by stuckinamovement 62 Replies latest jw friends
Outlaw, I like your pic. LOL.
I have decided to fade slowly and terminate my association with WT$ in the near future. I still feel anger about being misled, but keep a lid on it due my wife being a born in witness. I am still waiting for my Shepherding Call
SIAM said:
The biggest problem that i have is they claim to be inspired.
I know what you mean. But their "defense" to this is to say something like, The WT doesn't claim to be inspired only spirit directed. Yeah I know it sounds screwy and everytime I hear it I want to scream at the top of my voice,"What the hell does that mean?" (Like the Spirit is going to direct them to print some erroneous teaching that will need correcting in the future).
But thats their "get out of jail free" card they like to invoke. By saying they don't claim to be inspired or infallible that's suppose to give them the right to print anything they want no matter how wrong,ridiculous or crazy sounding it is, and then adjusting it as the case may be with "new light".
I think you figure it out as you go as most of us do. Do you have friends outside of the organization such as friends at work? I had several people where I worked that had some understanding of what I was going through and were helpful. Do you have other interests like golfing other sports? Environmental interest? I found attending other churches and interesting thing to do once I was out of the Witnesses. One good thing about being a JW was that it made me very skeptical about getting sucked into believing another religious package deal. I could now pick and choose what made sense to me and what I wanted to believe. There are a lot of things you can develop an interest in as you ween yourself away from the Witnesses you just need to start thinking about what you want to do.
In the area I lived in when I was a JW very few of Witnesses owned homes. Most of them lived in apartments. Some had sold their homes because of the end being so near and moved into apartments . (I'm sure they lived to regret their decision) Once I realize I may be here for a while I started planning for my future. I joined the retirement plan at work and saved to by a house. If I was as intelligent as some of the people on this board I would have gone to college and got a degree. Anyway I took it a step at a time and my life is certainly a lot better than it would have been if I remained in the WT.
You sound like you really love your wife. If I were you trying to keep my marriage together and making the changes I was going through as easy on my wife as possible would be my main, and possibley my only concern. The worst thing for me about leaving the Watchtower for me was how it effected my wife but we were able to get through it and we are still together.
I know you are having a difficult time now but it does get better.
The WT says it doesn't claim to be inspired, just "spirit directed."
Then they say you have to do everything they say, think exactly what they tell you to think, and change every time they get "new light," on penalty of disfellowshipping and certain annihilation by Jehovah God if you don't repent.
Reading through the Scriptures, Ray Franz came to realize that God never gave ANY organization that kind of authority and that the WTS is supplanting the role of Jesus Christ in JWs' lives.
A similar thing happened to Randy Watters in his Bethel days. He and a group of Bethelites started studying Romans and Galatians without WT literature and soon realized that the Christian message they contain is far different from the Watchtower's gospel.
I would recommend such a study to you. You'll be amazed at what you find.
Someone posted a Jefferson Airplane song on another thread and it made me think of this song and I wanted to put it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jj3wZVc7nw&feature=related
Somebody to Love
When the truth is found to be lies
And all the joy within you dies
(Chorus)
Don't you want somebody to love
Don't you need somebody to love
Wouldn't you love somebody to love
You better find somebody to love
When the garden's flowers, baby, are dead
Yes, and your mind, your mind is so full of red
(Chorus)
Your eyes, I say your eyes may look like his
Yeah but in your head, baby
I'm afraid you don't know where it is
(Chorus)
Tears are running, they're all running down your breast
And your friends, baby, they treat you like a guest
(Chorus)
After "fading" without realizing it, I stopped going to the meetings because they were giving me anxiety.
I met up with a former elder from my hall who left a few years ago with his wife. It was inspiring to see how happy they are, and how they made new friends and are having lots of fun after being out of the org for a couple years.
I read another Bible translation and did a bunch of reading on this site.
My husband is still "in" although he's inactive. One day I hope we can be out of the org together.
I have lots of anger, feeling like my life was a lie, but I'll be starting counseling next week.
Wishing you all the best!
I'm Canadian too...but I don't drink beer.
Nice Dream drinks the hard stuff!!!
I joined some volunteer groups
What kind?
Sab, I check with United Way in my area to find who needed help and what appealed to me? There are always food banks and groups at work (looks good on your resume)
I decided to celebrate Birthdays, christmas, new year, saturnalia, etc............
I appreciate the comments. My wife means everything to me and I have high hopes that she will see the truth about the "truth". We are now reading the bible every night for our Family worship. Can you share any scriptures that especially jumped out at you as being in conflict with current WTS teachings?
SIAM
