The Mormon Church Saved My Life - Keira Shae | Ep. 2073
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.6 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2025
⏱️ 189 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today we welcome to the podcast Keira Shae, who joins us to share her story of converting to the LDS Church as a teenager while growing up in an abusive home.
Living in Utah, Keira was surrounded by Mormons and idealized them as a contrast to her tumultuous home life. Around the age of fifteen, she went to live with a foster family who required her to follow church guidelines very rigidly. At the time, however, this structured lifestyle was a welcome change from her chaotic upbringing.
After marrying and starting a family with a return missionary, Keira did her best to live up to the expectations of being the “perfect” Mormon wife and mother. Over time, though, she found herself struggling with perfectionism, scrupulosity, and the process of discovering her bisexuality.
Join us to hear how Keira confronted these challenges and where she stands with the Mormon Church today.
You can purchase Keira's memoir, How the Light Gets In here.
___________________
At Mormon Stories we explore, celebrate, and challenge Mormon culture through in-depth stories told by members and former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as scholars, authors, LDS apologists, and other professionals.
Our overall mission is to:
- Facilitate informed consent amongst LDS Church members, investigators, and non-members regarding Mormon history, doctrine, and theology
- Support Mormons (and members of other high-demand religions) who are experiencing a religious faith crisis
- Promote healing, growth and community for those who choose to leave the LDS Church or other high demand religions
🤝Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today
One-time or recurring donations: https://donorbox.org/mormon-stories?default_interval=m
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mormonstories
Venmo: https://account.venmo.com/u/mormonstories
Paypal: https://paypal.me/mormonstories
Join this channel to get access to perks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx6OgmoqJbOVRq-Lv1P7SzA/join
Our Platforms:
🌐Mormon Stories Blog: https://www.mormonstories.org/episodes
🎙️Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mormonstories
✳️Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sDzk7dRjODTSEqzZKZJzk?si=148b0efc1ccc4404&nd=1
🍎Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mormon-stories-lds/id312094772
🖼️Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mormstories
📱TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mormonstoriespodcast
🎮Discord: https://discord.com/invite/kuX5p6yyjF
Contact us:
📬PO Box 171085, Salt Lake City, UT 84117
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast. I am your co-host for today, |
| 0:04.7 | John DeLynn. It's October 15th, 2025. Today we are here to tell the story of a woman who was |
| 0:12.5 | raised in her early life outside of the LDS Church. I think she would be okay with me saying it was |
| 0:19.1 | an abusive, unhealthy family situation. |
| 0:22.6 | And then she ended up going into foster care in Utah to an LDS family. |
| 0:28.6 | And I think she feels like that was a very positive thing in her life at the time. |
| 0:32.6 | And then as an adult, she started to have questions about her Mormon experience. |
| 0:39.0 | And that is kind of a teaser for today's episode. |
| 0:43.8 | We are excited to have with us in studio, Kira Shea. |
| 0:47.6 | Hey, Kira. |
| 0:48.2 | Hey. |
| 0:49.0 | Thanks for joining us. |
| 0:50.2 | Thanks for having me. |
| 0:51.4 | Yeah. |
| 0:52.3 | And Kira, you're the author of a book that will plug it at the end. It's called How the Light Gets In. It's a memoir, and we'll tell you more about it at the end, but wanted to just mention that. And of course, we're super excited to have back in studio, Margie. Hey, Margie. Hi. Thanks for joining us. Yes, I'm grateful. |
| 1:13.2 | Well, Kira, you have kind of an epic story. |
| 1:19.4 | So, yeah, sometimes we get people a chance to give an intention of like why they wanted to tell their story. |
| 1:22.0 | But we can do that or we can just dive in, whatever you'd prefer. |
| 1:24.3 | And you could also correct anything I got wrong. |
| 1:25.3 | That's right. |
| 1:26.8 | No, that's all right. It was everything. No, that's all right. |
| 1:28.8 | It was everything. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. John Dehlin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. John Dehlin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.