My Life in Jehovah's Service - VERY INTERESTING STORY

by Dogpatch 59 Replies latest jw friends

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  myelaine

  Terry,

  Using children as an example: Wouldnt a child with a unconditional love for you feel that your direction is the path to go and would not only follow your direction be be even more aware of which direction you might want him to take being ever mindful that you must set the direction. Compare that with a child with a grudge that hears your direction ,is willful, doesnt follow your direction, but is still mindful that you must set the direction. It is very much like the difference between a Spirit directed life and Gods will being done through you

  I believe that this physical life is so transitory that everything that our life amounts to , including experiences, choices and emotions must count as tangable in a spiritual context. At our physical death the life that we led(brief as it seems), including experiences, choices and emotions becomes very real - we can put it in our back pocket so to speak, as we continue on our spiritual journey. We learn from our experiences, Why? To what end?God says that it is because we life on beyond OUR reality.

  That being said I have to admit that I am a naive person who believs the scriptures are the most complete collection of information and data that we have at this time regarding who God is and His purpose for our lives collectively and individually.

  tit for tat... I called God "Jehovah" with respect you called Him the "guy in the sky".

  Michelle

  FYI I am presently being a willful child but I am ever mindful of the fact that my Father has set the direction. His will is being done through me not by my.
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  little1

  Terry-

  I was totally mesmerized by your story. It is at once heart breaking and hopeful. To know that you came out on the other side-not unscarred but still kicking -is hopeful. That there are so many others still stuck in that no man's land of conditional love and acceptance is heart breaking. Thank you for sharing, I related in so many ways.

  Nancy
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  Blueblades

  Terry, thanks for sharing your life story.Life stories of Jehovah's Witnesses use to be my favorite read.Your life story is not just a very interesting story, it is the drama and reality of life as you lived it. With all the joys and the sorrows that encompass it.

  .I too have been a slave of the Watchtower Society for over thirty, 30 years.I am touched by your story and have come to just about the same conclusions that you have expressed about the Bible, God, Science and etc.

  It was when one of my children was unjustly disfellowdshipped that I started to question, and one thing led to another, my whole family, the four of us are out from under the grip that held us for so long.

  May you fare well from here on out.From this To this.

  Blueblades
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  Terry

  I replied individually (or tried to) and the posts didn't even show up!! I'm having problems with the editing tools! My I.Q. must be at fault.

  Generally:

  Thanks for kind words and benevolent thoughts. We are all HERE because we aren't THERE. And I say "Whew!" to that.

  Freedom to and Freed from........important concepts!

  Coming out of Jehovahdumb allows us to be free to:

  1.See the future as an open book filled with possibility for hope, change, improvement and happiness.

  2. See our lives as belonging to us! We can decorate! We can make improvements.

  3.Look at other people as worthwhile and potentially wonderful.

  4.Learn about history, science, research into facts from OTHER perspectives.

  And we also have the freedom FROM:

  1.Having our future hijacked and stolen from us. Armageddon is a phoney theft of possibility from everybody's life.

  2.Thinking we are slaves who must toil as we're told to toil. Thinking ourselves worthless and dependant and undeserving. Living on the edge of extinction at the hands of those who "love" us.

  3.Seeing mankind as a pit of snakes deserving of death if they don't agree with us. Viewing other people's kindess cynically and with disdain.

  4.Reading only approved thoughts by Brooklyn minds with a batting average of 0.

  We are like newborn kittens now and not the aborted afterbirths the JW's see us as being. I have value. It comes from me. I don't have to rent it from a Kingdom Hall or earn it by knocking on people's front door. I own my own time. I don't have to write it down or report it or measure it by the standard's of a bureaucracy.

  I welcome the freedom and am filled with excitement at the unfolding nature of day to day life. The future is vast and immeasurably fertile for passionate experience. Goodbye Jehovah, you fictional character invented by Joe Rutherford and peddled like crack cocaine in bad neighborhoods! Hello wonderful loving father of happiness--you are my new and improved projected vision of universal power. Only this time, I know invented whom!

  Terry
• 

  DaCheech

  Dogpatch:

  You're sure you don't want to post the experience of the widow (and remarried) woman's story in last weeks study article of the WT. Let me see.... she was Knorr's wife?

  She had a hard life, until????? marring the Pres.! It got really hard then! Not!
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  Terry

  What should disturb critics of "apostates" the most is the uniformity of our experiences. We come from all over the map; we cannot know each other to rehearse details; yet--we seem to agree that our life in Jehovah's service was:

  THE HORROR! THE HORROR!
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  Terry

  Little1,

  Thank you for the kind words. We all have a different story; and yet, hauntingly--they are all the same story. For some of us it began with a knock at the door; for others we were born into the nightmare. But, still others, like myself, found we were lured into the web by a Judas Goat in the form of our own best friend. What kind of religion is this anyway?
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  Abaddon

  Great post, and this;

  ...it became clear that many faithful JWs have created a bubble inside their own lives where sanity can be approached (for a little while each week). That breath of fresh air enables them to, like a deep sea diver, once more go down into the murky depths below. These faithful Witnesses can see both sides of Truth through a glass darkly. It is not unlike seeing an eager puppy in a pet shop window. There is longing and awareness and enthusiasm for a different and better world than the one they have chosen. But, they are stuck where they are. A life's choice has been made and from it they will not depart.

  ... when did you meet my family!? My dad has admitted that (if he knew what it was) he is playing Pascal's Wager. My brother speculates about the nature of reality (along the lines of the Matrix). The above describes this behaviour perfectly.

  It's like a heroin addict. They know it's bad for them and doesn't make sense, but they are addicted to the comfort it brings them and terrified of living without it.
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  Abaddon

  myelaine

  That being said I have to admit that I am a naive person who believs the scriptures are the most complete collection of information and data that we have at this time regarding who God is and His purpose for our lives collectively and individually.

  You can believe what you like. If you can prove the Bible is accurate about events in the past you might be able to convince people it could be accurate about the future. As 'The Flood' seemed to have happened without the Egyptian civilisation noticing it, or any of the Pyramids that were standing at the time being damaged by it, as 'The Flood' is meant of have happened at a time when trees that are still alive today were several hundred years old, I don;t think you can prove the Bible is accurate about the past. And that's one example.

  Don't hide behind the 'I am a naive person' stuff. You are a mature human being and responsible for the decisons you take. If you don't know that the Flood couldn;t have taken place when the Bible claims it did (or at all), then you are just allowing yourself to be decieved, or accepting the wisdom of a bunch of self-proclaimed scholars over historians and scientists who have studied their specialities for years. In any other circumstance you would say a small group of men who said every expert was wrong and they were right were delusional. Because they make claims they have divine guidance, you get sucked in, despite the fact the regular revisons of what is right and wrong (transplanst, definiton of generation, when Armagedon will come) showing they are in no way especially guided by god.

  Investigate. Learn. Know. Decide.

  You might be scared of changed, but if I were you I'd be more scared of getting to 80 and finding I'd spent my life in a made-up religion.

  FYI I am presently being a willful child but I am ever mindful of the fact that my Father has set the direction. His will is being done through me not by my.

  Ah, so you are staying 'close' to the 'truth' so when it looks like the end will come you can hurry back in? Does your religon teach you that god is stupid? You can't cope with living life that way, so you act 'willful' and plea-bargin with yourself that you're going to get away with it when you could only get away with it if god didn't know that you are actually taking a calculated risk. Of course, the god you believe in would know this and thus your plans of getting your own way and staying safe are futile.

  It's far simpler to educate yourself and realise where you have been mislead; then you can live free without guilt and fear (which you must experience if you consider yourself a 'willfull child').

  If you haven't been mislead, then such an education would strengthen your faith; as your faith obviously needs strengthening it seems you have nothing to lose by investigating some things you accepot as fact based on Biblical evidence.
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  toreador

  Excellent read Terry!