Spiritual Food at the right time?

by aud8 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  outnfree

  aud8,

  I am in a marriage with a Catholic spouse and just left the organization in March of this year. My oldest is 17 and I had been in the organization her entire life. I just want to add my voice here to second larc's expressed opinion that it is an awful thing to do to marry a man of another faith if you plan to raise a family together. There will be much heartache and resentment. Either you will resent him when he gets your children involved in "worldly" things, or he will resent you, when you deny him the joys and pleasures of sharing such occasions with his children and his extended family. It is very difficult. There is always tension. (Even were the two of you NOT to have children there would be SOME tension at holidays, birthdays, even others' weddings and funerals...)

  Perhaps between now and next year you will realize the truth of what Kes has said as well. Your husband and yourself are both Christians, so you ARE "marrying in the Lord." However, if you believe that the Witnesses are right, and that your husband is outside the spiritual ark of salvation, what you are doing is gravely wrong.

  Do you have family inside the congregation? If so, things are more complicated. But if not, why are you willing to be "marked" and put in the position of outcast?

  It is, of course, entirely possible to have your religion and your husband-to-be as well. But do not fool yourself into thinking that it will lead to wedded bliss. It will be a life-long struggle that makes me sad to even contemplate. If you were my own child, I would recommend against it.

  outnfree
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  Introspection

  Hi Aud8,

  I have to also chime in on the point of how the kids would be raised. Although your husband might be okay with you and the kids being witnesses, as a witness you know that going to a catholic church will not be condoned, and you probably don't want to let the kids practice catholicism.

  As for spiritual food at the right time, there is a very simple explanation for that - it's called selective attention. Attention is needed for us to get by from day to day, because there is far too much stimulation for our minds to take in everything at once all the time, you have to tune out some things. When you weren't thinking about marrying any non-witness, you probably read some literature which mentioned marrying in the lord, but because it didn't apply to you it no doubt didn't make the impression it did this time, because now it's on your mind.

  The other thing to consider is that you think like a witness. When I was practicing, there were times when I was able to predict the next thought expressed in the article. Now either I had the holy spirit direct me every bit as much as the writer of those articles, or I simply knew how the outline would go because of other articles I've read in the past. Which do you think is more likely?

  In any case, the big question for you at this point is about this marriage. Really, do you think it is wrong to marry someone who is not a witness? If you're in love with this man you probably don't think he's such a bad guy. So either you disagree with the teaching of marrying only other witnesses, or you disagree with their judgement of him as a worldly person, or actually both. Either way, it seems you don't agree with the standard witness mindset on this.

  "It is not so much that you use your mind wrongly--you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease." -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now