How did 'Serving Jehovah' make you feel?

by BLISSISIGNORANCE 6 Replies latest jw friends

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  BLISSISIGNORANCE

  For many of us, serving Jehovah was a life changing choice we made as adults. For others, it was something we did because it was our parents' choice and we had to comply.

  For me it was my choice to become a JW. I got baptized at 33 and served the WTS for 10 years. I am being honest when I say that from the moment I got baptized I started to feel .............

  • safe. Now I was in the organization that was chosen by god so I would survive armageddon.

  The longer I was an active witness, the more I felt............

  • righteous. After all, I was using my precious time to SAVE the world, I wasn't smoking, fornicating, gambling etc, etc. Depriving one self of life's pleasures and slaving for god is a good start toward martyrdom.

  The less fun I was having, because I was being a GOOD christian, the more I felt...............

  • judgemental. Oh, how could they NOT go out witnessing/not go to the meetings/not invite the CO, etc, etc...........'I'm doing sooooo much' 'I'm soooooo good' you know the scenario. OMG, I feel sick as I write this.

  But as time went by, serving Jehovah made me feel................

  • tierd. Because I was dragging children out on weekends and nights. Using my spare time to place magazines and conduct bible studies. Preparing for meetings, inviting people for meals, helping the less fortunate ones in the congo etc, etc.
  • angry. Nothing I ever did was good enough. My kids were never good enough. etc, etc.
  • guilty. I wasn't bringing up my kids the way I would have liked to. I didn't let them enjoy all the things they should have. Shunning my 'worldly' friends. Making my kids do what I wanted, not what THEY wanted. Forcing them to answer up, knock on doors........bad mum!
  • confused. Incorrect prophecies, lies, cover ups, deception, double-standards, hypocracy.
  • stupid. For falling for it!

  And most deeply I felt............

  • betrayed and let down. After all the borg was suppose to be a spiritual paradise and a loving brotherhood. A place where my children would grow in safety and joy. But love is not the identifying mark of the WTS. Love is an over used and least applied word.

  But now I'm out of the WTS and I am free of their control. After years of doing the JW things, I realised that I was really serving man, serving an organization, serving their purpose. I was never serving God at all. But I was tricked into thinking I was while making money for them.

  So how do you feel about your service to Jehovah?

  I hope you don't think less of me now that I've revealed how much a JW I was once.

  Cheers, Bliss.
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  freein89

  There were times when I felt safe in the nurturing arms of the Witnesses, but on the whole all I felt was worthless. It was the result of the thrice weekly VERBAL BEATINGS I received at meetings. Because there was absolutly no way to be good enough.

  The safety part was an illusion that David Copperfield would never be able to replicate.

  How can you feel or be safe when you have jackles nipping at your heels, waiting for you to make a false move, waiting to move in for the kill.

  The jackles of course are all your loving "brothers and sisters" ready to tear you apart if you make a mistake, have a bad day, or go through a tradgedy that derails you if only for a little while.

  Deb
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  ozziepost

  G'day Bliss,

  You're up late tonite!

  I think your points become clear to many people in time, but, as the Bette Midler song phrases it, "from a distance". You have to stand back from it and look into it from outside to see what it's really like. Whilst you're on the inside, it's not so easy to see; I guess because you're too darned busy just keeping up. I think of the thousands of mothers struggling to get their children ready for the interminable meetings. Mrs Ozzie often tells me "You never stopped to think", and how true that is for I was too darned busy keeping up with all the responsibilities that go with the "privileges". You put it right when you say "tired". I know so many still in the borg feel that way.

  But how glad we are now to be finally free. We've seen for ourselves the truth about "the Troof". And many more have still to learn that.

  Cheers, Ozzie

  Freedom means not having to wear a tie.
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  Francois

  Hot, tired, and disgusted.
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  Brummie

  Bliss, you summed it up to a tee. I couldnt agree more with what you wrote. Thats exactly how I felt.

  Brummie
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  DFWnonJW

  Thats exactly how I felt.

  And here's the visual -
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  wednesday

  thanks to our loving elders, i was helped to feel worthless and was told to be grateful that i even had a CHANCE for life. I was , in the words of an elder, a peon. I felt love when i read the words of jesus in the bible, but did not see it in the org. I was a drain on the elders b/c i had problems.