I’ve been serving as an ms/elder for over 9 years. But I’m ready to resign; I have one more year to go (I’m not "waiting on Jehovah"…I’m slowly fafafading, fading!) . I’m tired of this thankless job, the pressure, the unnecessary responsibilities…the misery. If I miss service one Saturday, there comes the questions, “where was I?”, “what was I doing”, “remember you’re an elder, you should be here”. If I’m late to a meeting, it never fails, there is always that fellow elder that says: “you’re late, elders should be here at least 20 min before the meeting starts”, but who doesn’t even bother to ask how was my day, or if there was an accident on your way to the hall, etc. Then you have those members of the body whose lives is defined by the little authority they think they have, they have no authority or respect out side of the hall, but yet they walk around the hall with their chest open carrying a beating rod. They are rude, lacking real spirituality, hiding behind phrases such as “the slave said”, “this is the way the gb wants this to be done”, etc. And don’t get me started on the CO’s attitude and verbal abuses.
I have a very demanding job, but I get more pressure and diminishing self wroth feelings out of being an elder than from my secular job. I hear more expression gratitude and word of encouragement from my non-jw colleagues and relatives than from the JWs. So, I’m glad that many elders and ms are dropping like flies, at least it shows that the majority are tired of the GB crap.