Cyber-sista, I appreciated your post. I would like to see a page on this site called "What Happened" where everyone could post their stories. I realize that most of the people here post parts of what happened to them at various times, but nothing ever seems all that coherent. Like you, I was damaged by the mistreatment of my family, but I hung in there, even knowing that my turn was comming. It did. You needn't apologize for your embitterment, as it seems quite normal on this site. Someone made the statement about David running and hiding because he didn't want to "sin against the annointed of Jehovah" by killing Saul. We all find the moment so lauditory, except nobody seems to stop and think: damn, that means all of those guys who are helping David, and fighting and dying with/for him ARE sinning against God's annointed. Hmmmm. If we put it into today's terms, David would be an apostate, and all the soldiers with him would be DF'd for their association, which, of course, were spoiling their useful habits. The problem here is as one guy once told me about most "elders", "They couldn't follow a logic trail if it were lit with neon signs!"
If you will allow me a short story here, it's one that I use to illustrate how quickly dogmatic interpretations turn into a quagmire. I asked thisquestion of various "elders" from time to time just to mess with them, it was great.
"Brother so-and-so, I need to ask you a question. As I father, I'd like to know how you answer a 16 year old when they ask you why they have to dress up to go to a meeting?"
Answer 337A. "Well, you see, that's because we are showing respect for Jehovah!"
Setting the hook. "I see. But doesn't the Bible say that Jehovah doesn't care about the outer appearnace of a man?"
Shuffle, shuffle. "Ahem, well, you see, we need to show respect for our brother's and sisters."
Got him! "But if Jehovah isn't concerned with our outer appearance, why should our brothers and sisters be?"
"Oh, well, uh." More shuffling, and backpedaling, ducking, bobbing, weaving that inevitably ended up with this unconnected protoplasmic blob of ridiculous words, phrases, and scriptures.
After a couple of paragraphs of watching the guy sweat I would usually declare mercy and stop him.
"No, brother, the way you answer a 16 year old is to tell him: 'You dress up or I'll kill you'."
Very, very rarely would one of them catch the drift.