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In the gospel topics entry on divorce on the church's website, we read, "When men and women marry, they make solemn covenants with each other and with God. Every effort should be made to keep these covenants and preserve marriage. When divorce occurs, individuals have the obligation to forgive, lift, and help rather than to condemn."

End quote. Because of the sensitivities surrounding divorce, this is a topic we haven't discussed much on this podcast, but it is one that, as I prepared these last eight episodes, felt important to revisit. A native of Southern California, Troy Davis's professional life has taken him across the globe in technology leadership roles for the church, including living in Ghana and leading technology in the Africa West area, being director of technology for the missionary department, and recently serving as chief information officer for BYU-Pathway Worldwide.

Troy is currently the vice president of university technology for Western Governors University. Sariah Stone Davis was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She is a certified mediator from the Center of Dispute Resolution in Santa Monica, California, and passionately advocates for mental and emotional health, especially for teenagers and young adults.

She has been a keynote speaker for the corporate fundraising department of Primary Children's Hospital and served on the institutional review board of the University of Utah. In twenty twenty-three, Sariah and Troy met, and after three long years of dating and ten and a half breakups, they were married.

The Davises are still newlyweds, blending a family of ten children and two grandchildren

This is All In, an LDS Living podcast where we ask the question: What does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson, and I am so honored to have Troy and Sariah Davis on the line with me today. Troy and Sariah, welcome. Thank you. Thanks. It's great to be here. Yeah. Well, I will tell those listening that I feel already, like, a great deal of appreciation to Troy and Sariah for their willingness to talk about a topic that I think we don't talk about enough.

There are several people close to me that are navigating divorce right now, and I think that it is something that is prevalent, but because of the, the delicate nature of the situation, a lot of times it just can probably feel very, very lonely. So I wanna start out with, I think divorce is something that people never imagine themselves going through.

Nobody gets married expecting to get divorced. So I wondered if you could talk a bit about how you felt in the midst of that situation and in the immediate aftermath of, of your marriage dissolving. Yes. Divorce is devastating, like you said, Morgan, and for me, m- my divorce, it was just devastating, and as a member of the church, uh, it hits hard in, in certain ways.

And, you know, it's like there's a big D on your forehead. You're damaged. You're divorced, and there's a shame that sets in, and it is a, it is an extremely difficult situation to go through, and it's, it's painful. Uh, you know, one way it showed up for me was, uh, for my particular situation, I had been serving as a bishop, and, uh, when this divorce happened, and so one Sunday I'm sitting on the stand leading the congregation and then got released, and then the next Sunday I'm sitting in the, the pews by myself.

I was an empty nester at the time as well, and so that was extreme, felt extreme shame and felt just all of this, the staring and the weight of what I felt was judgment. Even though I didn't know that, it felt that way, and I gained an appreciation very quickly for I now understand why people who get diverse, divorced, a lot of them don't go back to church or don't go to church for a time because it is so painful, and there's such a feeling of shame in a church that values eternal marriage, as it should, and as I still valued it.

But I no longer, you know, had that marriage, and, uh, and in my case, um, uh, I did not want a divorce, and so that was, uh, that was part of the pain as well Um, yeah, I, I would agree. Uh, um, my divorce was also very sad, very devastating. I think it's safe to say that divorce is sad and devastating for everyone, whether they are the person seeking the divorce, whether they are the person wishing the marriage could continue, or even if both partners agree that there should be a divorce.

It is, uh, it's an ending of a union the two people made together, like you said, never with the intent or the thought that the union would end. And even if it was a six-month union or a 35-year marriage, it is absolutely devastating because you feel like you have failed. You feel like the end of something is a failure, and you feel like you're broken, like y- you

how could, you know, anyone look at you the same? How can l- you look at yourself? How could you have worth, um, especially in a space where families and eternal families are so incredibly important? I think that both of you articulated that so well. I think that there's probably so many people listening that think, "I resonate with that."

And so I am so grateful and, and excited to, to learn from both of you and your experiences. I wondered what would be your advice to someone... You're... How, how long ago did, did both of you go through your divorce? For me, it was about three and a half years ago. Okay. And I, I've been divorced six and a half years.

Okay. So if you could go back to yourself at that time that you were initially going through your divorce, what advice would you give yourself or would you give someone else that's in that situation right now? I would say to be patient. Be patient. Healing, change, the kind of hope that you need to have, that you want to have, it takes time.

It just takes time. It takes time for yourself to heal. It takes time, honestly, to find hope again. It takes time for the Lord to take and m- and take this, this big, you know, devastation that, that we see as devastation, and to take it and sanctify it and turning it for our good. It takes time. It's like when James talks about in the New Testament that a large ship is turned by a very, very, very tiny helm.

And a, a divorce is a large ship with so many components. You know, it, it affects generations. And, but the Lord can, He can work with that. He can work with any kind of mess that we think that we've created. He can take that, and He can change it, but it takes time. So much time. And I, I wish... I, I see that now.

Um, but oh, if someone had told me, "Sariah, just be patient. I know you want everything to be fixed right now, but just be patient. Do not give up, that the Lord hasn't been prepping things in your life for years before this ever even happened to know and set in motion and take care of you if you trust in Him and stick with Him."

I have a few thoughts on what I would say to those who are going through a divorce right now. Uh, first, similar to what Sariah said, trust the Lord and trust His timing. Trusting the Lord is one thing, like I know He's God and I know He loves me, but it's another thing to actually trust that His timing is perfect, uh, and that that perfect timing doesn't sometimes match with what we want, and our will isn't aligned with His.

His ways are higher than ours. You know, the scripture says, you know, "Lean not unto your own under-understanding." You know, trust the Lord, lean not unto your own understanding. I testify that He keeps His promises. You know, we've made all these promises in the temple, uh, particularly, you know, at the altar, the sealing altar, and these are, uh, all of these promises, these covenants, uh, there's a way that all of the, the blessings of those covenants can play out still, even though it seems at the time like, how will that happen?

I don't know how it's gonna happen. And, um, I have just felt that over the last few years. Like, I have felt over and over, especially in the temple, that I can lay claim to all of those promises still. I just don't know exactly how it's all gonna work. But I have felt it, that He does keep His promises.

It's my job to just keep trying to do my best to keep my covenants, just keep striving, and then He'll f- He'll, He will figure it out. Nothing is impossible for the Lord. Healing will come. Joy will replace sorrow. The storm does pass, and, and I know it does because I've seen it happen, but it does take time.

You know, I wanna talk about suffering for just a second, about advice for those who are going through a divorce. There is a lot of suffering. There is... Like, we're not gonna sugarcoat it at all. There is suffering. I have, you know, poured out my heart and gutted my soul in a way that I have not even come close to doing before the divorce happened.

And so the suffering is real. But I will also say the suffering isn't in vain when we lean on the Lord. Um, the very afflictions and the pain and sorrow, you know, you suffer now through this divorce will be replaced by wisdom, greater compassion, and endless manifestations of beauty for ashes. Isaiah tells us that the Lord was sent to bind up the brokenhearted, to comfort all of those that mourn.

He was sent to them that mourn in Zion. He says, "Them that mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." These are promises, and beauty for ashes was the theme of our wedding, and be-- it was because-- and we put stickers all over the place, and because it-- we have just seen this play out, beauty for ashes.

And it's not just about like, well, now when you get married, that's when you get beauty for ashes. But no, beauty for ashes started happening on day one after the divorce, and it continues to happen, and continue to see beauty for ashes. Let me give a couple of examples of this. First, I came to know the Lord through my extremities and the suffering in a manner that I have never known Him before that.

My testimony of the Lord's grace has multiplied because of the suffering. I know Him in a way that I did not know Him before, and I'm grateful for that. Um, I made eternally wonderful friendships with other singles during the process, and we kinda like maybe people in a war, how, you know, it brings you together and you, you bind or you, you become very, very close with others who are suffering in a like manner.

I have made dear, dear eternal friendships with other singles that I will always cherish. Um, some kind of other things like learning how to dance and picking up some new hobbies and things have come from being in the single state and associating with other singles in the process and having a different life because of it.

Um, uh, so I would just say like there, there are so many beauty for ashes scenarios. If we're asking the Lord, like, help me see the beauty that's coming from the ashes of a marriage that burnt down, you know, a-and that framework of ashes, like He will show, He will show you where the beauty is, and that it keeps showing up over and over and over again.

It's not a one-time process. And I... And it continues to show up now in our lives even now that we've been married for, for three months now. So beauty for ashes, look for it, and it, it comes. It starts coming Well, I love that both of the things that you said, both Troy, you talked about the beauty for ashes, but the interesting thing to me about that is I think it's hard in the moment to be able to see that beauty.

And like you said, you have to look for it, but I think with time you see it more and more. And then Sariah, your point about patience, this idea that we have to give the Lord time. I have a friend, a dear friend, who years ago said that she was telling her dad about something that had been really hard for her, and her dad is one of my favorite people, and he has been through unimaginably hard things.

And he said to her, "Well, you just haven't given the Lord enough time to show you how he can turn that into something good." And I just think the Lord does have this ability to take, like you said, ashes, these things that feel like they are terrible, and to turn them into something positive if we continue to trust in Him.

Sariah, you were on another podcast, the Thriving LDS Singles podcast on YouTube, where you talked about the shame that you experienced post-divorce. You shared so many thoughts that I, I kept thinking as I was listening, I was like, "This is, this is applicable to so many situations in life, not just divorce."

I think everybody has felt shame for one reason or another. But I would love for you to share a bit about the journey that you took as you recognized that kind of what this, the root of the feelings that you were feeling and, and what you were processing post-divorce was shame Yes. So I talk a lot more on that podcast more specifically about my journey through these devastating years that I had that I call the, my decade of death.

And at the end of, of this decade, I just hit this wall where I was like, "I give up, I'm done." And, uh, I just, I went into this space where I honestly, I was really angry. And I think we're gonna get to more about anger, but one thing I will say that led me to my shame was that, um, I was, I was really angry with God.

And Troy's gonna, I think, talk more about his anger and how through some of his divorce that looked different. But for me, through my losses, it, I turned my anger to God. And I just, I was mad. I felt like I had put in the work, that I had done all these checklist things in my life that we talk about, and getting married in a temple and all these different things.

And it's so e- we get into our heads that, you know, God is this cosmic vending machine like Elder Christofferson talks about. Where did we get that? I don't know. Maybe I was taught it in the '80s somehow, but it certainly I... And well, you know what, I still hear this kind of verbiage even today. "Oh, well I know that all of my kids got married in a temple because I read them the scriptures every day."

You know, I might hear someone say that and I'm just like So glad for you , you know? But the reality is the Lord is not a vending machine. We cannot, like, have this expectation that if we line up all of our marks perfectly, that our life is going to go according to our plan. And it doesn't appear that way in the scriptures, and it doesn't appear in our lives either.

And so yeah, I, I went through this period, um, of anger, and it led to intense shame. I was just embarrassed about my life. My life was a mess, uh, through so many different things, cancer and some abuse in my family and, and different things. And I just, I didn't wanna show my face in church. I didn't wanna run into people in the grocery store.

I would... If... I went through a period of time where if I did go to church, I would sit in the back corner of Relief Society and just hope that no one would talk to me or look at me. And I... You know, I gained an appreciation, um, kind of like what Troy was talking about. I gained a deep compassion for people who are struggling to just put a foot inside the door of a meeting house or a temple, that it takes all of the energy and just courage that they have when they feel like they're being judged, or they have nothing left to give, or the Lord doesn't care about them anymore because everything that they have strived for feels like it's falling apart.

And I, I did, I learned a lot about shame and my own shame, and I learned about shame resilience. And that was a great blessing to me, that I have become an advocate for learning how to recognize guilt versus shame and how to take that shame and, and not let it, you know, destroy your life, your relationships with yourself.

Shame destroys your relationships with yourself, with others, and with the Lord You used a word, Sariah, I guess two words, that I, I, I wasn't familiar with prior to listening to you on that podcast, and that is shame resilience. Can you tell listeners what you mean by that, and then how you found ways to build up that shame resilience?

Yes. So breaking it down, guilt is the feeling that we have done something wrong, and we need to fix that. And that is from the Lord. That is what He's given us. It's a tool. It's a communicative way that the Spirit talks to us to let us know it's time to change. It's time to repent. It's time to turn to the Lord and change something about us.

Shame is, is from Satan. It is a dark presence in ourself that, that says we are bad. We are unworthy of love, of belonging, of connection, and it tells us that we, we want to hide. We want to hide from the world, from others, from the Lord. The feeling of not wanting to go to the Lord in prayer because we're so embarrassed of things that we've done.

And, and that is one of Satan's greatest tools, pride and shame. They coexist together. And so as I, as I learned this, I found that there are steps to shame s- shame resilience, and there's basically four steps that research shows helps of someone become resilient to shame. That doesn't mean that they don't live in shame.

That doesn't mean that they won't feel shame anymore. What it means is that they can recognize it and work through it and come out the other end in healthy ways. And so the first step would be that very thing, recognize that you're feeling shame. What am, what does shame feel like for me? The feeling that I wanna hide, the feeling that I don't feel like I belong in a space where I actually do.

I actually, preparing for this podcast, I had texted one of my friends, and I was like, "Sometimes I don't know why I get myself into these things. I, I just feel like I'm gonna be a fraud out there, and, you know, I don't, I don't do these things perfectly." And it's like I know what shame is. I know what it looks like, and here I am practicing it today, you know?

The thought crossed my head, "What if I just tell her I'm sick, and I just can't do it?"

It is real for all of us. It is a way that Satan attacks us to keep us from connection with, especially from the Lord. And so the first step is to recognize it. What is it that I'm feeling? And that requires us to develop more self-awareness, like to be aware of what am I feeling, right? Well, I'm learning, and I think this is what is called shame.

Um, the second thing would be to recognize what triggers your shame so that you can, A, work on maybe those triggers in your life and recognize what causes your shame. So that would be the second. So first is recognize how you feel shame. Second is what usually causes you to feel shame. The third one, to me, is honestly the most important, and that is reaching out to someone that you trust, someone that has earned your trust, someone that you know isn't going to shame you back for feeling bad about yourself, someone that you, that you completely trust, because shame likes to hide.

It likes secrecy. That's where it grows. That's where it festers. Shame about addiction, about pornography, shame about grievous sins or even tiny sins, shame about divorce, shame about not being able to have children or losing your job, so many different things. And so that would-- the third would be to reach out because once you shed light on shame, it's much, much harder for it to keep growing and existing And then the fourth step, um, would be to ask for help after you've shared your shame with someone, to find ways to, to ask for help to overcome shame or to work through that shame episode.

Um, one, one quick example that I will give that Troy and I talk a lot about is to thank yourself for something that your body is alerting you to. And a lot of times that shows up as shame. So if I say to myself, "Well, thank you, self, for letting me know that I'm feeling really anxious about this podcast.

Thank you. I'm, I'm, we're gonna work through this." Or, "Well, thank you, self, for letting me know that going into church causes me anxiety. Let's talk about that. Let's find someone to share that with." And, and it's a really easy thing to just start practicing, that tomorrow make a goal that when you start to notice feelings of inadequacy, shame, fear, anxiety, notice it and then just thank your body.

"Thank you for letting me know that I am scared to pray this morning because I forgot to read my scriptures," or, "I yelled at my children last night." So those are ... there's a ... Shame is a, a huge topic, but those are just kind of the quick things that can really help us kinda start to break it down and put it into practice more.

Well, I think those, those steps are so good, and I was thinking as you were talking, I was like, "Where, where do I feel shame in my life?" And I imagine everybody listening can think of something. And so I appreciate so much you sharing those, those things. I am sure that there is a wide range of emotion that the two of you experienced, um, but another couple of feelings that you two have mentioned are anger and bitterness.

How would you say that those feelings manifest themselves, and, and what do you think is their role in all of this? And then Troy, you have something that you've talked about previously, a warring heart, and I'd love to hear about how you overcame what you call a warring heart. Yes. And, and divorce because there are such strong feelings and it's such an upheaval, these feelings of anger, bitterness, sometimes even like contempt can just start coming into you without you doing anything.

They just show up at your doorstep and, and then you have to deal with them. And I remember these feelings starting to show up, and I-- they were so, um, dark and, and bad, and I, I knew I didn't want them, and I knew they would harm me and harm others around me and, and work counter to the things I actually wanted, you know, in terms of moving forward.

And, and I was like: Well, I know the Lord. You know, I have the doctrine from the church of like, the, the Lord can help us with all of our infirmities. And one of the best things the Lord is good at is at actually changing hearts. I'm like: Well, I know he can do this. And at about the time this was happening, uh, Kristen Yee gave a talk in October twenty twenty-two, and she talked about a warring heart.

In fact, that's where the phrase that I've, you know, right for myself came from is, is from her talk, and it really made an impact on me. And she talked about this idea of a warring heart, and she talked about her experience of, of being mistreated and, uh, and how she had to deal with that. And I'm like: Oh, well, I can learn from her.

And, um, so I studied her talk over and over and over again, and then I found something I felt like I was led from the Lord to a book I'd had on the shelf for like over a decade from Stephen Covey called The Divine Center, and he talked about the same thing in different words. There's a couple things that they said.

You know, one of them, you know, Kristen Yee said, "The Savior who is healing our warring hearts is the same Savior who will save those who have deeply hurt us." That's a really powerful, uh, principle about like, hey, the Savior is working for all of us, and he can heal all of our infirmities and all of the infirmities of those who hurt us.

And so that is, is important. You know, the second thing is this idea of You know, forgiveness, forgiveness is so important in the, the worrying heart syndrome. So there has to be this willingness to give away the worrying heart, to, to give it away, to not want it. And I studied this in the scriptures, and I, I thought about Enos, how he spent, you know, this wrestle with God that he had, and he spent all day long before he basically prevailed with God to get direction from God and have a forgiveness of his sins.

You know, and we saw this wrestle Joseph Smith had before he had the first vision, and he literally wrestled with Satan. And, you know, we have this wrestle we learn about with Jacob, and it's all throughout the scriptures. And of course, the Savior had one of the greatest wrestles of all, you know, in the Garden of Gethsemane.

And so it's like, okay, there's a pattern in the scriptures here. They were all wrestling with something really big. It's like, well, I'm wrestling with something really big. I'm wrestling with these feelings I don't want. I, I know I want to have a heart full of love. I wanna have a heart full of peace. I wanna have a heart full of goodwill and benevolence, uh, to my former spouse.

I don't want these, these feelings. And so I developed what I'm kind of calling a purge session , you know, where it's this idea where when the feelings kind of a trigger comes, starts generating the feelings, and when I recognize them, you know, I would, I would do these sessions over and over. I would go into my living room, and I would get on the floor and prostrate myself and, and, and just pour my heart out to the Lord and say things like Lord, I don't want these feelings.

I don't want them. I know they will tanker my soul. I know you can take them from me. I know you paid the price of not only my sins, but my infirmities. This is an infirmity. I don't want it. I know you can take it. And I would say things like this. And, and just through tears and this pleading and wrestling with the Lord.

And that process, uh, it would take time, but I... What would happen in this process was nothing short of miraculous, and it happened over and over again through these sessions. And that is that the, the bitterness and contempt and these, these feelings of anger, they would just-- they would change. They would shift from those bitterness and anger, and they would change into sorrow.

And so it would happen every time I would get up off my knees, and then once I felt that that had happened, and sometimes it would take longer than others. But, uh, with that intensity of desire and the Lord's power, He would change those feelings into sorrow. So then I would be shedding forth tears of sorrow for the divorce and sorrow that the marriage had ended, and sorrow for what was now in front of me, the, the broken pieces.

Uh, but the bitterness and the anger and those feelings were gone. They were just gone. And it was a miracle. And, and that miracle is something that anybody can do, you know? And as I think about, well, what's the principle? You know, like, where's that from? And I thought about President Nelson's talk where he said, "When you reach for the Lord's-- When you reach out for the Lord's power in your life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air, power from Jesus Christ will be yours.

When the Savior knows you truly want to reach up to Him, when He can feel that the greatest desire of your heart is to draw His power into your life, you are led by the Holy Ghost to know exactly what you should do. When you spiritually stretch beyond anything you have ever done before, then His power will flow unto you."

I testify that his promise is true, and that happened in this, these purging sessions, for lack of a better name, where it was like... And so it was like I had to have the desire. That was, like, where it started, right? The desire had to be there, and then the faith in Christ, and then the actual effort itself.

And so those, those things then... You know, the Lord hears those prayers, and he sees, and he answers those prayers. And so the interesting thing about this process, though, is, you know, the first time I went through it, I thought, "I'm healed." Like, "I'm healed from this worrying heart, and I, I can move forward now, and I can, you know, just have this burden lifted and be at peace."

But what was interesting is then something would happen or... And then maybe a week later, it might be a month later, then I would start having those feelings again. And that was disappointing for the first time. And, you know, as I talked to some of my single friends who had tried to do something similar, they said, "Yeah, it doesn't seem to go away after the first time even though you think you're healed."

And, and so I thought about the Savior's miracles, and I thought, "Well, when he heal-heals the blind man, the blind man doesn't go blind again," you know? So why is it then that he's healed me, but then the same problem happens again? And so I, as I thought through this scenario and felt like, a-again, it's been validated by many other singles who struggle with something similar, I feel like I've, I've learned, uh, a personal...

I feel like I've learned something, uh, that I would call my, my personal experience, and that is that if the Lord were to just heal that worrying heart completely and never, like, have it come back again, like, all of this growth would be lost. This trust and this faith and these other things that come from having to struggle.

And, you know, and e-and even you can apply it to a larger set, not just the worrying heart, but just all the pain from a divorce. Like, could it, can it just all go away, like, today and be done? Can the Lord do that for His, His children? He actually can. He has the power to do that. Of course He does. Nothing is impossible for the Lord But at the same time, he doesn't seem to choose to opera- operate that way, or at least I haven't seen it.

What he chooses to do is to show up for his children, to bless them, to help them have a healing moment or a healing episode, or to feel of his love and confidence and assurance, and then he'll let us continue to go through that longer natural healing process with him by our side, helping us along the way.

And because he does that, the growth we have during that period is, is concentrated growth. And that's one of the things I've come to value is I'm grateful the Lord didn't take it all away from me on day one because of the things I've learned and the things I've experienced with growth and learning.

And so I, I'm grateful for the Lord. He does show up for us. I think one thing that is interesting, first of all, I, I was thinking as you were talking about, you know, it wasn't like a one and done healing. I think that's true of so many things. Like I've, I've had friends that have talked about grief and how grief is not linear.

And I think that healing is not, is not linear, but also, and you, you two can tell me if you think that I'm wrong about this. I, I think in observing some situations, you can see how anger at one point serves a purpose, but then there's a time when it's important to let that anger go. And that I think sometimes we think of some emotions as like strictly negative or strictly positive.

And to me, anger is one of those where it's like, you know, let's say you have someone that's in a bad abusive situation and they need to have that anger to be able to actually get out of it. But then there's al- there also comes a time when it's like, "Okay, now I need to let that anger go." Do you agree with that?

Well, I would say, I mean, we're given emotions to, to teach us, to help us understand what's our next steps. You know, is this healthy? Is this not healthy? Is this helpful? Is it not? And like you said, uh, anger, in my opinion, anger largely comes from injustice. If you think about it, most of the time injustice is what causes us to be angry.

And the feelings of anger are very helpful to teach us, but what we do with our angry feelings is actually where, you know, where we actually get into issues, right? Where-- And so it's highly normal for humans to feel the wide range of emotions that we have been given. But what we-- how we respond to all of those feelings, uh, it can be, can, can cause us more suffering than we actually need to suffer from If it's okay, I kind of wanna circle back to one of the things that Troy and I talked about today was that, um, we really appreciate that even though we've both been through divorce and, and these experiences, we've had different experiences that c- complement each other and add to the range of what we've experienced.

And, and his experience with anger in divorce was different than mine, as I mentioned, with anger with the Lord. And I wanted to just circle back to, you know, he shared how his anger slowly, slowly, which is such an important word to us, I'm so glad he mentioned that, that it's not a one and done thing with the Lord.

Mo- most things, and especially that have to do with emotions and long drawn out experiences are not one and done. One of the things that was a great blessing to me and helped me work through my anger was to study the true nature of God, because my anger was coming from, as I mentioned, the Lord not showing up how I thought He should show up.

Studying the true nature of God, learning how boundlessly compassionate He is towards His children ga- gave me a new perspective on God and who He truly is. And now I just, I trust Him so much more than I used to, like that I am doing things not to get something in return, but simply because I love Him, and I just trust Him that He knows far more than I know.

Morgan, I wanna answer, answer your question about, you know, anger. You're like, "Is there a useful place for anger?" Is really, I think, what you were saying. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I've Been to therapy and, uh, had, yeah, some different takes on that from, from therapists and read things and felt things and studied the scriptures.

And what-- the thing that I've kind of come back to about anger is that, you know, yeah, how you respond to it is really where it's extremely important for us to, to like figure that out. And, and it can canker our soul if we basically give into the anger and act on it in a, an unhealthy way versus acting on the anger in a healthy way, which in some cases, like as I was explaining, is like we're trying to like get rid of it.

But in your... You know, there are circumstances where like, yeah, if you're in danger bec-- and anger helps you get out of a dangerous situation, then like that anger can be used, you know, for that kind of positive purpose. But, you know, and as in all things, the Lord i-is the example in all things. And you think about, you know, what he did when he saw the money changers in the temple and everything, he acted really strongly.

But the thing about that was he was in complete control. He was in complete control of himself. He didn't just fly off the cuff and, you know, he just... He, he did everything in a, in a way that was le-- sending a message, teaching a lesson, and showing respect for his father. You know, this idea of righteous indignation, which is, you know, like kind of a doctrinal exception to, to anger.

And, um, and the Lord showed that. And of course, he was treated horribly, and we know he had to feel some strong feelings about how he was treated horribly, but never once did he lose control, did he lash out at the, you know, someone and just, you know. Now, he, he gave them strong words, you know, um, and but he was again teaching, and he was, he was in complete control.

And so I think that back to the anger question, the Lord's the example. And but what I've seen so much with divorce and, uh, with some of my other single friends is just hearing really, really difficult, tragic stories of anger just go-- getting out of control and then hurting the kids, hurting each other, hurting their former spouse and themselves, and just...

And then more tragedy happens, more pain comes, and like divorce, the, the challenges of divorce just multiply. And so anger can really, can canker a soul, and so it, it feels like it has to be tamed, has to be corralled. And looking to the Lord for the example is, is the way to go. I love that idea of being in control of our emotions.

I think it kinda goes back to, uh, what Sariah was talking about, like, acknowledging what you're feeling. Like, I think that's a way that you say to yourself, "I am now taking control of this situation," and I think the same thing can be true of anger. You mentioned kids, Troy, and do both of you have kids, I assume?

Yes? That's right. We've got 10 together, so, and- Okay ... two grandkids, so we are, we've been blessed. Yeah. I think so often, like, that's a huge part of, of navigating divorce is how children factor into all of this. Troy, you mentioned that you were an empty nester, um, at the point of your divorce. Was the same thing true of you, Sariah?

At the time of my divorce, I still had four kids at home. I had an eight-year-old on up to a 17-year-old. Okay. I have six kids. Uh, two were already out of the house, and then four were still in the home. So- Okay ... yeah. Okay. So I wondered if you have any thoughts because I think that divorce is something where it doesn't really matter how old your kids are.

Obviously, when they're in the home, it, it has a different impact, but I've watched adult children of parents navigating divorce, and that feels very hard as well. So I wondered if you have any thoughts about helping children navigate all of this and how you were able to help your children as you were going through it.

About 10 years before my divorce, I had a close friend who went through a divorce, and I watched her do all that she could, even when it was very challenging to, to not speak ill of her spouse, and she had a lot of good reasons to do so, and she chose not to. And a lot of people didn't understand why she was choosing to go that route, and it, it was a great example to me.

And I found myself, as I started going through my divorce, leaning on that example. I, I have not been perfect at this, but I have a strong, strong belief, no matter how hard it is, to try your very best to not speak ill of your spouse, and it... your, your former spouse, and it can be very challenging. I'll give you an example of for me, the first year of my divorce, and it was Christmastime, and we kept the, our...

Because we got married during Christmas, we kept our marriage album, picture album with the Christmas stuff. And so it- we brought it out for Christmas, and the, the d- my husband no longer lived with us. And m- my eight-year-old started crying and just... And I said, "What? What's wrong?" She just said, "We have to get rid of this now because, you know, you're divorced and we can't have this anymore."

And I just said, "Oh, no. Like, we don't need to get rid of this. Like, this was a beautiful experience for your dad and I, and it's a part of my journey. It will always be a part of my journey, and it's a part of your journey and your life. And beautiful things have come from this, and w- like, I don't wanna get rid of this.

We can keep this forever, and we can look at these pictures and say, 'What a wonderful beginning that led to this family with these children.' And divorce is a part of my journey now and it will be a part of yours, but we can, we can find goodness in what w- the union that we had." I think it can be really challenging.

It can be really tempting to, to want our children to pick us We want our children to see us as the good guy. It, it is, it's a natural man thing that we don't wanna lose our children. We have... It's very natural to want our children to see us as the good one, which means that naturally they would have to see their other parent as the bad one, and it, and it doesn't have to be that way.

It doesn't have to... There is not a marriage where both people have been perfect, and I'm not saying that, that all grievances in a marriage are equal, right? But we can, even though I don't wanna under-emphasize how difficult it can be, we can choose to speak carefully, and positively, and extend compassion the very best way that we can.

I wanna read a quote from, um, President Nelson in his talk, uh, Peacemakers Needed. He said, "If your verbal arsenal is filled with insults and accusations, now is the time to put them away." Um And then he says, "His true disciples build, lift, encourage, persuade, and inspire no matter how difficult the situation."

He doesn't give an out for anything. He says that the true disciples build, lift, encourage. The reality is it, it is so tempting for us to want to, to say negative things about our spouse for a myriad of reasons. But, and I, and I wanna say this carefully, when we put our children in a space where we talk ill, we automatically require them to have to choose.

We require that of them by, by speaking ill of our former spouse. We can say things like, "It's really sad what mom did. I'm sorry you're hurting from that. It's really sad what dad chose. I'm sorry that you're suffering. I'm suffering, too." But we can extend compassion for what he was going through at the same time.

That takes intense trust and faith in the Lord. In- intense, but it's possible. Uh, there was one more thing I wanted to read, and I have a little quote. "If I want my children to develop their own relationship with Christ, I don't want to become the loudest voice in their conscience. I want the Spirit of the Lord to become the loudest voice in their conscience."

And we do that by speaking the very best that we can of our former spouse, so that the Lord can talk to our children about truth I think I said a really messy thing, but No, no, no. No, that was wonderful. Troy, anything you would add to that?

A little bit, yes. And that is Going back to what I learned from Stephen Covey, which is relevant here, you know, the, to try and have good relations with your former spouse and to try and help your children heal and not put them in a position where they have to choose, but to truly bless your children in, in the way that will help them, thinking about them.

And it's not about me, it's not about the former spouse, it's about them. You know how to bless your children the most. Honestly, it's like loving... doing your best to love your former spouse and forgive them will bless your children more, I think, than we can imagine. And I, I just believe that still. You know, it's like in marriage, you know, we're taught like, well, the best gift, like I remember hearing this, like for me being a man, like the best gift you can give your children is to love their mother.

You know, and I've, I've heard that phrase, I don't even know where it's from, but it stuck. And it's like, it feels like there's a lot of truth to that. And it's like, well, does that end at divorce? I don't think it does. I mean, it's like you can, you know, this idea of loving, you know, their mother, even if we're not married anymore, or loving their father, you know, uh, on the other end, that now love means something different now with divorce, right?

But can there still be love? Like, I know there's some really, really challenging divorces out there where their circumstances have been much different than Sariah and mine, where there's been, you know, horrific things happen to other people. So, you know, I, I just wanna say that when I'm saying what I'm saying.

But the Lord can heal our hearts, and He can help us speak well of others to the best that we can in the circumstances, and help our children by helping them to have the best relationship they can with your former spouse, you know, who is their mother or their father, and to not take that away and to really help encourage that to go well.

I think that's part of our duty as someone who has been divorced is to try and really help them have a good relationship with, uh, our former spouse. I'm sure people listening are like, "Well, how did they meet?" So how did the two of you meet? And I, I feel like the people that I know that are currently going through divorce, they're like, "I have no desire to ever remarry."

So did you expect to remarry, and what has this experience taught you about the Lord's timing? Uh, when I got divorced, I-- my hope was that I would remarry, and then I went to work fairly soon after and started dating. And, uh, in fact, we-- so we met on Mutual. Uh, and so, you know- That's a, that's an LDS dating app

it's a LDS dating app for those who don't know. Yeah, a Mutual success story. Yeah. That's right. We are a success. And so we met online and on this dating app, and yeah, we, we had a great experience, uh, dating online. And, and, you know, in fact, I'll just say this about dating, that I have learned so much from dating.

From those singles out there who are divorced and feeling like, "I've had such a bad experience in my marriage, I never wanna date again," which is super natural for a lot of people to feel, I would just say, like, dating can be, even if it doesn't lead to marriage, it can-- so much good can come out of dating, so many positive experiences.

And in fact, before I met Sariah, I dated Some wonderful women who helped me heal, and I had a very good experience with that. And, and in fact, and learned so many things from other good women who I dated. So the dating experience was a wonderful learning experience. And even had I not gotten married, you know, I still think it was beneficial.

Now everybody has a different experience, but that was mine, and I felt like dating served a really important role, not just in getting married, but in the healing process as well. Troy started dating, what, a week after your divorce was final? Something like that. Yeah, it was pretty quick. I didn't start d- I didn't want to date.

I didn't want to. I wanted to finish raising my children. I had an eight-year-old when I got divorced, and I had no interest in dating. Um, I really wanted to work on my healing, and about year three, I just felt like the Lord just said, "You need to start dating." And I was not interested, and I, I at one point felt chastised.

Like, "Nope, you have to start dating." And so it was about, yeah, year three before I started dating. And for me, dating, getting remarried was something... I had an experience right after my divorce where I just, I just, I felt so just broken, yeah, and like I was never going to be worth something for someone to want me.

My life was, you know, such a mess, and I had seen some really wonderful women get remarried, and I just thought, "Yeah, but that will never be me." And I had an experience, uh, when I was just heavily weeping and mourning and during a prayer when I just felt like the Lord said, "Sariah, whether or not you get remarried has nothing to do with your worthiness with me.

You're a covenant woman, and you keep your covenants Whether your journey in life and my will for you has marriage or has no remarriage, you are worthy of it. And that just changed my outlook. It just changed everything and, and it basically helped me let go of this, like, fear, "Will I ever get remarried?"

And so when I did start dating, you know, it was, it was, I had this, this kind of settledness of, "You know what? Okay, I'll do this, but I don't know what the outcome will be." And I think Troy brought up a good point of, of dating. It can be so... It can be healing. It can... You can learn things about yourself that you wouldn't in any other space.

And the outcome, even though we want the outcome to be marriage, the experiences from it can be really, really wonderful, too. And so, yeah, I didn't actually have much of an expectation that I might ever get remarried or not, but we're both glad that our outcome was this. Yeah. And I also feel like I need to add this because it almost sounds like, "Oh, well, you met soon after you divorced Troy, and everything worked," but it took us three years to get married.

And in fact, we broke up over and over and over again. Uh, and part of it was because I was in a, a healing process. Like, because I started dating right after, I needed a lot of time to heal and to learn and to grow. And one of the things we've learned is, you know what? There are things we both needed to address from our previous marriages.

Like, we're not like, "Hey, this is all about a blame game on the other person, and, like, we're fine." You know? It's like, no, we need to address some things. And so we had to... We made changes, and we helped each other make changes. And that was one of the beautiful things about our relationship. I mean, Sariah taught me about shame.

It was super valuable because she had done all the study before, and she helped me see where it was showing up, showing up in my life and how I needed to address it and how that was, yeah, that had been something that I needed to address. Well, uh, we are so glad that the two of you found each other. And Sariah, I'm really glad that you didn't call in sick for this.

Thank you. Thank you both so much. My last question for you is, what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I love this question. Thank you, Morgan. For me, being all in with the gospel of Jesus Christ means one of my favorite scriptures, which is Omni 1:26, where Amaleki says, "And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption.

Yea, come unto him and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him." To me, it means giving your whole soul to the Lord. When it's wonderful, when it's terrible, when you can't see the future, when you can see the future. Through everything, it's the willingness to continually, over and over and over, give your whole soul to the Lord.

And what does that mean? To me, that means... it means the ultimate trust in Christ, that He knows far more than you know, that He can take all of your suffering, and He can sanctify it for your good. Camille Johnson said, "I know that life is hard. You can do hard with Jesus, or you can do hard alone. That is your choice.

But when you do hard with Jesus Christ, the heart becomes holy." And what does holy mean? It means that the Lord can turn our suffering into beautiful things. He can truly take ashes and turn them to beauty, but we have to keep with Him. We have to stay with Him and trust Him, and it will level us up continually, over and over and over, and purify us

For me, Morgan, to be all in, I think about Job, and I don't know any better way for me to express how I feel about it other than to say the words he said, which is, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." And elsewhere he said, Job said, "Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him."

It's like no matter what happens, whatever the outcome is, it doesn't matter. You know? We-- I will trust him, and I recognize that, yeah, I will trust him. It means to trust him regardless of the outcome Thank you both so much. I really, I really, really hope that you know how much I appreciate your time and you sharing.

I, I think there's so much value in learning from the experiences of other people, and so thank you so much for sharing the things that I know you've put time and effort and tears into learning. Thank you. It's been our pleasure. It's been a privilege to be here. We hope our experience can be beneficial to others

We are so grateful to Sariah and Troy Davis for joining us on this week's episode. We are also grateful, as always, to Derek Campbell of Mix at Six Studios for his help with this episode, and we're grateful to you for listening. We'll look forward to being with you again next week