Hi everyone, here's my story...

by LisaAnn 16 Replies latest jw friends

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  Gopher

  ....sitting on the edge of my seat.... Then what happened?
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  mind my own

  Thank you for sharing with us what you have shared so far! Would love to hear the rest!

  MMO
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  elder-schmelder

  I have always felt the same way about the bible stories. They never made sense to me !!

  elder-schmelder
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  BluesBrother

  Hi Lisa ...Although my life never had the drama of yours, I do recognize in myself the same kind of dissonance . Like you, I really wanted to believe (sounds more like the X Files??) I had swings of hot and cold in my faith. It was not the Bible that bothered so much as the J W spin, Armageddon and judgement of non believers. I suppressed this time and again but it kept returning...Once I married and became an elder I was just too busy to think about it much. I decided to just keep busy and "leave it up to Jehovah" - typical cop out.....

  Eventually things in my life brought it to a head and I finally saw "The Truth" to be false.................and here I am

  Thanks for sharing
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  LisaAnn

  Thank you all so much for replying! (There's always that fear that your post sits there alone, sinking deep into the old pages of Active Topics lol!)

  And yes, I'd love to write more later. Four years ago I had money and was attending several therapy sessions each week- now I'm broke and really miss talking to somebody. And JWD is free!! Woo hoo!!

  To answer ataloa's question: Yes, this was my first exposure to any religion- except when I was 7 years old I went with a friend to her Catholic mass. She told me to go up to the priest to accept the wafer, but I didn't know what to do when I got up there and I could tell the guy was really irritated at me. I felt ashamed. This is a powerful memory for me... maybe that's why I felt so much better going to the meetings where the older men fawned over me and I wasn't put in a position to embarass myself. (I've always been extremely sensitive.)

  At the time my father was an atheist. My mother was agnostic, sending away for 8-foot high cardboard pyramids to set up in our living room so we could walk under them and get the good vibes 'just in case'. Both pretty much hated religion. My great-grandma taught me the 'Now I lay me down to sleep...' which I considered quite morbid, so I liked it. She also scared me to death by talking about 'World War 3' coming anytime now. I thought about it every day. This must have contributed to my relief at 'learning' that Jehovah was taking care of world conditions and I didn't have to worry.

  That's about the only exposure I ever had.
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  caliber

  LisaAnn,

  Thanks for sharing.. all stories add to our understanding things..

  Caliber
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  LisaRose

  Thanks for sharing, your story is very interesting. I was not raised, but became a JW very early (13) also. Didn't have your doughts about the bible, but struggled with many things in the org. I finally left as I couldn't stay in my marriage. At the time, I still thought JW's had the truth about the bible (maybe), but I couldn't live with my Ex and I couldn't beleive that God would want me to me miserable. I thought if God would judge me for seeking happiness, so be it, I would die at the Big A. But I really couldn't believe that that would be the case. After many years, I came to the conculsion that the bible wasn't perfect or God's word. It was very liberating.