Have you known dying persons to use the expression "going home"?

by JimmyPage 11 Replies latest jw friends

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  JimmyPage

  A close relative of mine has reached the last days of their life and has been talking about "going home".

  This seems unusual when you consider that they have been a JW for many years and this would not seem to jive with their belief of being resurrected to live on the earth forever.

  I'll grant you that they have acted quite confused much of the time as they draw closer to their end.

  They have also spoken of wanting to see their own long dead parents, who were never JWs.

  Also, when a non-JW relative who died a few years back was going through the same thing, they also spoke of "going home".

  At this point in my life I consider myself somewhere between agnostic and atheist.

  So I'd like to hear from all of you: have you experienced hearing dying persons use the expression "going home"?

  If you are Christian, feel free to preach what you believe this means.

  If you are atheist, feel free to take the wind out of the sails and give a rational explanation.

  And if you have some other ideas about the afterlife, such as reincarnation, I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.

  Personally, I find the phenomenon fascinating.

  It is a comforting thought for me that our natural intuition at the time of death is that we are journeying on to a better place, and that this is not the end.
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  blondie

  I would think that the only jws that can say going home are those that are anointed BUT they could be thinking that the next time they open their eyes it will be on a paradise earth.
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  JimmyPage

  I wonder too if this person, in their confused state, has reverted back to their authentic self, and bypassed the cult programming.
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  life is to short

  I have truly wondered that myself. I made friends with a lady who was in her early 90's and in good health for that age. About six months before she died and she died of a stroke so she was well and not sick when she was saying this but she kept talking about her mom. Way more then normal. It was always about what a great person her mom had been was how she missed her mom. This woman did not have a religion, her husband had been Catholic and she said she could never believe that way. She was not really raised in any religion but she did have faith there was a God.

  But it was strange how she talked so much about her mom and then she started in on other people who she had been friends with who were dead. That was all she would talk about. Then she had here stroke all of a sudden, I was at the hospital when she died and it was very sudden even for the doctors.

  I just wonder if she was getting ready to meet her family and friends.

  Even in the "truth" there was this elder who was in a nursing home who reverted back to his authentic self right before he died. This elder was one of the most hard core elders you could ever meet yet before he died it was like he went back to his old religion, of course his mind had been going for awhile but still if this was truly the "truth" would not Jehovah be with him to help him keep his thoughts straight?

  I wonder what this all means myself.

  LITS
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  I quit!

  It is a pretty common expression. I think most religious people consider their life on earth to only be a step on the journey to wherever they believe they are going or wherever they believe they should be.
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  ProdigalSon

  Yep. Makes all the sense in the world. It's their intuition telling them this. They KNOW, in spite of the programming, that the Prodigal Son was received by his Father in a way that hardly resembles Jehovah's "Judgment Day".
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  brotherdan

  Some of this comes from 1 Peter 2:11 where it says: "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul."

  We are spoken of as aliens. Paul teaches that this is not the "real" life. "Going Home" referrs to going to the place where you belong or long to be. For Christians that place is by Jesus side in heaven.
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  St George of England

  C T Russell funeral:-

  
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  no lies please

  I've heard that expression from non-JW's. But I was also thinking that one could say this regardless of their belief about an "afterlife". Even if one is an atheist they believe that they will be dead, hence eternal death will be their "home". Maybe that's a stretch? I don't know. Just a thought.
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  JimmyPage

  Great pic, St. George!