That time my five-year-old brother was told Satan is out to get him…

 That time my five-year-old brother was told Satan is out to get him…

When my little brother was in his earliest years (less than five) he faced an apparently life threatening illness, then a series of serious and life-threatening injuries.

My young mother, bless her little cotton socks, was a sincere recent convert to the LDS church, and sought out a priesthood blessing for my brother. The brother who came to our home was a member of the branch presidency, and was considered in the stake to be a spiritual giant. He had been the go to guy in our family for almost all priesthood related matters, as my father was, and is, a skeptic.

When he gave my brother the blessing he told him that the reason he Had experienced so many life-threatening illnesses and injuries was that he had been specially selected in the pre-existence for a role in the latter days in the church, and that Satan knew this and was out to get him.

My brother was about five years old at the time, and for the next 12 to 13 years or so he literally believed that every time something went wrong Satan was using him in an effort to thwart God's plans for the world. Not that my brother thought he was anything special, quite the opposite, he was terrified senseless at the prospect of being a special target of the devil.

I cannot even imagine what that does to a developing psyche. In his mid teen years my brother came to accept that he was gay. Can you imagine the utter horror at coming to the apparent realization that Satan had made you homosexual?!!!

My brother is out of the church now but he's still bears the scars of damaged psychological development that stem at least in part from that moment of "inspiration."