Hi! I am known as Doriann Gaylene Stubbs and I am Happy I get to share my Testimonial about my life before and after I came to know of The Marvelous Work and A Wonder and how it has graciously affected my life.
My parents, who both chose Mormon religious beliefs to try to experience their value and worth, greatly affected the course of my life, until my pain got bigger than my fear. I was born into this Mormon polygamous setting as a commodity in Short Creek Community, of AZ/Utah bordering towns in the United States of America. In this setting, I witnessed the grown-ups who considered themselves special. Later in my life, I too participated in trying to perceive myself as special—having eternal value to be the highest…and valued above and beyond anyone else on earth.
My parents participated along with my immigrant grandparents and were placed together in a placement marriage. With little-to-almost-no personal connection with one another, coupled with their insecurities and a whole lot of misfits, my parents’ estranged behaviors toward themselves and each other made for a very interesting childhood, to say the least. My parents became disgruntled with religion over the years and ended their non-relationship when I was a teenager. I became a ward of the court of Nevada after being placed in a Child Protective Services to try to protect me from the dysfunction and abuses.
After being returned to my mom, I ran away (after turning 16) from the physical, emotional and mental control I had been subjected to my whole childhood. I ran to my relative’s place in Mexico for refuge, but soon found very similar perceptions and beliefs with variations of more manmade controlling gods. I chose marriage later that year while living in Central America. I birthed 8 children throughout the 14 years I was in that marriage and my only comfort was when I could find something to read about Mormon history, as so little about what we were living made sense. I felt the need to understand Joseph Smith and all the people surrounding him. I found myself consistently very uncomfortable, unsettled, and unable to feel a sense of belonging anywhere… everything was so confusing. I could never make sense of how we were living our lives. Searching all that I could get my hands on, I could not find much written by Joseph. But I did become aware that everyone seems to need His authority to prove their own. Everyone wanted to be RIGHT!
I ended my first marriage right after the birth of my 8th child, to try something new. I was desperate to feel loved, appreciated, and understood. My sister invited me into her family as a sister wife. I wondered and hoped that maybe the two of us could share our love for GOD and be in plural marriage together. I desperately needed some peace. All my life, women who were living this law had expected of me and every other woman who hoped to have the same blessings…that we would need to live the same sacrifices as they were living. Nothing could have shocked my nervous system harder than what I imposed on my poor children, my sister, and her poor children and me…
I birthed 4 more children as sister wife to my sister over the next 11 years… After years of allowing myself to be controlled, conditioned, molded, brainwashed, and manipulated—and also expecting this of my children all the while—I eventually witnessed their suffering. This triggered serious awareness of my own suffering, caused by my fear, my pride, and my insecurities. I began to feel an undeniable weight of this world that almost took me over and out of this world. Helplessness overcame me. Facing my own demise, my first reaction was to feel relief that my children would no longer have to be embarrassed of such a one as unworthy, unfit, and a failure as I felt I was at that time. My children’s suffering forced me to become honest with myself, which made it impossible for me to play the ridiculous game of pretending that I could ever please any other’s God.
In 2010, I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah to further my education and become self-sufficient and sustainable. And by some wild and wonderful chance, I was handed a brochure about a symposium at Murray Park by THE MARVELOUS WORK AND A WONDER announcing that The Sealed Portion of the Book Of Mormon had been translated. Nothing…absolutely nothing… could have lit me up more. I counted the days to be there and shared the Great News with as many as I felt safe to.
I was gifted a copy of The Sealed Portion of the Book of Mormon that day by Christopher. It all felt so familial. From the moment I stepped out of my vehicle and heard a voice of warning booming in air…I thought to myself, “If there ever was a John the Baptist, this would be Him.” (Before I ever saw his beautiful face.) I was even more shocked when I saw his beautiful self and witnessed the kind of passion he boomed from inside himself, for the whole day long. A day I will forever remember. … I became secretly convinced he was the only man on earth that could handle my unrest. I wondered if we could become partners. But soon he became the greatest tool of me working out of my pride and ego. It’s been a refiners fire to say the least. I’ve struggled from time to time with the heavy sword he wields tirelessly, as it cuts me deep when I’ve needed assistance to let go of old nasty bitter wine… (I am grateful he has helped us understand this was on purpose, because I have felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself.
THE MESSAGE has always penetrated my very cells!
Little did I know that day, that my world would be transformed in every way that I could have never possibly imagined. … After years of trying to accommodate others, to experience any amount of consistent, sincere, real lasting value of family, friends and perceived loved ones… I had done all humanly possible to try to fit in, always caring so deeply and trying to make others comfortable, because I was not comfortable in my own skin. While searching for any of it to make sense, my searching brought me to THE REAL TRUTH!
I was able to start sorting through all I had ever been taught that I ought to be. It was the beginning of unlearning all that I had been brainwashed with, from the time of my birth. For a very short time, I tried to continue to serve more than one GOD. And I put myself in a grave danger.
Because of this Work and the CLUES that THE SEALED PORTION OF THE BOOK OF MORMON referenced over and over in the BOOK OF MORMON and, in spite of all the games adults in religion played throughout my life, these CLUES kept my awareness open and prepared me for the MARVELOUS WORK AND A WONDER to become my LIFE! I sincerely believe I didn’t have a chance of maintaining my health under such duress and survival for too long. The Real Truth, the plain and precious things made available for ALL because of the GREAT SACRIFICES of Christopher and the Brothers, Added The Best Years of My Life.
I’ve learned over and over throughout these recent years, as I have been an older bottle with old wine, “we know nothing of ourselves.” Even with the Real Truth, I have had to come into a broken heart and find my contrite spirit. I’ve wanted so tenaciously for others to be able to have my experience of REAL TRUTH and I had learned the hard way that each and every God is here for their own lessons. That the children I used to call my own are not mine. They are each the greatest compendium of matter that exists in their own universe.
LORD ALMIGHTY knows how hard it has been…restoring the experience of knowing myself as an equal, a precious God. This, rather than the pious ridicule and disregard I’ve had for myself (my old bottle filled up with…a plague inside my own head) from thousands of religious and spiritual conversations (“bunkidity”)—mixed together with self-righteous and damned insecurities. These come from our imperfect bodies and “human bean” brains, this mortal experience impeded.
I have practiced being childlike again and again, and being around others who are also practicing childlike actions makes this world—as it falls apart—100% doable… Simple Living… In this world, but not of it… My heart’s content!!!
I consider it a great privilege to still wake up in this world day after day and practice peace, love, and precious regard for myself and others as myself.
My LOVE & Infinite REGARD
A Hopless Hopeful Dreamer Of…
One World, One People, In One Day!
Sincere regard and appreciation for all,
Doriann Gaylene
435-691-4275
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