by Elsewhere 18 Replies latest jw friends
((((Elsewhere)))))
Sorry that your family are shunning you. Just from your posts here I can tell you are an intelligent, funny and sensitive man, and your family are missing out on a valuable member of their family.
My dad has treated me like dirt for the past 14 years and he's like a stranger to me.
Since Dutchie has adopted you as her son, can I adopt you as a brother, or a cousin? We've both got dark features so people might even think we're blood-related.
Whats sad is that in their reasoning they believe that the pain that you are being caused is good, in that it will either make you want to "come back to Jehovah's Organization" or it is the punishment you get for leaving "Jehovah's organization". It really shows how this religion strips away any natural affection people may have for even their own family members. What wicked, wicked reasoning. My heart goes out to you Elsewhere
I am so lucky. My parents have never shunned me, and most of my old cong. wishes they could talk to me. I love them all, and I look forward to the day when the Watchtower will be dust and ashes and I will be able to help all my old friends to true Christian freedom.
CZAR
Elsewhere, I'm so sorry that you're going through this! As you can see, there are lots of us going through the same thing. I have several siblin's that are still witnesses, the rest faded out, got disfellowshiped, me I disassociated myself in 1999. What I do is associate with the siblins that aren't witnesses and to hell with the rest of them. The JeHover Witnits have a warped view of love. I hold no malice towards my j.w. siblins, instead have a deep pity for them and feel they are missing out on not having me in their lives. It's their loss! I've surrounded myself around good friends that are more like family to me than my j.w. siblins could ever imagine being. Form your own family. Blood doesn't make you family!!!
((((((((Elsewhere))))))
Even before JW's came into my mother's life when I was quite young, I never "felt" truly loved. I thought for certain that I must be adopted, and I truly believed that I was. It would have explained a lot, but I wasn't adopted. I even thought that I wasn't my father's child. My dad was emotionally sick and ill-equipted to be a parent. And, so was my mother. Yet, they had four living children.
I struggled for acceptance, especially from my dad. I took the crumbs and had to settle for that. Then, my mother became a JW. What little love she had been able to show to her children was taken by this organization. We were so lost, so we hung onto her, by hanging onto the religion she chose.
When I began to grow as a young woman, I searched for love, I waited for love, and settled for lust. My son, who is 33, is distant from me. His life was harmed by the marriage that I felt obliged to stay in. He says he won't marry and he doesn't want children of his own. He believes he is damaged because he is "his father's son", and so, I will not have a daughter-in-law, nor any grandchildren. This is so sad that it breaks my heart.
We are damaged sometimes through no fault of our own. We struggle to survive and find our way. We reach out for loving arms and tender touches, and meaningful words. Then, the JW experience does it job on us. It tells us that god is love and that JW's show all this great love by their works, but all I saw was just a few trying to do that. The rest were just like everyone else. They judged, they labeled, they shunned, they rejected. For me, having to cope with this added area of unacceptability was crushing.
But, we are survirvors, and you will find your way out of this and you will be a better person for it. Here on the forum, we can "replace" the people that we have lost. Our parents, our mother, father, our brother, sister, our son or daughter. What a blessing to know that the hand of friendship and unconditional love reaches through the internet and into our hearts. We can learn to give and learn how to receive this love that we so desire more than anything.
First, we have to learn to love ourselves. My heart goes out to you. I'm 56 and I miss the love of my son, who has no time for me. He is not a JW, but was damaged from the years I was in, and the experiences of my side of the family, as well as his emotionally disturbed father, who took his own life. This saddens me, but I still have hope. I know my son does love me. He just doesn't know how to express it, and I need him to be a part of my life. I need him more than he needs me.
We all hurt in different ways, but the hurt is the same. We long to be understood, to connect on a personal level, to feel embraced and cared about, and wanted, and we all need that so much in our lives. You aren't alone.
It hurts to hear so many stories of families split by this cult. I am sorry for the anguish endured by all of you and can identify. For my wife and me our kids were the center of our lives. We always sacrificed for them, worked extra jobs to get them the extras we wanted them to have, we loved them and still love them with all of our hearts. My daughter had been borrowing our car for the last year and returned it with a smiley card saying thanks, along with that card was the letter telling me she was shunning me. My wife had been looking forward to having both kids back in our home at the same time for months, my son had flown down from CT to be there, we came in from out of state the night before the little party was to take place and picked our son up at the airport on the way. I was so glad he was there as he was able to assure us that we had been good parents, it wasn't our fault. When someone as close as your daughter turns on you it makes you doubt yourself. I will always be grateful to him for the maturity and love he showed us that night and down to this day. After I got past the shock, this is the letter I wrote my daughter whom I had been so close to for so long. I littered the floor with letters before I finally sent this one. I have become much better informed on the Witnesses since I wrote this letter and I am afraid the tone towards them would be more harsh were I to write it today.
Dear Tammy,
This is about the sixth letter I have written you in response to the note you left under my door saying you were going to "make a change in our relationship" or as you said to your mother, the "adjustments" you were making in our relationship. Tammy, you take a lot on your self. You don't get to Change or Adjust our relationship. You are my daughter, no matter how cruelly you behave, and I am your father, no matter if you think me unfit company. I am deeply hurt and am also offended by what you did and by the way you have tried to do it. Notes under the door with smiley faces??? The gall and the selfishness, I can barely swallow when I think of it.
In other letters I took each of your "reasons" and looked at them, and subsequently I realized you hadn't even looked them all up. Ex. 39:30??? I guess you were copying them out of something and just made an error. Anyway, I looked at each of those, they do not justify what you are doing. I may send the answers I gave to Mom and Dad and Fred, I am not sending you that letter.
I have been in or around the Jehovah's Witnesses over 40 years. Disfellowshipping was the ultimate punishment. Handed out to people for adultery and dope and such. Elders always met with the ones to be talked to and had a meeting with them to give them a chance to talk, to show them scripturally where they were wrong, and to give them a chance to repent. No one was ever disfellowshipped for anything they did really, but for not repenting of it. It was always understood that the immediate family would still have contact but not the others in the congregation. If possible they would get public reproof or a reprimand and a warning; only when unrepentant were they cut off from their family and only for serious sins. Elders were chosen, more than one, to make sure of fairness, wisdom and experience. Never have I known of a case where the daughter took it on herself to do what you have tried to do. It is almost unthinkable to inflict disfellowshipping on someone. Yet you rush to do it, without the committee of elders, without confronting anyone with sins, without any chance of avoiding the sentence. Sufficient in your own wisdom, you are judge, jury and executioner. I see now why it is left to elders, and maybe even why no sisters are allowed to do this.
I have done nothing worthy of being cut off from my family. I asked several different elders at different times the questions I asked you after you said that we could be honest with one another. I still love Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. I am not trying to lead anyone astray.
I am going to send a copy of this to Mom and Dad, -----, -----, ----- and anyone else I think of that might be affected by your decision to personally disfellowship me. Tammy, I didn't raise you to be so cold, so self-centered or so arrogant. If I did, then truly, may Jehovah forgive me. If I made you so judgmental I am sorry. You meant to hurt me, I guess, but you fire a shotgun when you tear a family apart. When you cut yourself out of our family, you hurt your mom, Daniel, my mom and dad, everyone that would normally be in our family circle. Did you think of the sleepless night you'd give us? Of how much your mother had looked forward to having all of us in the same house? Of how you might affect my mother and father? I would never treat them as you have treated us. I love them too much. It might behoove you to read Ephesians especially 6:1-3:
Children, be obedient to YOUR parents in union with [the] Lord, for this is righteous: 2 "Honor your father and [your] mother"; which is the first command with a promise: 3 "That it may go well with you and you may endure a long time on the earth."
I am sick at heart and tired of trying to write you a letter you probably won't read anyway. You never did say exactly what I did or said that caused this, nor did you explain exactly what you wanted me to do or not do other than underlining the part in 2 John that says, "Never receive him into your homes or say a greeting to him." I guess it is still ok for me to pay for the dryer isn't it? You will still accept gifts right??? I haven't paid a dime on it yet but I will if it won't bother your conscience. Let me know, ok? It isn't the $600.00 dollars, it is the principle of your not speaking to me while I charge the dryer to my credit card that bothers me.
The last letter I wrote you before leaving to come home and find that you had tried to "Adjust our Relationship" had this in the last couple of paragraphs:
"I don't mind talking about all of this Tammy, we probably should talk about something so important, but I don't want to risk our relationship. Sadly, if you find an error in the Society you may hold it against me and not them and rather than see the error you might just distance yourself from me. That would be wrong according to the Bible but it might be right according to "current truth" (another phrase from way back) and I would rather avoid the conversation if that is a possible outcome. "
Did you read that part? I will pray to Jehovah for forgiveness, you can pray and thank him that you are clean. Read this passage and think on it Tammy before setting yourself up as my judge It is Luke 18:11-14:
(Luke 18:11-14) The Pharisee stood and began to pray these things to himself, O God, I thank you I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week, I give the tenth of all things I acquire. 13 But the tax collector standing at a distance was not willing even to raise his eyes heavenward, but kept beating his breast, saying, O God, be gracious to me a sinner. 14 I tell YOU, This man went down to his home proved more righteous than that man; because everyone that exalts himself will be humiliated, but he that humbles himself will be exalted."
Remember that we will all be judged one day, and that the way you measure it out is the way it will be measured back to you. I forgive you, Tammy. I still love you despite what you have done. I do not accept your "adjustments to our relationship" and will call or come see you when I choose. I earned that right by loving and raising you. You have denied yourself children and now you would deny yourself parents? No.
Love,
Dad
My only regret in this letter was my comment on the dryer. I did go ahead and pay for it. It was a housewarming gift for a house we are not welcome in. It irked me that it was not even appreciated. This was over three years ago now. When we meet at family reunions she pretends to be normal, smiles. hugs and acts like we have a normal relationship. I put up with the playacting because just seeing her means so much to my wife. May God damn this cult for just what it is and may all of its members be rewarded with the same love and loyalty that they give. I am sincerely grateful that my daughter doesn't have kids.
Grunt
(((((Grunt and Mrs Grunt)))))
You have alot in common with Ozziepost and Mrs Ozzie. Drop them a line, if you haven't already.
Elsewhere,
Your letter was well written. I feel so bad for you. How sad to loose family because of a religion.
The other posts were just as heartbreaking.
hugs to you all
jurs
(((((((David)))))))
I just cant imagine a parent not being moved by this letter.
I would be sick if my son had to send this to me. Its just so sad. The society demanding that witnesses ignore their loved ones is inhuman.
