Hi my name is Lillian and I am posting for my first time. I was a witness along with my husband and two children for 12 years and gave in my letter of disasociation about a year and a half ago. I have struggled with the guilt of bringing my family in contact with the witnesses (I have always been a bible searcher) and I am only coming to terms with this recently.
I now consider myself a born again believer in Christ Jesus and read my bible daily to check and see what is true. I have had to make many adjustments to my thinking and then of course help my kids to see the truth too. My husband still struggles with being out of the Org. He was a MS and even though he NEVER read the bible on his own, he felt spiritual because he went thru all the routines. I am sure many of you can understand. Very recently, he has shown interest in learning more about Jesus Christ.
As for our kids, they are 11 and 13 and right now do not want to know anything about religion. We sometimes attend church services with other non-denominational christians but do not force the kids in any way to believe in anything. They have been decompressing from all the stress they had when we were witnesses.
why did we leave, in a nutshell, I had many experiences that I could not reconcile with the bible. It was hard to see all the unloving attitudes, people being judged on meeting attendence and scriptures obviously taken out of context but still I never thought I would leave what I thought was the truth. Then one day after praying for a long time about all this, I believe the Lord opened my eyes right in the KH. It suddenly hit me that there was a "evil" presence in the hall and that these were not God's people. I practically ran out of the hall and told my husband that night I could no longer attend anymore and that I felt that I needed to learn more about Christ. This started right away.
My husband left a few months later and of course the children. We are doing very well right now. In all the years we were witnesses, it seemed like we were always depressed and never felt confident that God approved of us in any way. Now we know he does and we are very much loved! My husband and I used to always fight over doctrinal issues and almost divorced when I first left. The kids were stressed out trying to keep up with meetings, service and school work plus not having any friends. My daughter last year at 12 was suffering from major depression and it was so bad she had to be home schooled. Thank God that young children are very resilient and she bounced back very fast after we broke off from the KH. She along with our son who is 11 have made many friends this school year. They both enjoy school and are involved in many activities and enjoy being just kids. My husband and I are very much in love again and there is so much peace. I realize that us leaving all together has truly been a miracle and feels sorry for the literally tens of thousands of families broken apart by the WT every year. I pray every day for these ones.
Anyway, sorry this is so long. I would love to have any ex-JWs contact me to talk. Here is my information:
I am looking forward to making many new friends here! May God bless you all and heal you all.
edited to embed email address and obscure personal information ~ Scully