9 additional lessons one LDS Church member learned when he lost and regained his faith

On July 15, 2014, Rich Millar shared his story about losing and regaining his faith with the world.

Millar, a Utah County resident who served a mission in Russia before falling away from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, felt that if only three people read his Facebook post about the 18 lessons he learned through his trial of faith and just one benefitted from it, it would be worth it.

In January 2015, the Mormon Channel created a video about Millar's experience as part of its His Grace series. The Deseret News saw the video and Facebook post, and, with Millar’s permission, reposted his 18 lessons early last year.

Instead of three people reading about Millar’s experiences, tens of thousands read his words, and he is still surprised by the response.

“Overwhelmingly, the response has been positive, and it has been so awesome,” Millar said. “I’ve had so many people reach out to me and either just thank me or say they have gone through something similar or they have a friend or family member going through something similar … and that reading my message brought them hope or helped them along their path. And that, to me, has been really awesome, and it has been amazing to see.”

Initially, Millar was hesitant to post his experience on his personal Facebook page because he wasn’t sure how it would be received. At the time he published the post, only a few people knew that he had struggled with his faith. However, he continued to feel prompted to share his story.

Millar's post resonated with readers, and they flooded his Facebook inbox with stories of their own experiences or the experiences of loved ones.

“I’ve had a lot of people reach out for family members,” Millar said. “Moms who have a son or a daughter who is struggling with the same crisis of faith are asking for advice on how they can help them. I think those ones have kind of hit me the hardest, mostly because I don’t know exactly how to answer them because as I reflect on my own experience, I don’t know if anyone could’ve talked me out of my path.”

He recognizes that the decision ultimately belongs to the individual facing the trial of faith and says that there was a point during his own journey when he was “past feeling," and nothing anyone could say would help. It is for this reason that he says the best advice he can give to someone whose friend or family member is struggling with his or her faith is to offer love.

“I think the best thing they can do is love, support, continue to be an example but not to judge, not to ostracize — which I don’t think anyone does intentionally, but I think it happens on both sides as one person distances themselves from their faith,” Millar said. “They naturally ostracize themselves from the people within that faith, and the people who are still within that faith don’t know how to respond appropriately because they don’t want to come across as pushy or overbearing or judgmental, so their natural response is to back off.”

Millar says he has found that “everyone’s journey and path to regaining their faith is different.” In his case, Millar says he reached a point where he started to reconsider “doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ like life after death, modern-day prophets and others like it."

“In these moments, I started to feel what I had felt before. For the first time in a long time, something triggered inside of me,” Millar told the Mormon Channel. “I felt something that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I felt the Spirit, and I felt the Spirit tell me that what I was doing wasn’t right. And I got a glimpse of what I once was, and I realized what I had to become again.”