If You've Broken Up with Jesus

Tuesday night was our monthly Inklings discussion; ladies in my neighborhood gathered to study general conference talks. We range in age from early 30's to 80's, and on any given evening, there are three to fifteen women present.

This week, one of my friends told us of a family member who heard a therapist speak about a term new to them all - scrupulosity. The speaker said he was seeing scrupulosity more and more in his practice. He knew of many people - particularly women - leaving the church because of their need to get rid of their obsessive need to be perfect. It was too much; walking away from the church was the only way to stabilize their mental health threatening to shatter.

This drove the conversation as we went on to decide: IS perfection the expectation - doctrinally - or merely culturally? If so, what does it look like? Does it help or hinder actual progress? If it's only a cultural expectation and you're steeped in it, how do you abandon it without throwing the baby out with the bathwater and abandoning the church altogether?

Most women I know have felt the cultural tug of these expectations. Working on human imperfections can feel like the hopeless task Hans Brinker had keeping back the sea with his finger in the hole in the dike. It's too much, our faults are relentless as the sea, and the practice to tame and subdue them, like the sea - OY.

But Jesus.

When you're overwhelmed and discouraged, this isn't the point in your life where Jesus should exit - this is His entrance cue.

He isn't the reason for the overwhelm and discouragement - He is the solution.

But He only comes when He's invited. He's so terribly polite, and He's paid such an excruciatingly high price to honor our agency, He will only come when we knock. Or in the case of the overwhelmed and discouraged - when we pound on the door.

"I can't do this alone. It's too much. Please help me."

In April 2025, Sister Tamara Runia taught:

"I've learned that if you wait until you're clean enough or perfect enough to go to the Savior, you've missed the whole point!" (Tamara W. Runia, "Your Repentance Doesn't Burden Jesus Christ; It Brightens His Joy, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2025/04/43runia?lang=eng)

And...

"We don't stay on the covenant path by never making a mistake. We stay on the path by repenting every day."

Repentance has two parts. Before you're yoked with Jesus Christ, repentance looks like stopping anything that is in between you and Him. But when you've asked for His help and entered a covenant relationship, repentance doesn't mean you never make a mistake again, it just means you keep starting over. With help.

I had a piano student many years ago who had come to one of those lessons fraught with peril: a lesson of accountability where there was no good for it but to simply announce at the door: "I had a terrible week, I didn't get to the piano once."

As I tried to give an encouraging pep talk, a version of that idea came out of my mouth. I said something like, "You've had weeks like this before, and you'll probably have them again. But you aren't a failure at this unless you quit piano lessons altogether. You just have to never stop starting over."

It was at this point the Holy Ghost nudged me and said, "That's true for you, too, you know."

Perfection isn't about walking the path without deviation. It's about course correcting as you go, shame-free, and continuing the process. Or as C.S. Lewis refers to it, going in for the "full treatment."

Repentance isn't shame-ridden self-flagellation, which Sister Runia also talks about. It's simply turning around, facing the Son, and starting over - over and over again, for the rest of your life, knowing full well you can't do it without Jesus' help.

Elisha told Naaman his leprosy would be cured if he bathed in the River Jordan seven times (see 2 Kings 5). While this story is often told to underscore the need to listen to the voice of a prophet, there's another terribly important principle.

The number seven has significance in the scriptures; it symbolizes and signifies perfection - in this context, perfection meaning "being complete."

As in finished.

The prescribed cure for Naaman was to complete the process of bathing the number of times which signifies completion. So what would have happened if Naaman had bathed in that filthy river water two or three times - examined himself - and thought, "This isn't making any difference at all." Read that to mean: "this process isn't making any difference."

What if he'd continued on and thought the same hopeless thoughts after the fourth, or fifth, or even the sixth time, and for his mental and emotional health, given up on the entire process because he couldn't see a difference?

Repentance isn't an act; it's a process.

In a world riddled with scrupulosity, where some would tell you the answer is breaking up with Jesus, I would implore you to stick with Jesus. In a world where we fall short by design, Jesus Christ is the very point of our falling short: to see what we'll do next - which way we'll turn.

Sister Runia:

"I testify that while God cares about our mistakes, He cares more about what happens after we make a mistake. Are we going to turn to Him again and again? Are we going to stay in a covenant relationship?"

That's what the covenant is for. I'm in for the full treatment, and no matter how many times I get it wrong during the treatment - until it's completed, I won't be. That's what it means to be perfect IN Jesus (see Moroni 10:32-33). The covenant relationship gives me access to HIM - His power and perfection - while I finish the process.

And the loveliest part of the covenant relationship - with me on one end in all my flawed splendor, is that on the other end is someone upon whom I can rely completely.

It's against His nature to not be all in for my full treatment as well, because He's already paid for it. How could I possibly break up with such a devoted Friend?