🔥 When Telling the Truth Costs You Everything — And Why It’s Still Worth It
🔥 When Telling the Truth Costs You Everything — And Why It’s Still Worth It
(A blog for the remnant, for my posterity, and for any heart that still loves the Savior more than the institution)
🕊️ “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” — Jesus
There’s a story going around right now — a story of a sister who loved the Savior enough to speak plainly about history. And for doing that, she was removed from the Church she still dearly loves.
But before I get into her experience, I need to tell you what stirred her courage.
She had just watched Truth and Treason, the story of Helmuth Hübener — the young German Latter-day Saint who was executed by the Nazis because he refused to stop telling the truth. He was only 17.
Watching that film lit something inside her.
Not rebellion.
Not anger.
Courage.
The kind of courage the Spirit awakens when He whispers:
Stand for truth, even when it costs you.
And once that whisper comes… well, you know how it is. You can’t un-hear it.
📚 A Woman Who Asked for Honesty — And Paid the Price
She had spent years researching early Mormon polygamy from documents the Church itself funded — the Joseph Smith Papers. She made a movie and wrote a book:
Woe Unto You Scribes: The Hidden History of Polygamy
Nothing inflammatory. Nothing mocking.
Just documents. Letters. Testimonies. Dates.
The kind of things truth is built on.
But her findings didn’t fit the current Church narrative.
Her stake president — a kind man, doing his best — met with her many times. Their conversations were respectful. Gentle. No raised voices. No lectures. Just:
“These things contradict what we teach. Please take them down.”
She couldn’t.
The truth mattered too much.
And so came the membership council.
And the inevitable outcome.
She was excommunicated.
💔 And Yet — No Bitterness
What struck me most?
She wasn’t angry.
She expressed love for her ward.
Love for her leaders.
Love for her faith community.
Somehow she walked out of that room more peaceful than when she went in.
Why?
Because her standing before Christ meant more than her standing on the records of the Church.
And that is the very heart of this whole thing.
🕯️ Truth Takes Courage — And Often a Price
She compared her situation to Lester Bush in the 1970s — the man whose courageous historical work helped end the priesthood ban.
And she said something profound:
“Institutions don’t change unless someone is willing to speak truth out loud.”
Boy, isn’t that the story of scripture?
Nephi. Abinadi. Samuel. Moroni.
Even Joseph Smith himself — before the institution swallowed his legacy and rewrote pieces of it.
Every restoration begins with a single honest voice.
📖 Why the ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ Apology Hurts More Than It Helps
She said something most women in the Church already feel but rarely say out loud:
“The idea that Joseph Smith’s polygamy was just a ‘mistake’ undermines faith. Good men don’t secretly take other men’s wives.”
If Joseph needed to repent, fine.
If he was framed, fine.
But pretending has helped no one.
Truth heals.
Covering truth destroys.
And as she said — transparency is not optional.
Not if we want Zion.
Not if we want Christ.
🙋♀️ A Word About Women Standing for Truth
She quoted President Nelson, who told the women of the Church that:
“The world needs your voice. The heavens are counting on you.”
And then she added:
“But when women actually use that voice, it often costs them.”
She still stood.
She still spoke.
She still walked out with her integrity intact.
That, my friend, is the courage of the “mothers of the Nemenhah.”
That is Mary Magdalene at the tomb.
That is Abish running from house to house.
That is every woman God has ever called to defend righteousness in a broken world.
❤️ Excommunication Cannot Separate a Heart From Christ
Here is where her testimony pierced me:
She said she will keep serving her neighbors.
Keep loving her ward.
Keep worshiping Christ.
Her name may be off the Church records, but her name is not erased from the Lamb’s Book of Life.
And that’s the part we forget sometimes:
Church membership is an earthly record.
Christ’s membership is a heavenly one.
One can be taken.
The other cannot.
🌿 What This Means for the Rest of Us
Her story isn’t about polygamy.
It’s about truth.
It’s about courage.
It’s about women whose hearts refuse to bow to anything but Christ.
It’s about you and me learning to love the Savior’s voice more than the institution’s comfort.
There will always be people who stay silent to keep the peace.
There will always be people who speak truth and lose everything.
And there will always — always — be a Savior standing with whoever chooses honesty over applause.
🕊️ My Final Thought
Truth never destroys faith.
Lies do.
Truth never harms Zion.
Hiding truth does.
Truth will one day burst forth from the dust, and the Lord Himself will say:
“Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
And maybe… just maybe…
He will say it first to women like her.
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