Welcome to "saltyoldlady:!!! Great name. It really shows you have spunk. Good luck in your journey. Totally ADD
Please Welcome "saltyoldlady"!!!
by Yan Bibiyan 28 Replies latest jw friends
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chickpea
welcome aboard the good aposta-ship JWN...
i bet being a salty old lady in the WTS left you
with pretty deep indents in your tongue from
feeling compelled to bite it all the time! i know
that is how i felt when i emerged from under
all the compulsion to stifle my genuine self....look forward to more of your comments
cheers
amy~
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finallysomepride
Welcome
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Reopened Mind
A GREAT BIG WELCOME TO YOU SALTYOLDLADY!!
We are anxious to hear your story.
A cross-eyed possum for your avatar? LOL Or a seagull? I am waiting for Simon to get the new site
up and running to put up my avatar.
Reopened Mind
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saltyoldlady
Good Morning Everyone - You said you wanted to hear my story = hard to know where to begin - but let me share this with everyone - having now been free for a solid year exiting was the best thing I ever did. The freedom "in Christ" has been absolutely exhilarating. And that is probably where I should begin - in 2006 I began reading In Search of Christian Freedom by Ray Franz - now I really understand firsthand what the title of the book was all about. Have an old email I sent my daughtger when I first began to see the light and it's date just tickled me - it is dated 06/06/2006 - 6/6/6 is my big beginning date - tho in truth I have been questioning things from the beginning - took me 10 years to even come in - and once I got baptized on 7/7/76 (I love these dates - they add so much humor to the whole thing) - 7/7/76 was certainly no date of "independence" - quite the opposite as you all already know.
Reading Ray's book was an eye-opener big time - shocked to learn here was a reasonable sane spiritually mature human being - couldn't get over how very meek and mild he maintained himself in spite of all the abuse - never an ugly word in the book - had the real ring of Truth to me. Of course next I read the first one - Crisis of Conscience - nothing like doing things backwards but it was equally convincing. Ashamed it took me so long to take decisive action but one of the first things I did was to write Franz - happy he was still alive on earth then - to tell him how very sorry I was that any human being could ever have experienced what he did and especially from an organization that calls itself Christian. We carried on a limited correspondence because.....well I guess because I was still afraid of being caught......not yet ready to move. But I saved and treasured all his letters - he was deep and profound in his wisdom. Then I got the courage to post a recommendation on Amazon.com for his book In Search of Christian Freedom and used my real name. That move was "gutsy" for me (and my post was not well done but at least done.) That was the beginning of coming clean with the world. No one seemed to ever catch it - think my Book Study Conductor might have because he gave me a really dirty look of disgust one day upon my entering the room but never did talk to me about it - probably because it would reveal where his mind was wandering - looking at apostate books - lol. And it was quite obvious after that he did not like me tho I was accustomed to being much loved by the elders as I was always a goody-goody two shoes type.
Then my next act of rebellion was to make a favorable post for the book written by the son of Guy Pierce. I am sure the book brought much fire down on the young man - but he used an alias name of Andrea Peters and the book is Sorry......Love Anne. One would never ever expect an elder of the WTS and the son of one of the GB to have written this book. The fun part is one can click on the name of the reviewer and see all their posts and there they would find the only other book at that time I ever reviewed - Ray Franz' book. So ever so slowly I began to reveal myself - the truth is I was one scared kid (in spite of advanced age) to come forward. To be continued later.........PS you can read this book on Kindle for a very nominal price in case you are curious.
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mamalove
Welcome! I look forward to hearing more details about your detachment from the organization and how your friends and family took it. What joys and happy times can you share with us?
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Lozhasleft
Hello and welcome SaltyoldLady good to hear your story. It was Ray's CoC which finally helped me to close the door on the WTBS as well. Thank you for the tip about the book - I got a Kindle for Xmas and am enjoying it so much...I'll go and hunt for it asap.
Enjoy the forum - its a very good place to be.
Loz x
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saltyoldlady
I'm back - now for those wondering where I got my name I contributed a little poem to Randy and he suggested posting it here - back last September - page 5500 you can find it under "Anointed DA's after 33 years" - Dogpatch post - because I did not yet know how to get signed up - the elderly are slow at those things (just some of us). And one of the comments I so loved was from Ziddina - she summed me up with that moniker and I liked it - it fit my personality truthfully. Also I live in a seaport town, and the most favorite thing I love to do is walk the beaches every day and hear the call of the gulls. Also it seemed to me the name symbolized what I perceive to be my mission - to clean up the garbage washing ashore from the WTS - to be a scavenger. By them I would be considered to be an "unclean bird" but that's quite alright. Jehovah created me for a good purpose and I wish to be used by Him, not the WTS.
Now for those wanting ideas on how to get their loved ones free - one of the finest books that brought my own conclusions to the point of action - and that I would classify as THE MOST DANGEROUS to the WTS is Don Cameron's Captives of a Concept (Anatomy of an Illusion). It is incredibly quick and easy to read but also will give you great insight as to what you are up against and why it is seemingly so impossible to reason with those inside the organization. He has really captured the heart of the matter and what you will need to do - slowly, patiently, carefully but with wonderful results. The whole basis for the authority of the WTS is built on sand - very very shaky - and doomed to collapse in Jehovah's due time - won't even need a tidal wave. LOL. But some of the other books I read were The Gentile Times Reconsidered by Jonsson - I love this one - a wonderful study aid for Bible history too - and the big thick one by Gruss - Jehovah's Witnesses: Their Claims, Doctrinal Changes and Prophetic Speculation, what does the record show? He designed this book so that any WTS adherent could actually read it without trespassing any "rules" - without feeling guilty - because it consists almost entirely of quotes from WTS literature - one matched against another - and the record speaks oh so LOUDLY. It is embarassing to admit one has been in the WTS after realizing the amount of waffling and shifting that has actually occured over the years. I guess one could boil this down to - educate, educate, educate (instead of advertise, advertise, advertise). LOL. His other books Jehovah's Witnesses: Their Monuments to False Prophecy and The Four Presidents of the WTS I also loved. If one just exposes oneself to these masterworks he cannot call himself in search of truth and stay within the WTS. It's just that simple. But how to get the blinders off so they will investigate? That is indeed difficult. Prayer IS effective. Never forget this.
For myself I did not have to get any family out because my daughter came out ahead of me, my husband had already passed away, and the only other family member to worry about is my grandson who is not yet baptized, soon to be 17. Jehovah gives us freedom to make our own choices and so too we need to give our family freedom to make their own choices. But never cease to pray for them inside or outside the organization is my motto. Love is the greatest power we have. Just keep loving and rely on Jehovah's help. I was struck by the passage the other day about Peter trying to walk on water to reach Jesus - we think mostly about how Jesus calmed the sea - but he also empowers us to "walk on water" - to do the impossible IF we keep our eyes fixed upon him and take his hand.
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Curtains
hi saltyoldlady - thanks for the suggestions
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Heaven
Welcome SOL (tee hee hee)!
Not sure you knew that's what your username's acronym would be but that is how I feel about the WT$ everytime someone else wakes up and leaves.
Luckily for me my parents weren't overly zealous when I was a kid and my Dad wasn't much into religion back then. None of us kids got baptized so we are not in and none of my parent's grandchildren will be either. Once my Dad goes, the gravy train comes to a halting stop in this family.