Maybe what you are feeling is a need deep down to have a relationship with Jehovah again.
I think I had a relationship with him *before* I joined the WTS. Yes, I do feel that need, but only for selfish reasons. I don't want death to be the end of everything. It's like wishing you found a bag of money. You could wish you found all that money, just so that you could be rich and never have to work again, or you could wish you found it just to help people who really needed it. Either way the chances of finding a bag of money are as slim as the chances of really finding God. But as they say, the journey is much more important than the destination. I don't know what my destination will be, but I do know that my journey is selfish and I feel guilty about it. That's a reason why I consider going back to the meetings. Now I am just sitting here, waiting until something falls into my lap. I'll die waiting.
I echo the earlier thoughts on reading the New Testament. It provides a much different picture of God.
It does, and I will read some, but it is still the same God they are talking about in the NT.
Thank you Fleur, for that link. I will definitely read it when I get home from work tonight. Am in a hurry now, got to get ready for work. You are right, there are no easy answers. None. And sometimes I wonder.. are there even answers?
Test your assumption of a "loving God". Does the world you experience really support that characterization?
Absolutely not.
but your friend would surely want you to live your life and be happy without having to lie to yourself.
We had countless conversations about religion. One of our favorite things to do was to sit by the bonfire and read the bible. He was catholic, but went to the meetings with me every once in a while. I think we were both searching. When I was at the hospital with him during his last days here on earth, I don't know why, but one of the saddest things to me was seeing the rosary in his hands. Somehow it looked cruel, and I can't get the picture out of my mind.
bizzybee, gosh, your words made me smile. Yes it is true that they have an answer for everything, and actually, that was one of the things that drew me to them in the first place. But the answers are not necessarily right, I know...
Read "Life Before Life" - it's written by a doctor about children's stories of reincarnation
Who's the author?
Pretending something is true doesn't make it true. You can believe and wish and hope and pray as much as you want but you will not change a single atom of the universe by doing so.
sigh, yes I know.
Will returning to what you know was wrong when you left really help?
I honestly don't know, but I am at a point where I would try just about anything. I can't even begin to tell you what the past few weeks have been like. The feeling of this loss being completely irreversible is just killing me. It keeps me out of my sleep and perhaps for the first time in my life, I understand the meaning of the word "depression". In a way I have been *blessed*, having had a very fair chance to say goodbye. But in spite of that, so many things were left unsaid. So many things were left not done. It is one thing to die of old age after a good life, but it is another thing to see a life cut short. No, I don't know if it would help, but anything beats sitting here and doing nothing to help myself. Perhaps there is "a god" out there who is trying to tell me something, because I was going to go to the bookstudy today, for the first time in over a year, and I woke up because the phone rang, I got called in to work tonight.
I say find comfort and solace in nature. Look around. What do you see?
I see everything that belonged to him. (we lived in the same house). I see the rosebush that died two years ago, until he decided to pray for it and miraculously it came back to life. I see too much of him right now.
What happens to us when we die? Will we ever see our loved ones again?
My gut feeling tells me that we will not see them again. That when we die, it is really over, but I desperately don't want to believe that.
Thank you all so very much for the support. I am aware that a day will come when I can look back at this time without crying or feeling a burning pain inside, but I don't know when that day will come. It sure isn't here yet.
