Apostacy

When I was at BYU one of my close friends from high school went apostate (not inactive, apostate). It still strikes me as a bit surreal that this particular person went apostate. He was the guy who was always on my case about sluffing my released time seminary class to go to breakfast with a friend. Also the guy that insisted I go with him to those seminary morningsides, and showed up at my house at obscene hours of the morning to pick me up. I hated going.

Either way, he left. I couldn't understand how he could have spent two years on a mission and just come home and throw in the towel. This was a very pressing issue for me at the time. For quite some time personal apostacy was a topic of immense fascination for me. I read everything I could lay my hands on about it. I was not at all discriminating about what I read...take that back, I wouldn't read anything about the temple ceremonies, but aside from that everything was fair game. I visited all kinds of anti-Mormon websites where people share their tales of apostacy, I read books about apostates, and I read conference addresses, and Sunday School lessons about preventing personal apostacy. I invested hours, but when it was all said and done I realized that I'll probably never really understand why my friend left, and he'd probably give me some weird story about Joseph Smith and being stifled if I ever had the chance to ask. (I actually did get the chance a couple of years ago, but he just laughed and changed the topic.) However, I did learn that nobody that goes apostate ever planned on leaving, and that nobody is really immune to that possibility, but it's not like the common cold where no matter what you do sooner or later you're going to catch it.

All that being said, I was driving home from work the other day and I while I was thinking about some things I needed to do for church I caught myself thinking "sooner or later I'll go apostate, so why bother with this stuff anymore. Why delay the inevitable?" I have no idea what brought that on, but all the way home I found myself questioning "Do I really think that?" It did not take me long to decide that I do not, and that if anything it's one of my biggest fears. The whole thing was a very odd experience, and I find myself spending a lot of time lately irrationally fretting about whether or not I'm verging on apostacy.