[written to a friend publicly wrestling with doubts about the Church, rejecting some doctrines and scriptures while expressing a desire to find a way to still believe in the rest]
I want to echo those who express appreciation for your forthrightness, [redacted], and I can relate to having doubts, although for me it's doubts about my relationships with other people. I read [redacted]'s comment above, for example, and think, "Yeah, I know what that uncertainty feels like. That sounds like my relationship with (for example) dear Katherine Morris back in the day: lots of rational reasons to think the friendship is just over, forever, and walk away, but I feel somehow that I shouldn't walk away, but I don't know if I'm just being stupid in not listening to reason." It kind of leaves you feeling bad about yourself no matter which road you choose.
I want to echo those who express appreciation for your forthrightness, [redacted], and I can relate to having doubts, although for me it's doubts about my relationships with other people. I read [redacted]'s comment above, for example, and think, "Yeah, I know what that uncertainty feels like. That sounds like my relationship with (for example) dear Katherine Morris back in the day: lots of rational reasons to think the friendship is just over, forever, and walk away, but I feel somehow that I shouldn't walk away, but I don't know if I'm just being stupid in not listening to reason." It kind of leaves you feeling bad about yourself no matter which road you choose.
For what it's worth, I *did* eventually walk away. (Several times, but the last one finally stuck.) And yet here we are years later, good friends, the kind I always wanted us to be. So my rational doubts weren't wrong, and yet my feelings/inspiration/intuition about what we ought to be wasn't wrong either. Reason and faith turned out to be compatible after all, and it just took time to get there.
I can think of at least one other important relationship which took a similar path, and it's taught me not to give up on my feelings too early. (Not the same thing as emotions in this context BTW.) I now think that it's okay to walk away, instead of beating my head on a brick wall, but if I do that I am not obligated to conclude that my feelings about what ought to be are wrong--better to adopt an attitude of "wait and see." And if I don't walk away from someone, I don't have to feel bad about that either.
Religious doubts and interpersonal doubts aren't exactly the same thing, but for me it was. I have an easy time trusting Heavenly Father and a hard time trusting human beings (for completely logical and rational reasons!). If you have an easier time trusting human beings and a hard time trusting in God and/or the Church (for completely logical and rational reasons!) then I sympathize, and hope things work out well for you.
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.
"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."
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