How I Lost My Religion Through Prayer

I was initially going to name this post "how I lost my faith through prayer", but then I realized I really don't know what faith I have or don't have. What I do know is that I don't have a religion, and that I feel very comfortable with that. I've written my story is so many different ways, but seeing time and time again the age old "pray and follow your answer" explanation of what I should do in life this seems appropriate as a condensed story.
Since I was a young child I had always been taught to pray. Morning, night, before meals, and just whenever I felt like it. I grew up spiritual, but not until I turned ten or so did I really start praying on my own consistently. I had been taught stories of Book of Mormon characters who had amazing visions and answers to prayer. There was Joseph Smith who saw God in person because of a prayer. I also had high expectations. At church and in the scriptures I had been taught that an answer to prayer comes from a "still small voice" or a "burning in the bosom". So I looked for those, and hoped for something bigger.
When I prayed to know if the LDS (Mormon) church was true, I typically got a strong emotional feeling. I took that as an answer yes. I struggled with other issues in my life and received all kinds of strange answers. In fact I had an answer to a prayer once when I was very young that I would become an Olympic athlete. Before I go on, many might say to me that I'm interpreting my answer to that prayer wrong. The issue being that the feeling I got when asking that question was the same feeling I got for everything else that taught to me. My entire belief in my religion relied on that feeling.
While that feeling was a simple feeling, I always wanted more. I would love to see God or an angel just to validate my beliefs. It's hard to believe in something or someone you can't see, touch, taste, hear, and really feel. I felt that maybe I just didn't have enough faith to get that kind of an experience, or perhaps I wasn't worthy to receive it. I went most of my young life feeling inadequate because although I got an emotional response to prayer every once in a while, I just couldn't shake the feeling that it was my own thoughts and emotions getting in the way. I felt like I wasn't good enough to receive a real answer to prayer.
As I got older I had deeper questions to ask. Some were about my own self, some about other topics. As I prayed about these things I got answers. The problem being my answers weren't always orthodox. They were the answers that I felt were right, but not the answers that leaders of the church said were right. Until I left to serve as a full time missionary for the LDS church the issues were never large enough to cause problems.
As a missionary we were taught to pray about everything. I had some pretty weird experiences that I really have no explanation for other than either coincidence or miracle answers to prayer. These experiences were rare enough to really chalk up to coincidence, but I'm open to it having been divine intervention. The biggest issues I had with the mission in general was how we were to act as missionaries. To me I always feared going on a mission, being an introvert I hate pushing my beliefs on others. In fact I hate sharing about beliefs with others because it's a deeply personal thing for me, and so are everyone else's beliefs (I sometimes fear having this blog public because of how offended someone might get with my opinions, but I figure you don't have to waste any time reading it if you're not interested). So you can imagine being told to make so many contacts a week, teach so many lessons a week, and have so many baptisms a week did not mesh well with me. I also hated that taking time out for service was looked down upon because it detracted from proselyting time. But I digress, when I prayed about how to do things and how to teach things to people I got one feeling. Some people weren't supposed to get baptized yet, and that's what I felt was right. I was told that I was in fact wrong about that. I was told to stop wasting my time teaching and visiting people who weren't progressing towards baptism fast enough. I felt that God was telling me the opposite. My mission president received "direct revelation from God" about a certain way of doing missionary work. I had already received my own answer from God about how to work and serve others and the two contradicted each other. It was at this point that I started to question the very foundation of the religion that I believed in.
After I came home from my mission experience I began to start asking more and more questions. I still went to church every so often, but I became a skeptic. I still believe all the weird stuff despite it all because I had an "answer to a prayer" that it was all true. I had doubts like why did Brigham Young start a ban on anyone with African blood having the priesthood, and then no other church leader changed that "policy" until the late 1900s. I had doubts about polygamy in the church, and why it stopped just to appease the US politically (I figured God can do what he wants, why care about what people do. After all in the Old Testament he destroyed entire civilizations). I had doubts about the extremely unscientific stories of the Bible and Book of Mormon. I also had doubts as to why the church was so secretive about their finances, and why they cared so much about numbers not people. But like I say I had an answer to prayer, and that was the thing keeping me going.
This line of thought provoked a new experiment. What if I prayed about the LDS church NOT being true, and what if I prayed about the Book of Mormon not being the word of God. Strangely I got that same emotional feeling that I had received previously when asking the opposite. After time I started to receive a new answer which was "Mormonism was great for you, it developed you into who you are today, and it's a part of you, but it's time for you to move on". This was good enough for me to start my process of becoming a new person with a new set of beliefs. I won't go into the rest of the details as it's unrelated to the topic.
I do remember listening in church while visiting my parents one Christmas shortly after all this had occurred. It was a recent convert to the Mormon church talking, and he was describing his experience praying. It made me doubt my decision a little inside, and so I said a quick prayer in the moment to ask what I was supposed to do. I received an overwhelming feeling of happiness accompanied with something along the lines of "you're free to choose your own path, and that's the path that is right for you". I keep this experience in my pocket as it keeps me going when I doubt myself and the path I've taken in life.
Now I won't say that prayer is a bad thing. I still have no idea to this day who (if anyone) I was talking to, but I appreciate the experience of it. I remember being a missionary and just hating everything about it. I just sat there and complained for two hours to God about how awful life was. After my huge rant I was expecting a huge reprimand from God. I simply received a loving reply of "I'm not going to chastise you because it's not what you need. You needed to say that, and I understand." That was exactly what I needed to hear to keep going. I also remember that experience as impacting my life. I now view prayer as a way of meditating. It's a way for me to gather my thoughts. Though I no longer pray as I feel strange doing it since I have no idea what higher power I believe in, I still think it's a great way to meditate if you do it right. I hate the long lists of "I want this" or "I need this". After I left Mormonism I realized how really conceited the religion is to think that God would care more about your lost car keys or getting you pickup truck fixed than he does about dying children in impoverished countries. I actually love the Duck Dynasty prayers as they're pretty much just giving thanks for all they have in their lives. Even if you don't believe in a God, I feel that being thankful and acknowledging that spirit of thanksgiving is a great thing. It actually meshes really well with my meditation treatment of prayer.
So I guess the short story is prayer led me into a die-hard belief of the Mormon church, and then it led me right back out. I have no idea what it was, who was talking to me, or why it happened the way it did. Was it my own mind playing games with me or was it a higher power leading me on my own personal path in life? I have no idea, and I feel just as happy not knowing. If I get an answer one day, I'll accept it, but for now when people tell me to pray about the truth I simply tell them "I already have."