1.
RETURNING TO FAITH
By Rosemary M. Wixom
Primary General President
April 2015

2.
JOURNEY TO RE-GAIN FAITH
• Focus on truths she did believe
• Prayer and Scripture study incredible important
• In the face of doubt, “Stop, and look at whole
picture”
• You have to have your own spiritual experience

3.
SPIRITUAL DARKNESS
WHAT IS THE DARK NIGHT OF THE
SOUL?

4.
SPIRITUAL DARKNESS
WHAT IS THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL?
• Crisis of faith
• Questioning one’s testimony
• Feelings of abandonment and absence of the
spirit
• Thought that God may not exist, and if he does
He does not answer prayers!

5.
MOTHER TERESA’S
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss – of God
not wanting me – of God not being God – of God not
really existing … That darkness that surrounds me on
all sides –

6.
PERSONAL DARK NIGHTS
Spiritual Darkness will Come to All

7.
CAUSES OF THE “DARK NIGHT”

8.
CAUSES OF THE “DARK NIGHT”
• Condition of Mortality
• “dark veil of unbelief” (Alma 19:6)
• “… I do not know the meaning of all things” (1 Nep 11:17)
• Rage against God for perceived injustice, tragedy, or sickness
• Path to Apostasy
• Disobedience
• Focusing on critical, deceptive, and misleading information
• Little by little our light burns out!
• Read Quote 1 (President Uchtdorf)

9.
WHY DO WE HAVE TO HAVE
EXPERIENCES THAT TRY OUR FAITH;
WHY IS GOD SOMETIMES SO SLOW TO
MAKE HIS PRESENCE KNOWN –
ESPECIALLY WHEN WE ARE PROMISED
TO HAVE HIS SPIRIT WITH US ALWAYS?

10.
OPPOSITION IN ALL THINGS
• Read Quote 2 (Elder Hunter)
• “There must be grounds for doubt as well as belief,
in order to render the choice [to believe] more truly
a choice, and therefore the more deliberate, and
laden with personal vulnerability and investment”
• (Givens, The God Who Weeps).

11.
GOD WILL HAVE A TRIED PEOPLE
•Read D&C 136:31
•Read Quote 3 (Brigham Young)
•We are forced to answer the question -
“Will ye also go away?”

12.
GOD WANTS TO MAKE US INDEPENDENT IN
OUR SPHERE/SPIRITUALLY MATURE
• Brigham Young thought God’s intention was to make us as
independent in our sphere is he is in His… it may be for this reason
that the heavens close from time to time, to give us room for self-
direction.
• ….To be an agent unto oneself may very well require that we operate
in the valley of incertitude. … Like the sand in the oyster shell, the
torment of uncertainty is at the same time the spur to our spiritual
vitality and growth. (Givens, Crucible of Doubt).

13.
ANSWERS ALWAYS COME BUT NOT ON OUR
TIME TABLE AND NOT ALWAYS IN THE MANNER
EXPECTED
• It is also possible that God’s answers are sometimes too indirect, too oblique,
for us to recognize because we are looking for something more palpable
• Sometimes the problem may be that our expectations are too paltry, not too
grandiose. We so strain to hear the voice in the whirlwind that we fail to see
light breaking in the east. We are waiting for the message even as our world
has been miraculously reconstituted around us. (Givens, Crucible of Doubt)

14.
“I THIRST”
• Mother Teresa came to believe the darkness helped her
identify not only with the abandonment that Jesus Christ
felt during the crucifixion, but also with the abandonment
that the poor faced daily. In this way she hoped to enter, in
her words, the “dark holes” of the lives of the people with
whom she worked.

15.
WHAT DO WE DO WHEN WE FIND OURSELVES IN
THE “DARK AND DREARY WASTE”
• “As she reflected back, she said, ‘My testimony had
become like a pile of ashes. It had all burned down.
All that remained was Jesus Christ’”
• Read Isaiah 61:3

16.
JOURNEY TO RE-GAIN FAITH
• Focus on truths she did believe
• Prayer and Scripture study incredible important
• In the face of doubt, “Stop, and look at whole
picture”
• You have to have your own spiritual experience

17.
ENCOURAGEMENT FOR THOSE IN
DARKNESS SEEKING THE LIGHT
•Sister Wixom taught that ward members
did not hesitate to give love and courtesy
and support during her crisis of faith.
•Read Quote 10

18.
“ WE ARE ALL PILGRIMS SEEKING GOD’S
LIGHT AS WE JOURNEY ON THE PATH OF
DISCIPLESHIP. WE DO NOT CONDEMN
OTHERS FOR THE AMOUNT OF LIGHT
THEY MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE; RATHER,
WE NOURISH AND ENCOURAGE ALL
LIGHT UNTIL IT GROWS CLEAR, BRIGHT,
AND TRUE.”
• President Dieter F. Uchtdorf