What were you thinking when you got yourself babtised???

greven

This is actually more than one question. But let me first explain my own experience:

At about the age of 16 my parents started asking the famous question: What is keeping you from getting babtised? Actually I wasn't sure about this religion being true. I just hated the meetings and fieldservice was even worse. So my plan was to hold on till I would live on my own and then simply cease going to meetings. This question and the quilttrip around it stood in the way of my cunning plan. I could postpone it intil I was 18. Then finally I decided to go along with it. I had started to have doubts regarding the existance of God aswell and figured the baptism to be a final test. If I would pledge an oath to obey God with all my hart I figured that if he existed, the baptism would make an end to my doubts. Hearing all these stories from loyal JW's, I somehow expected to feel different, cleansed when arising out of the water. Well when it finally happened, I felt lonely, deceived, cold and wet ofcourse. No difference. No nothing. Well, the presents were nice but that was about the only benefits that came out of it. No renewed zeal. No burning fire within me. And no celestial dove either (not that I expected it, but it would have been a nice touch). I knew I had made a mistake.

So what were your experiences? Were you pressured into it or did you do it out of your own free will? Did it feel like you expected it? Did it change you?

Greven

lisavegas420

Presents? you got presents? Darn I missed out again!

I got baptised because my dad was an elder..he said it was time and I was allways trying to please. I was also 16 and didn't have a clue as to what I was doing.

Lisa

CoonDawg

I too was 16. Most of my peers were already baptized. I was beginning to look like the kid that rode the "short bus". If I didn't get baptized, then I would never be included in doing all the cool stuff. Hey, you had to be baptized to do the things that made the meetings and assemblies less boring. I was ever grateful for doing the sound control. I was in the back and I got some distraction from the tedium of meetings. At assemblies, it was a great reprieve to have the stamp of approval to walk around as an attendant holding signs telling people to sit their asses down and to please shut up. I think that sometimes, it was the only way that I survived those boring days.

Coon

ApagaLaLuz

I was 13. What was I thinking?

'Please don't let me look fat in my bathing suit. Please don't let me look fat in my bathing suit."

Lady Lee

was reading the first post

Lisa you took the words right off my fingers

Presents!!??!! No one ever told me there were presents - woulda done it twice or maybe more (had a lot of birthdays and xmases to make up for)

oh yeah answer the question

so my mommy would love me

yeah right - was I ever wrong there

None of the other kids got baptized - they are addicts and criminals and.... but she will talk to them

I am married and sorta boring but noooo... she won't talk to be cuz I got baptized once upon a time

BeelzeDub

AGE: 16 SEX: MALE YEAR 1975

First thought: I better get baptised before end of year if I want to save my ass and live forever.

Second thought: As a baptised minister I am now qualified to reach out in the service to the many beautiful elders daughters.

Today: What the hell was I thinking?

refiners fire

I remember thinking that when I came out of the water I might be a completely different person, all bad thoughts leaving me and peace reigning in my mind.

When I surfaced, I felt no different and recall being vaguely disappointed. It was very despair making when I quickly discovered that the "war within my members" was still raging, and baptism had made no difference at all.

DanTheMan

I too expected that getting dunked was going to change me somehow.

It didn't.

refiners fire

Dan. I was compelled to the baptismal font with blows and threats. Perhaps if Id made the choice freely I might have viewed it differently. But then, if Id had choice, I wouldnt have got baptized. I was afraid of blasphemy, and to get baptized while feeling the way I did, and engaging in the prectises I engaged in....surely blasphemous.

What were you thinking when you got yourself babtised???

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