Without Disclosing My True Identity
I am in error. No church will admit that I am right, except the one with
which I am associated. This makes them witnesses against each other;
and how can I decide in such a case as this, seeing they are all unlike the
Church of Christ, as it existed in former days!^17Lucy was raised in a household that later reflected much the same as her own. She
married a man who was just like her father, Solomon Mack. Both Solomon and Joseph
Smith, Sr. were terrible at business ventures, although their hearts and minds were both
set on finding wealth. They both had drinking problems exacerbated by their continual
failures at becoming financially secure. It wasn’t until they finally realized they were lousy
businessmen that both men became more serious about religious issues.^18 Solomon Mack,
for example, found his faith in Jesus in 1811 and wrote, “God appeared for me and took
me out of the horrible pit and mirey [sic] clay, and set my feet on the rock of Christ
Jesus.”^19 The ascendant pull on Solomon, as though God were striving to reach him
through life’s ups and downs, were matched by his spiritually sensitive Lydia^20 as she
attempted to mold him according to her desires for him. This became the model as well
for Lucy in her handling of Joseph Sr.
Lucy had no idea that advanced beings were monitoring her life and overseeing
the influence she would have on her foreordained son. A few years before Joseph was
born, she became very ill with tuberculosis.^21 Her doctor had little hope for her recovery.
An advanced being, disguised as an itinerant missionary for one of the local faiths,
visited Lucy at her home and healed her. Lucy unknowingly noted in the account of her
history that the unnamed “Methodist exhorter” had agitated her, providing some good
humor to the “ministering angels” knowing the truth of the situation.^22
Lucy’s sisters, Lovisa and Lovina, had both previously died of the same disease
that infected Lucy.^23 The technology to heal tuberculosis did not exist upon the earth at
that time; but in advanced human worlds, a cure exists for any earthly malady. With the
loss of Lovina, Lucy was greatly heartbroken. This became a powerful influence leading
her to study the Bible and to question what the religious denominations professed while
comparing them to what she read.^24
Lucy had a hard time accepting the religious views of her close friends and
relatives, especially those of her “born-again” father. The similarities of her own father
to her husband, i.e. pursuing wealth in some spurious and speculative ways,^25
piggybacked with Lucy’s annoyance of Joseph Sr.’s initial inability and disinterest in
guiding their family to “God’s truth.” However, to help keep both Lucy and Joseph Sr.
in the right mindset in order to influence young Joseph’s own religious views, subtle
dreams were introduced into their minds during nighttime repose.^26 Both Lucy and
Joseph Sr. relied on these dreams as “messages from God,” leaving them unsettled and
ultimately suggesting to them that the religions of the world were not the gospel that
Christ had taught.^27
Lucy’s words, as presented in her autobiography,^28 portray her as a woman who
suffered much hardship and great losses throughout her life. Her mother, Lydia Mack,
tried to make sure that, despite such hardships, Lucy would never forget her devotion to
God.^29 In fact, Lucy was raised perfectly to counterbalance her softhearted husband—a
situation largely created by her own commanding personality—and to offer the young
Joseph Jr. a modest degree of normalcy in rural American life.