Hey all,
This is my first post. I haven't been out in service or to a meeting in over a month.
I realize now that I've been having serious questions for years and many articles and talks have greatly disturbed me over the years. There were many times that I thought what was written/spoken was evil, unscriptural and unloving.
I never fully followed the rules, especially regarding the way to treat disfellowshipped people, because I could never see the scriptural justification. It all seemed so contrary to the love and example of the Christ. For this and other reasons, I have often been looked at as "spiritually weak", especially by the elders. I just always felt that God cared a lot more about the person you were and how you treated other people, Witness and non-Witness alike, than what movie you watched or your place in the congregation. And since we were all supposed to be equal, all brothers and sisters in Christ, it always bothered me how everyone worshipped the CO when he came to visit and how the rank and file were treated as if they couldn't have Holy Spirit or any valid thoughts on the Scriptures. I also really didn't like the teaching that only Jehovah's Witnesses would be saved. I felt that was for God to judge and to read people's hearts, not us. There are many other issues that bothered me and many other experiences, but I'll save that for another post.
Anyway, I tried to ask the elders about some of these things and rather than justify anything with the Scriptures, the elders got very angry and accused me of arrogance and thinking I "knew better than the Governing Body." I was told that I lacked faith and lacked Jehovah's approval. Eventually I just had to lie and say I had humbled myself and decided to be loyal to Jehovah so as not to get put in a JC. It also really bothered me that the elders asked my husband's permission to speak with me and then had him sit in on the session as if I was not an adult capable of speaking for myself.
I still wanted to believe and be a Jehovah's Witness, even though I started to doubt that it was really "the truth" about 6 or 7 years ago. I admit that part of my desire to continue being a Witness had to do with my husband and his family in addition to wanting to please Jehovah.
I read everything I could in the Watchtower Library and on jw.org about disfellowshipping, trying to understand and justify the reasoning to myself. No matter what I read though, I could not justify the way disfellowshipping was done, especially the involvement of family. I was not raised a Jehovah's Witness and I was ripped away from my family as a teen and put in foster care. My family was stolen from me during my last years of childhood, so family means a lot to me. I could not understand taking away someone's family just because they made a mistake and I could not find anything in the Scriptures that supported that. In fact, everything I read in the Bible contradicted the way that disfellowshipping was done by Jehovah's Witnesses. I knew that I could never shun my family, especially my children. I knew that was wrong.
I kept praying about this and other issues and kept praying that Jehovah would help the Governing Body to see the pain they were causing and to change their policies.
I confided in a close pioneer friend of mine about some of my questions, not only about watchtower doctrine, but about the Bible itself, especially the old testament. She was really cool and understanding and never told on me to the elders for having questions. She started avoiding me though after I told her how much Tony Morris III's "tight pants" talk had bothered me. She got very big-eyed and defensive when I brought that up. I guess questioning a GB member was a step too far for her.
Anyway, I was always told to wait on Jehovah and eventually he would correct everything. That is what I have been doing until recently.
Recently, I have been trying to be a better Witness. Study more, be regular at the meetings, go out in service more. I got off social media and started reading the Bible more and studying the WT literature more. As I started becoming more spiritual and praying more, the disfellowshipping issue continued to nag at my conscience. Finally, a little over a month ago I typed "disfellowshipping" into Youtube and John Cedars video on disfellowshipping and the Bible came up. It made a lot of sense and showed how the GB took scriptures out of context and misapplied scriptures to support an unscriptural doctrine. Then I looked up John Cedars website jwsurvey.com. The first thing I saw was the article on the shunning video from the 2016 Regional Convention. I can honestly say that video hit me like a ton of bricks. It was so evil, cruel and unloving. I knew after watching that video that I couldn't be a Jehovah's Witness anymore. I couldn't continue to support a religion that would do that to families. I couldn't go out in service and try to convert people to a religion that would do that to families. I realized that the GB could not have the support of a loving God and be promoting such cruel behavior.
After that, I read jwfacts.com and both of Ray Franz's books Crisis of Conscience and In Search of Christian Freedom. Then I found out about the pedophilia issue a few weeks ago. Sadly, I had no idea. I naively thought that the GB were good people and would never let child molesters in the organization. I am kicking myself for refusing to watch the Dateline that came out on pedophilia within the JWs back in 2002. The brothers warned us from the platform not to watch it and that it was "apostate lies." They said that child molestation is not tolerated and I stupidly believed them. I know that I would have left in 2002 if I had let myself watch that Dateline. Instead I've tortured myself in so many ways over the last 14 years (another story for another time). Honestly, the child molestation thing bothers me even more than anything I can say. I am nauseated and disgusted. The organization has thrown countless innocent children to the wolves. It is hard to even comprehend.
Well anyway, this was way longer than I intended it to be. That's some of my story. At my husband's request, I am just fading instead of disassociating so as not to cause problems for him with his family. That said, I will never step foot in another Kingdom Hall as long as I live. Hello everyone. Nice to meet you all! I'm glad to be free!