Remembering and Testimony

I have for many years been mystified by how people can once have a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and then supposedly lose it. People say, “well they must not have had a testimony in the first place” but I don’t believe that is true.  For my own self, I want to be sure that I remain true and faithful to what I know.  I want to be able to weather the storms of life, the darts of the adversary and my own personal failings and temptations.   

Perhaps how our brains work holds something of the answer to this forgetting.  Yesterday on CBC on “Quirks and Quarks” a question was asked about memory.  The question was whether when we remember something, we are remembering the original experience or whether we are remembering the remembering.  We do in fact remember the memory not the original experience.  Like a computer we make new versions of experience as we remember .  The interesting thing is that the memory is influenced by  what we are thinking at the time we are in the remembering process.  The context of how we are and what we are thinking about when we remember overlays itself on our memory of the original experience.  That means that depending on what is happening to us in the current context, our memory of the past can change or be changed by our current experience.  In relation to testimony, if we are in a state of doubt when we think about a spiritual experience in the past, that memory can be affected by our current doubt.

It turns out then that the ability to remember what we know is a key aspect of maintaining a testimony. Perhaps that is why the Lord uses this word so frequently in the scriptures.  In Mosiah  4:30 King Benjamin says “But this much I can tell you, that if you do not watch yourselves and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish.  And now, O man, remember,  and perish not.”  So when challenges and adversity come, as they will, it is important to remember, truly remember, what we have known and experienced that have built our testimony. 

The purpose of this life is to gain experience and through wise choices gain wisdom, becoming perfected like our Heavenly Parents.  If we are raised in the gospel as I was, we learn about spiritual practices such as prayer and scripture reading, church attendance and service.  We learn how to do these things and by both explicit and implicit (i.e. example) teaching  we have the opportunity to learn the importance of these spiritual practices.

 As we grow older, we take upon ourselves sacred commitments and make promises to the Lord that we have come to know, in the temple. With integrity, we try our best to keep these covenants, thinking deeply about gospel principles and giving ourselves to the service of others.  As we gain experience praying, fasting, not just reading but studying the scriptures, attending years of church meetings and giving service through hard times, we learn to love and come to deeper understandings about the gospel of Jesus Christ.   This experience over time develops into a testimony of the truth of individual principles and of the gospel in its entirety. 

The more we discipline ourselves with these practices, the  more sensitive we become to the Spirit and more able to discern light and truth  The more we experience of light and truth the more we are learn from our experience and  the deeper our testimony becomes. The more we come to understand our daily need for the love, mercy and atonement of Jesus Christ. We learn to overlook the failings of others and in the organization of the church.   This process that begins in our youth as simple instruction and rote obedience, as adults has us make choices to continue this spiritual learning and then to remember what we have learned.  We can become through this process wise as to the things of the spirit. 

As adults we must continue in this spiritual discipline.  Like physical fitness, we much persevere and continue in this practice to maintain our spiritual strength.  Just as physical fitness can be lost, spiritual sensitivity can also be lost through inattention, through participating in activities and exposing ourselves to experiences that take our focus from that which is spiritual.  These are many and varied.  The temptations are real and powerful:  money, career, sex, drugs, alcohol, feminism, activism and intellectualism.  There are too many to list and their power is personal and individual.   Each of us may respond and be tempted to different degreees but in our world these detractors are constant and pernicious.

If the research in how we remember is true, then what we are choosing to do today in relation to spiritual discipline can in fact have us forget what we once knew.  Our current doubt can have us change our past confidence.  This explains how people can begin to tell different stories about their testimony and about what they once knew. It becomes easier to say that they never knew it was true.  This is hard and painful and has me reflect on what I know and have learned.  It encourages me to rehearse often in times of both strength and weakness what my past experiences have meant, what I know to be true to be sure that I remember and do not lose the spiritual wisdom and light that I now have.

I have experienced the direction of the Spirit in both the mundane i.e. where is the wallet, to the incredibly important i.e. who should I marry and if and when I should I have a child.  I have felt the comfort in my darkest saddest times that there is eternal life and those that I love that have departed are yet alive and know and care for me.  I have felt the strength that comes from depending on the Lord through hard times, hard physical and emotional.  I have been able to do more with this strengthening than I could ever have imagined doing on my own. 

I have seen the transformation that comes in lives and families when gospel covenants are made and kept. I have seen the pain and suffering that follows when they are not. I have seen the power, strength and wisdom that comes to women who have given their lives to gospel and family service.  I have seen the unselfish softening and humility that comes to men who have kept the oath and covenant of the priesthood.  I have felt the joy of repentance and the sweet forgiveness of the Saviour and know that this is real.      

I am grateful for the heritage of faith and testimony and church membership at have. I am grateful for the choices that my progenitors made at great personal sacrifice to join and stay true to this gospel and this church.  Just as they knew that there was a prophet and the true religion had been restored so do I know that we have a prophet.  And, in spite of the failings of individuals and the every changing world context, this is the true religion and only true church. I am grateful for this knowledge.  As my sisters both said to me on different occasions, I will not allow any person or experience to have me deny what I know, to sever in any way my association with this church, its members and to leave.  I will not let down those who came before me by treating it with lightness.  I will not disappoint those whose sacrifice was great, by becoming discouraged with my imperfections or because of any other trial no matter how great.  This is what I want to remember and do remember.