Letter to my brother

by AlexHall 8 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  AlexHall

  A couple of weeks ago I sent a letter to my older brother that has shunned since last year. I never belived that I would get a response, but I did.

  I have written all of this in swedish, but Im gonna try to translate it as good as I can. Im gonna divide it in three parts. Ill try to delete the parts that are not relevent to the forum

  First its my first letter to him

  Second its his responce

  And the third part is my second respons that I still haven´t got an answer to.

  Hello!

  I would start to send my regards for the sorrow you´r feeling right now(beacuse some very sad things that had happend to them recently) I really hope everything will work out for you, your worth it.

  Im well aware that you perhaps wont read this, probably not answering it, and thats a decision I have to respect. I just wanna show you that even if you have made the decision to shun me, that is not a decision supported from my side. Your my brother, my family and I would love to see that nothing came between that, not even religion.

  You probably don´t wanna hear what Im gonna say now, but it´s better that you hear it from me, instead that it comes from my mother or sister. I´v been doing a lot of searhing and been reading a lot of books regarding religion, the Witnesses and a whole lot else and I have come to the conclusion that what I previously belived in is not what I belive now. I can no longer belive or put my faith in the Govering body of Jehovas Witnesses. There are no evidence that supports that the GB is inspired by God or that they would be the only org. that have found Gods holy message to mankind. The light has not brightened. The light has changed, in some cases from a to b, back to a again. I can´t see any work beeing done by the holy spirit. Everything I´v read shows me that the org. of JW´s are controlled by man and that it always been that way. And I can´t put my faith in people that once and again have showed that they don´t have God´s holy spirit guiding them. Even if I would wanna belive otherwise, I have to realise that everything tells me that the witnesses are no better than any other. They are only people trying to to their best with the choices they have. Whether the bible is Gods inspired words or not, is a question I most probably will take unanswered to the grave.

  Yes, I know, you are not in liberty to have this discussion with me, as it would deteriorate your relationship with Jehovah and perhaps even stain your purity to him. But If you read the letter you now atleast know where I stand.

  Its been and incredible journey this last year and yoy were right with some of the things you last wrote. This journey I hade to do myself, even if the pain the followed is regrettable

  My greates wish right now is that we could lay all of this behind us and actually only be a family. Not having you, dad and our sister close pains me every awake moment. To know that you now regard me as an apostate and that I deserve the horricif judgement from God, well it hurts.

  With all my love, take care

  Part two will soon follow
• 

  AlexHall

  Part two. The answer from my brother.

  Hello!

  I would like to start with thanking for the consideration. It means a lot and Im grateful for the thought. We are feeling better now and are sure that everyhing will work out for the best. I also need to say that I hope that you to (me and my gf) are good and staying healty

  About the other part of your letter... well I don´t really know what you wanna achive. Its evident that you still regard this as a judgment from God, and that its a decision from my, dad and our sister to shun you. And I can´t do anything else than feeling sad that you still see it like that.

  I know nothing I can say will change the way your thinking, but considering the thing me and my wife have been through there is something I´v been thinking about. When all the bad things happened, we could have reacted with blameing God. There were so many things he could have done to help us, that he didnt. Or we could have blamed the medical care or any other instance we felt hade a participant in what happend. But that would have been wrong. We put this on us, knowing there were risks, and we payed the price. It would have been so much easier to blame God, but it was nog God that forced us to do what we did, nore did he judge us and punished us with what happened. I have to take the consequenses, even when it feels unjust.

  When you write that:Your my brother, my family and I would love to see that nothing came between that, not even religion. makes me more disappointed than I can explain. You know I belive in a God and that I can have a personal relationship with him. I also belive that you can hurt God. That you even can suggest that we could put religion aside as a piece of clothing, is very insulting. Jehovah and my relationship with him is as real as my relationship with my wife. And as I would never act as she doesn´t exist, I will never pretend that God is not there to please you. I never thought that I would hear something like that from you.

  Im guessing that atleast some of the material you have been reading os from apostates. If you choose to accept their arguments is your own buisness. Im asking you to see what other activities they have. Do they have any kind of edifying activities or is the sole purpose to find bad things about the JW´s`.

  Qoute:Not having you, dad and our sister close pains me every awake moment. To know that you now regard me as an apostate and that I deserve the horricif judgement from God, well it hurts. Two things. The first, you are df, and you can´t do nothing about that if you don´t wanna be reinstated. And if I would see you as an apostate, that´s up to you. I don´t appreciate that you write arguments about why you don´t belive in Jehovah, that you slander the GB without evidence and the tells me that I can put my faith behind me. I choose to see this as you want to explain you wievpoint, and that you don´t mean anyting bad about the jw´s or Jehovah. But if I get more letters with the same tone, you are a an aposte. Its one thing not beliving the same things, a whole other to slander my belief. I take offence in the same way as if you would slander my wife.

  The second part. I, my father and our sister never wanted this to happened. But you made the choices you felt you had to to and here we are. That you continue to blame us and Jehovah is not fair. But we will still keeping doing this(shunning) because we love you. We don´t belive that you deserve, we are not mad at you. We do what we do because of consideration. We are convinced that if you don´t repent you will have no hope for the future. It would have been so easy to act as if nothing happend, but it would like not stopping a drunk friend trying to sit behind the wheels of a car. We will keep treating you like this as a proof that we love you and care about you. We want you to live.

  Anyway, thanks again for the consideration. If anything happens to you, or you need help, promise you will keep in touch. We are still a family, and I wanna help with what I can. But don´t bother answering to this email. I will not read it anyway.

  Thinking about you

  Ill continue with the third part. Sorry for the long posts
• 

  AlexHall

  Part three. This is my second letter to my brother. I choose to send him and responce, since I belive that its disrespectful to not respond to a letter you get.

  Nice to se that you answered, and so quick(took about 30 min for him to send me a response)

  It ofcourse hurts me to se that you choose to face what I say and not give me the opportunity to explain what I have written. There are some things you have misunderstood, and it would be a shame to let it go unexplained.

  It is a decision you(family) have taken. That the decision is taken to honor God or the org is a different matter, but you can´t see your self as a victim. In the same way as I have to take responsibilty for my df its your decision to act the way you do.

  You don´t seem to understand that Im not trying to put the blame on someone else. Im trying to find the truth in all what has happened. I take full responsibility for the actions prior to my df(some more personal details deleted here) The consequences of this is something I have to live with. But for me to understand the decisions I have taken and the way it has shaped me, I also have to search in what has been and in the belief I grew up in. Its not about blameing someone else, I just wanna find an explanation to things that have effected me up to this point.

  That you take your belief at the utmost seriousness, Im well aware of. To have a personal relationship with God is something I want to. That I don´t share your belief that the JW´s are the true path to walk, that is a whole different matter, and that was what I tried to explain earlier. That even if you and I dont share the same belief in God or the future, should not affect our relationship towards eachoter. But in the way you answered earlier, I see that this will never happen. Im sorry if you percived it like I wanted you to disregard your faith. Your conviction is yours, your decisions yours, and I respec that

  I didnt want to display a whole lot or arguments about why I no longer believ in the GB, as I thought that you only would see this as food from apostates and then stop reading everything I had written. All facts need to be collected to created a true picture of something, and I have done this for the first time ever. Wether I still retain a impartial wiev to the material i read or not, can always be questioned, but I still belive that Im not completly stupid and that I know the difference between slander and a search for "true" facts.

  I wont speak ill of Jehovah or the Jw´s, but I wanted to emphasize that I no longer belive in the belief that the Jw´s are teaching. Wether its true or not, I can´t answer.

  That Im putting the blame on you(family) and Jehovah beacuse you shun me is a partial true. It takes two to tango. And its not my decision to shun you. You took that decision, as I wrote in the beginning. I know that its a consequence caused by the actions I took when I was Df and maintaining the df. But it have never been my decision to shun from contact with you. I take my responsility for what happened, but you also need to take your responsibility for the shunning your are doing. The coice was yours to.

  That you do this because of love Im sure at. Im trying to explain that it ain´t love towards me. You have alred y showed that you don´t support my choices and that you wory that I will die in a possible Armageddon. But to shun me now will not better the chances for my reinstation, there is no logic to it. I have never said that we should act like nothing has happened, but not even be willing fo discuss, will help noone.

  You said in the last letter that you wont read this, but Im gonna send this from time to time. Please answer me with a empty email if you want me to stop, then I atleast know you have read it. To answer my first email and the refuse to listen to my explanation seems very strange.

  All my love, take care.

  I have sent this two times. The second time I added two things as seen below.

  Edit: Regarding your explanation about the drunken friend. Would you still try to hinder him from sitting down in the car, even if he refused to listen to you? Or would you walk away, saying you had done all you could?

  Edit2: To create a true picture of something you need to get all information. Trying to get the impartial info, or at least get info from both sides of the question is the only way to create an unic own opinioin. If I have done this, but come to a different conclusion that you have, have I then done what you asked me to do in your letter a year ago. I qoute: There is so much I wanna say and so much I wanna do to help you, but I have realised that you have to take this journey yourself. I can´t and is not allowed to help you, beacuse then you will not learn what you need." Or did I have to come to the same conclusion as you

  End of letter. I know you probably wont be reading all of this, but here it is. I think Im gonna send the letter once again to him next monday. Im gonna ad a new edit to. about the awake juli2009 :)

  Take care all
• 

  carla

  If you are going to send another one with the July 2009 you might want to put it at the very top of the letter so he sees it first.
• 

  AlexHall

  True, but I wonder if anything I write will change his point of view
• 

  leavingwt

  AlexHall,

  Thank you for sharing this letter with us. It is helpful to be reminded of exactly what we're up against. I would assume that my own brother, who is shunning me, would respond similarly, if I were to write him. He does not respond to my emails with family updates/photos.

  They feel as if we have rejected them and that we have rejected God. Their minds are completely controlled.

  I'm sorry you're having to go through this.

  -LWT
• 

  alanv

  Alex I really feel for you. Try not to blame your brother for his attitude, he is simply doing what he has been told to by a man made organisation.

  The July 2009 awake is very good. Obviously the witnesses will always read their own material, and the article on page 29 is very clear it says ''No one should be forced to worship in a way that is unacceptable or be made to choose between his beliefs and his family''

  Maybe you could try posting the Awake or just the page to him, highlighting the relavant paragraph. No witness can resist reading their own magazine article. Anyway good luck and remember most witnesses see the light at some time in their life. I just hope it comes soon for you. Hang in there.
• 

  JustHuman14

  It is always our fault...WT never hurt us, never broke our bonds, never made us feel sad
• 

  AlexHall

  Thanks for the positive responses! It warmes my heart knowing other people care and know what we are going through.