Just discovered this thread by going to Who's Who.
I guess I'll add my life story.
Born and raised a dub, I didn't really mind being a witness but always had a secret desire to celebrate Christmas, birthdays and Halloween. They always looked fun.
Had a really fun time during the teen years, had some great friends and we did our share of partying, but never really got out of hand. I was, for the most part, pretty good. I think I had more fear of displeasing my dad than Jehovah at that time, but I still had a deep desire not to hurt Jehovah either.
Married a witness and settled down to the normal JW married life with kids. Meetings were really hard when the kids were small and assemblies were absolutely hellacious. Trying to make a 2 year old sit for 8 hours is insane. My girlfriend, still a dub, always said assemblies were designed to persecute the parents.
Moving along through several years of life as a dub, I saw lots of double standards, hypocrisy, unkindness, gossip, slander, dishonesty, you get the picture. But I still believed it was the truth.
Back in 1986 my dad disassociated himself after reading Crisis of Conscience. It was a devastating blow to most of my family. He tried to share some of the things he had learned with my husband and me, but we chose not to listen. We had to be obedient to Jehovah. Things that he said affected my husband more so than me at first so for several years he had nagging doubts that would not go away. He would try to share them with me but I would end up crying so he would drop it. He tried to miss meetings but I would make his life a living hell if he missed. Man, I could kick myself for putting him through that.
Fast forward to 1997. We switched to a new congregation and instantly met 2 couples that we hit it off with right away. However, every time we were with them, it turned into an elder-bashing marathon. It even bothered my husband who was trying to do better in "the truth." By the way, both couples are still die-hard witnesses even though they disagree with everything the elders do. But, they did have a point. I started to observe the goings on in the congregation and several things would pop into my head, like...
Where's the love that is suppose to identify true Christians?
Why do the elders remind me of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus day?
Why did they switch to the donation arrangement now that Jimmy Swaggert was getting in trouble?
How come the brothers in Africa only have 1 KH for 50 congregations and there is literally millions of dollars worth of chandeliers in various assembly halls?
There were many more questions running through my mind but it finally hit me that something was very wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was nagging at me.
One night, I'm surfing the internet looking for the WTS' website. Didn't find it, but found a website that said something like, "elders wanting reform in the organization." That really caught my eye, didn't suspect it to be apostate so I peeked into it. What an eye opener. It contained a portion of Ray Franz' book and I read enough of it to know that I had to go out and buy one. I snuck it into the house and secretly read it when nobody was around. I eventually got up the courage to tell my husband about what I was reading and he told me that he had felt that way for years. After I finished that I had to run out and get "In Search of Christian Freedom." A must-have for any doubting witness.
Since that time, my emotions have run the gamut. It is a roller coaster ride when you suddenly realize that everything you once believed in is questionable.
If you are someone that has just started having doubts and are trying to make sense of things, please allow yourself a couple of years to figure it out. For some it may take even longer. I am still trying to sort things out sometimes, but for the most part, I've adjusted.
Recently, I mentioned some things that I disagree with to my mother-in-law, specifically the UN-WTS affair and she is currently doing some research to try and save me. She pretty much has accused me of being an apostate and let me know that if that is the case then nobody in the family will have anything to do with us. So I will have to wait and see.
In some ways I'm happy that I don't have to live with the guilt of never measuring up but in some ways I'm miserable because there is a strained relationship with my lifelong friends and relatives. It's very difficult to be in a group of witnesses when you don't believe what they believe anymore.
Hopefully, sharing this part of my life will help someone else just exiting the witnesses. It's a rough road.
"I must stand up in search of the truth, if I don't I only roll with the flow of the lie and make it stronger.
---Sovereign---
P.S. I put this in another thread but copied it to this one since it is really a personal experience.
"I must stand up in search of the truth, if I don't I only roll with the flow of the lie and make it stronger.
---Sovereign---