As a Mormon, Mindy felt like she never developed a relationship with God. She followed the rules and did all the things she was supposed to do. When her son gave her some shocking news, her life radically changed and she found herself on an unexpected path to finding Jesus.
Transcription:
Announcer:
Welcome to Brought Back to Life, a podcast where we explore how Jesus changes everything.
Mindy Rugg:
My name is Mindy, and I am honored to be able to be here and share my story because everyone has a story. And everyone’s story of how they were brought back to life through the love of Jesus Christ is unique and different, and I’m honored to be able to share my story. Let me begin by giving you a little bit of history. I was raised in a extremely religious family. I was raised as a Mormon, and the religion was all-consuming. My life and everything about our life was centered around the religion. And I was the youngest in my family. I felt a lot of pressure and responsibility to live up to what my parents expected me to do, which was honor this religion. I really honestly never even took the time to find out if it was something that was true for me. It was true for my parents, and that’s all that I needed to know.
So I lived my life as they asked me to. I married young. I married in the Mormon faith. I began raising a family in the Mormon faith, and everything was centered around that religion. And I really didn’t expose myself to other religions or people too much. I was a little uncomfortable with where that would take me. I was taught that if I researched anything other than my religion, that that was of Satan and I shouldn’t do it. So I didn’t, and I moved through my life seamlessly as a Mormon until my son, who had served a mission for the Mormon Church and was attending BYU, called us and told us that he was gay. And at the time, I knew that nothing was going to change for me as far as my love for him, but I didn’t know how it would affect my religion or my relationship with God because honestly, I’d never developed a relationship with God up until this point.
And I was pretty angry at the time because I felt like, well, I’d done everything right, everything I’d been taught to do, and this wasn’t supposed to happen. But my sister, who also revealed that she was gay, had taken her life about 20 years previously. And I knew that no matter what, I was never going to not accept my son. But wow, I did not realize the conflict that it would bring up for me. So as I moved through that, I really decided that the Mormon religion was not something that I could be a part of anymore. And mostly, long story short, it was a lot of judgments and a lot of rejection, and I just did not know what to do with the information that I had at this point. So I decided that I would just go out on my own. I knew God. I figured I could have a relationship with him and I’d be okay. And that lasted for a little while. But pretty soon, I just decided that maybe I didn’t really need God in my life.
Everything with religion had kind of caused me pain and confusion. And gosh, I knew that I wasn’t a perfect person, so I just didn’t know how I could resign myself to ever being acceptable to God. So I just decided not to have a relationship with God, and I fell into sin. I wanted to do anything and everything that I could to run from God, so I did. Then my dad got sick and he passed. And shortly after that, my mother passed. I didn’t really find that I had a relationship with any family, and I was just really unhappy, but I didn’t know where to find happiness.
Speaker 2:
Peace isn’t about the absence of problems. It’s about the presence of Jesus. For more, go to the Faith tab at onourposely.com.
Mindy Rugg:
And I knew it wasn’t God because God always brought me unhappiness. So I decided that I decided signed it in a bottle of alcohol. And I started drinking, and I started drinking every day, anything I could do to run away. So one day, my youngest son called me and said, “Mom, I’m going to have some surgery and I would really like it if you came down and took care of me. And I just have become a new Christian, and I want to share some things with you.” So I went down to take care of him. And part of what he wanted to share with me was that his boss had become a new Christian, and they were doing Bible study together, and that he really felt like I needed God in my life again. So anyway, I took care of him. And his mouth surgery was extremely painful and he did not want to meet with his boss for the lunch that he had planned, so he sent me like the good son he is, right?
And I had no idea what I was in for. I really didn’t. At the time, honestly, I was so angry, I think I probably had drank alcohol that morning before I even went to the meeting with him. And we had lunch and he brought me a Bible, and he had marked all kinds of scriptures in the Bible and asked me to read them. And he asked me if he could keep in contact with me, and I said yes. And he pursued me in a godly way for the next six weeks. He would send me scriptures. He would say, “Read this. What do you think about this?” He’d send me little videos and things like that. And some of it I was open to, and some of it I wasn’t, but slowly, I could feel myself changing. And I was curious and I wanted a relationship with God, but I was still just so angry at him. It was really hard for me to let go of that.
So one day, I had been drinking and feeling really just horrible about myself, and I came to the Lord in prayer. I hadn’t prayed in such a long time, And I just didn’t think I was acceptable to God because of all the things that I’d done. And God said, “Call Bill. Talk to Bill.” I just thought that was the weirdest thing. He was my son’s boss. How could I just call him? He lived in a different state. But it was strong and I felt the urge, and I just needed help. So I called him. And I don’t know, the floodgates just opened up, and I just let loose on this really, really wonderful man. And he listened to me. And I had no idea at the time that he was at a conference and that he was hiding in the coat closet talking to me because it meant that much to him. And he asked me if I was willing to give my life to the Lord.
I just didn’t know even what that meant, but I knew that I was ready. And I said, “If you’ll lead me, I will say it. I will say the prayer, and I will say the saving prayer.” And he said it with me. And then he said, “Now Mindy, you have to find support where you are. You need to find a church. You need to find people who can support you,” because it was a really different way of living. Mormonism is completely different than Christianity, and the Bible was not something I’d ever studied. So I found a church family, I linked up with really good people, and they walked beside me as I was able to learn and give my life to the Lord. And on February the second, I gave my life to the Lord. It’s been four years. Best decision I ever made. And I know that even with all of the things that I experienced in my past, that, the God that I know loves me. He has forgiven me, and I could never earn my way.
I tried really hard. I thought that that’s what I had to do. I thought if I couldn’t earn my way, I couldn’t get there. I couldn’t accept that it was a free gift. That was really hard for me. I just thought I had to be deserving, but it isn’t. It’s a free gift. And God has just embraced everything that I have done ever since, and he’s brought my family together. He’s brought healing. He has brought most of my family to him. I have hope, for the first time really, in a long time. Honestly, I have hope that this God that I know is the God that we all know, that he loves us. He is there for us. He 100% has done everything that he said he would do, and we don’t have to deserve it.
Announcer:
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