Why I Keep Choosing This Faith

By Crystal Virgin

"I cannot base my testimony on imperfect people and feel completely at peace. But I can base it on God. And I do."

I just believe it.

That's the simplest and most honest answer I can give. Not because I've never had questions, not because everything has always made perfect sense, and not because I've had some singular, undeniable moment where the heavens opened and all doubt evaporated.

I believe it because of the small things. Hundreds of them, accumulated over a lifetime, too many to dismiss and too personal to explain away. Small evidences of a God who knows me. Small moments where something I needed arrived before I asked for it. Small confirmations, quiet and undramatic, that have built something in me that I cannot unfeel no matter how hard the questions get.

I have learned that my spiritual gift is the gift to believe. And I don't take that lightly.

Jesus Lives in My Home

I know that sounds like a bumper sticker. I mean it literally.

Jesus is not a distant historical figure to me or a concept I engage with on Sundays. He is present. He is available. He is someone I have come to think of, genuinely, as a friend — one who is always there when I turn toward Him, who never makes me feel foolish for coming, who meets me exactly where I am without requiring me to be further along than I am.

To walk away from that would not feel like freedom. It would feel like leaving someone behind. And I am not willing to do that.

Why This Faith and Not Another

I have thought about this. Especially in the years when my husband has been in the middle of his own faith questions — the wrestling, the searching, the honest and hard work of figuring out what you actually believe and why.

Watching someone you love question everything has a way of making you examine your own foundation. And what I found, when I really looked, is that my LDS faith fills in gaps that other belief systems leave open. It answers questions that other frameworks don't address. It feels, to me, the most complete — not perfect in every detail, not without its own mysteries, but complete in the ways that matter most to how I understand God, humanity, and what we are all doing here.

I don't say that to diminish anyone else's faith. I say it because it's true for me, and I think honesty about why we believe what we believe is more useful than vague spiritual niceness.

What I've Made Peace With

I don't have all the answers. I want to be clear about that.

There are things in church history that are complicated. There are questions I cannot fully resolve. There are moments where imperfect people, acting in imperfect ways, have caused real harm — and I don't minimize that or pretend it away.

But I have learned to hold those things with a perspective I didn't always have: people are imperfect. They have agency. They make mistakes, sometimes significant ones, even when they are trying to do good. The church is run by a perfect God and staffed by imperfect humans, and sometimes those humans get it wrong.

That is not a reason to abandon a testimony. It is a reason to build one that is rooted in God rather than in people. Because people will disappoint you. God, in my experience, does not.

The Restoration Is Still Happening

This is one of the things I love most about what I believe — something that has given me enormous peace in seasons of uncertainty.

The restoration of the gospel didn't happen once and stop. It is ongoing. We continue to be taught, corrected, enlightened, and led. The church is not a finished product. It is a living, growing, still-being-restored thing. And that means the questions that don't have answers yet are not evidence that the answers don't exist — they may simply not have arrived yet.

I find that concept deeply comforting. It gives me room to hold uncertainty without being destabilized by it. It reminds me that I don't have to have everything figured out to keep walking forward.

What I Actually Know

I don't know everything. I am not trying to.

What I know is this: God is real. Not metaphorically, not as a comforting concept, but physically, actually, completely real. He knows my name. He has shown up in my life in ways too numerous and too specific to be coincidence. He has given me small evidences of His love, again and again, across every season of my life — the easy ones and the devastating ones alike.

I cannot base my testimony on imperfect people and feel completely at peace. But I can base it on Him. And I do.

That is why I keep choosing this faith. Not because it is easy or because every question is resolved or because I never have a hard day. But because I have felt something real, and I cannot unfeel it. Because Jesus has become my friend, and I am not willing to leave Him. Because the small evidences keep coming, and I keep receiving them, and they keep being enough.

They always have been. I believe they always will be.