in her own head because of her children. I don't remember how many she had, four, five, or six. Only one of them still attended church. And so she was sad. She was sad, wondering, what more could I do? What do I need to do now? And that's where I want you to think about the clean pain versus dirty pain. The clean pain is, yeah, it is going to feel sad. It would be just weird if we felt like we were supposed to be happy in every situation. But the part that was making her sad was wondering what more she could do. Where did she go wrong? Why is this happening to her family instead of placing it in God's hands and trusting in Him and His timing? A lot of the coaching that I do is to help women who have adult children that are no longer attending church find peace that's possible, even if their children don't come back to church. Because if you're waiting for everyone to be happy and to come back to church and embrace the gospel the way you taught them, and you feel like you can't find happiness and peace until that happens, it's going to be a long, painful road. That doesn't mean that you don't have moments of sadness and you embrace that and take it on and sit with it for a few minutes, pushing it away, thinking it should be something different is what builds and festers. Take a check on yourself. Are you experiencing clean pain? It's natural to feel sadness. And I'm going to sit on Sundays for a few minutes and I'm going to be sad, but I am not going to take my whole day being sad. I'm not going to compare myself to other families. I am not going to come up with ways to manipulate my family or think about all the ways that I've fallen short and shaming and blaming myself. I'm going to embrace the clean pain and not let myself get caught up in the spinning of the dirty pain, wondering where I went wrong and what more I could have done. You did your part. You did everything you could. And that is all God asks of us. President Ugdorf said the work of discipleship is not easy. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. This journey on earth is long. There's a lot of learning and growth. And a huge part of that growth comes through the hard. I also love this quote by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. He gave it in 1999. Don't give up. Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead. I love that. There is happiness and help ahead. If you know a mom who needs to hear this, I would love it if you would share this podcast with her. It helps it get found by more women who love the Lord. I also want to invite you to a free Find Connection and Peace one-on-one call with me. In just 25 minutes, we'll talk about what's heavy on your heart, and I will help you find some peace that you've probably been missing for a very long time. The truth is, Sundays can be hard, but they can also be beautiful. Sometimes listening is enough, and sometimes you're ready for more support. I want to invite you to a free connection and peace call with me. In our 25 minutes together, we'll talk about where you are, what feels hard right now. You will leave with more hope, connection, and peace. You can find the link to schedule your free call below. And if these conversations matter to you, following, subscribing, and sharing the podcast helps more LDS moms find support. Feel seen and know that they are not alone. Your story is not over. God is still working in ways you may not be able to see.