This may 'reveal' too much info. But I have already done that, so if the elders wanted to figure out who I was, they could have by now anyway.
This is precisely what began our search and finally 'got us out of the borg'. I am speaking of the Lack Of Love.
Our DF'd daughter came to us around New Years 1999. She was pregnant, was drug addicted, had no job, not a penny to her name, no place to live, and had burned out her friendship with most her friends. In short, she was desperate beyond belief. As witnesses forever we had a massive conflict on our hands - do we take her in? - or do we follow the society's hard line on DF'd ones?
Well, we are human - and we do love our daughter in spite of her leaving the religion of Jehovah's witnesses, and no matter aht she has done wrong. So we took her in. She needed medical care, love, and the type of encouragement to get through this period that comes best from parents. She stayed 3 months, until late March. Still not comfortable for either us or her, she moved in with a friend at that time.
Lo' and Behold - come the end of May, a full five months since we let her move in, and a full two months since she left. Here comes Brothers Self Righteous and Hollier Than Thou. They were there to 'investigate' our decision, and particuarly how it would impact my postion on the servant body. They proposed several alternatives that we could have done instead of actually being parents - among them a suggestion that we could have rented her an apartment so that we didn't have to actually see her daily. They were completely uninterested in the situation she had been in - that it was -20 outside was of no interest to them - that she was suicidal was of no interest to them - that she needed her Mother to love her unconditionally for a while was of no interest to them at all.
So I provided them with an opportunity to look at the 80 or so articles that I had compiled on a floppy disk at my computer to see that I had researched the WT articles well -and could actually point to a few points that would support our decision to take her in - They weren't even interested in that - never looked at it. They had already made up thier minds as to what they were there to do - inform me that they would be deleting me from the servant body.
Then it hit me - the circuit overseer would be there next week - they were are my house 6 days before the CO visit. The so called 'offense' was committed 5 months before - but the reason they were there was to make a good name with the CO. Nothing more - they did not make any effort to 'restore' us to God's favor - never read a single scripture that I recall. We had broken the rules and we had to pay for that somehow.
When the CO left - and I was no longer on the servant body - a few weeks later Brother Self-Righteous was made the new Presiding Overseer. So he got his reward for a job well done. He had made the rounds and made sure that three very good and loving brothers were deleted on that visit. He was 'cleaning house' - and got the reward for that he was looking for. What a bastard!!!
We knew in the back of our minds at that point that something was absolutely wrong. It took about 5 years more before we finally came across Franz's books and made the break.
So this lack of love can be a good thing. It opens eyes. Even those like ours that were blinded for all our lives with the 'Truth'!
So let them dump the sh*t on the flock - it sets men free!!!!
Jeff
