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The following is excerpted from Third Hour. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.

I returned home from the mission field more broken in my faith than when I left, and that wasn’t a good way to start college. I became depressed and suicidal. Then, in my college years, I witnessed a possible miracle. It had all the makings of the river Jordan or the brazen serpent—it only needed to be tested.

A friend called me up and said, in frustration, “My bishop told me that If I wanted to overcome my pornography addiction, I should start doing family history work! Isn’t that ridiculous?” A bit jealous and a little frustrated I said, “Yup, almost like bathing in a dirty river seven times or looking at a brass snake on a stick.”

My response wasn’t received very well, but then again, he was looking for justification and not a supporting theory. I was frustrated because he was given an opportunity to prove the Lord. He, who was not worthy to accept any other calling in the Church, was invited to replace a dark habit with a divine service to God and his children. I had one more miracle to add to my desperate list, “God, where is my family history work? Where is my miracle?”

At this point in my life, I may not have reached master scholar when it came to the scriptures, but I knew them. I knew how to study them. I knew how to remember where verses were and how to recall them. I knew how to find what I needed to find, and I had some amazing personal revelations with my studies, but I was still me. I was still stuck. I didn’t know how to truly apply them to myself. My study weakened and eventually stopped.

That question from Moroni 7 nagged at me. “Have miracles ceased?”

Where was my miracle? Where were my angels and my revelations? I did the things that I was supposed to. I served a mission, I had a temple marriage, I started a little family, I even sought professional help, but my torment remained.

And then I gave up. I gave in. I had a faith crisis and I fell away, silently. I was semi-active for years, walking down other paths. After 5 or 6 years of this lonely venture, acting the part of the faithful, but “busy” Mormon, I had to reach out for help, as I was hurting my family and thinking of hurting myself again.

And for the first time, in all honesty, I confessed to those who needed to hear it the most. I found myself in honest, broken faith asking God for strength and forgiveness, family for forgiveness and love, and priesthood leaders for love and guidance. Then finally, for the first time in my life, I felt like I had started to receive my miracle.

I found myself excommunicated.

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.