Most Delusional Moment as a Jehovah's Witness

by Terry 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Terry

  I remember standing there in the evening light of a setting Texas sun in the middle of a Federal Prison with a chilled wind whipping up dust devils around me. I was twenty years old and so skinny you didn't need an x-ray to see through me.

  Seagoville was a prison filled with lost souls, men with dumpsters for hearts and foul mouths that spat the contents of a poisoned mind into your ears. Some had murdered and some had smoked a joint and had the hard luck to go away for two years for it. I was there because I looked into the night sky and saw the face of God and heard him breathing inside my head. We were best friends and he let me call him by name, Jehovah.

  You know how it is being best friends, you'll go that extra mile to make them smile. I went so far as to throw my life into this hellhole like crumpling up a Kleenex and flipping it in the trash bin. I wanted Jehovah to know my friendship meant something to me. I wanted it to mean something to him too.

  So, there I was, gathering colors from the corners of my eye as the prison compound settled under the blanket of an October night and feeling the very presence of God filling my lungs like air.

  I knew. I KNEW! Jehovah was with me in the thumping of my heart and there wasn't a thing that could touch me. I was in the palm of his hand! He loved me and I was special.

  Funny thing about being sure--about being convinced; about being so certain you'll dance your life out to the end of its fragile string in utter confidence.......it is the most beautiful feeling a human can experience!

  But, a day later, I had almost been raped. My world came crashing down in anger; no--FURY! The other brothers inside tried to tell me--it was Jehovah who had stepped in and stopped the burly man who had grabbed me and humped at me from behind and pinned my skinny arms back and manhandled me to the point of panic. It was just a test! Just a test!

  Something in me sickened. Not unto death...not just then....it would take years for it to die. But, in its passing the face of God Jehovah vanished and his breath on my cheek became the flashpoint of a memory of being grabbed from behind and roughhoused into a dread of fear. Was it just a sick bastard who seized me and tried to have his way? Or, was it God himself having a little fun at my expense? What was I doing there? I wasn't even legally a man yet and I had laid it all on the line for a spark in my soul called Jehovah.

  My love was real. It was a real delusion. I'd have died for Jehovah's love. But, being raped for it? That was asking alot. Somehow it was almost too much. But, is anything too much for Jehovah to ask? Perhaps not. But, the kinds of things he asked.......were.......sick.......

  My delusional moment faded. That evening when I stood tall in the service of god and had absolute certainty pounding in my bloodstream with every pulse had vanished. The outline of Jehovah in the cold and distant stars was as real as Orion's belt. But....there was no belt; not really. And neither was there a Jehovah.

  What was YOUR most delusional moment as a Jehovah's Witness??
• 

  squinks

  Terry,

  That was a beautifully told horrible story. I had so many delusional moments, none so poigniant as yours but many small ones. I remember summer evenings after supper. My four small children playing in their sandbox in the backyard and me watching them through the window as I did the dishes. The setting sun and my beautiful offspring being well raised in the service of Jehovah. I can still feel the peace and joy welling up in my heart. Or that is what I thought at the time.

  Reality was so very different. My elder husband was cheating and soon I would be alone, devastated, poor and all but homeless and friendless, without even family to comfort me and certainly no Jehovah who I loved to the depths of my soul.
• 

  Mac

  When I found myself reading familiar verse borrowed from other sources and not given full credit (can you spell plagiarism?) and passed off as original...tweaked...but, borrowed...

  mac, and maybe this was after I left class?
• 

  Terry

  Mac---can you elucidate for us?
• 

  Narkissos

  Heartbreaking story...

  Life is wonderful. Life is horrible. Life is wonderful again. Life is horrible again.

  Reminds me of Marcel Proust's page about the man who had just lost his most dear wife, walking in the park in a sunbeam and marveling at the beauty of life.

  Think of the joy of the woman who gives birth to a child. And the child dies.

  Is joy delusional? Yes. And no.

  Does seing it through the face of a god make it better and/or worse? I'm not sure.

  What would have been our life had it been different? Pointless question. Here we are, that's all we know.
• 

  CeriseRose

  {{{{{Terry}}}} Between this post and your other one, you really need that. Or maybe I just needed to give it to you. :)

  Most delusional moment...hmmm. Hard to pinpoint exactly. Probably a similar type of cause-effect as yours (not the same subject though).

  It was 1998 and I'd been engaged for 3 years to a brother from South America who'd been visiting Canada on a holiday visa. I had listened to the council of the WT in 'marrying only in the Lord' and to 'not have a long engagement' (so we'd dated/got engaged SUPER quick and then he went home and we started the immigration process for him to move). After waiting all that time, chips in the relationship had become chasms, and a staggering number of things were setting off all my alarm bells and red flags (things like he never mentioned people at the KH, never mentioned FS, and his parents divorced and his Mom disassociated and he was still spending time with her and supporting her...however we had very limited contact on the phone and letters were slow going both ways so I didn't have the clearest picture).

  I was sitting at our Special Day Assembly, which, instead of being in the usual April, was on May 10th. We had *finally* gotten the okay from immigration, he'd been approved and his plane ticket bought, wedding date set for June 8th. In order to be married in the KH, we had to both be in good standing...so the elder body in his hall sent a letter to my elder body. It was in Spanish and we had a Spanish elder in our hall who was translating it. I had handed off the letter over a week beforehand, and wanted to follow up.

  I remember one talk in the afternoon program about not yoking ourselves with unbelievers. The speaker made application of that in a way I'd never heard before...about dating/marrying someone spiritually weaker than yourself and the inherent dangers of it. With this "council from Jehovah" fresh in mind, at the end of the session I sought out the secretary of our cong. to find out how the translation had gone. He looked leery and told me the P.O. would be talking to me about it, and then he walked away.

  Now I'm no idiot; obviously something was wrong with the news in the letter. I got home, pretty much a wreck, and then called my bookstudy condutor, who conferred with the P.O. and then delivered the news that my fiance was 'inactive.' I was completely devastated, but "sought refuge in Jehovah" and within 4 days broke up with him, cancelled the immigration and the plane ticket, and had "kept my integrity to Jehovah." Elders commended me, people I barely knew shouted it from the rooftops, the wonderful stand I'd made for Jehovah.

  Now in reality, our relationship had been a mere infatuation, pushed beyond what it should have been by WT conventions. 98% of the red flags would have pushed me into that decision at some point (thank goodness it was before marriage itself!). But I believed that Jehovah had directed me to make the timely steps I did.

  5 months later started my Mom's terminal illness and death, followed by my Dad's. For 2 years during that I was alone, grieving, in desperate need of help, succor, comfort and all those other things God is supposed to give you. For 3 years after that I was alone, grieving, and begging for help, compassion, and empathy.

  "MAYBE they'll be resurrected."

  This was what the God of the WT offered me in solace. He gave me elders who, despite repeated pleadings with tears and crying out in pain, ignored my request for alternatives. It was MY fault I couldn't get to meetings, MY fault I was spiritually weak. MY fault I was so grief-stricken (and I never understood that term before this) that I couldn't function on any normal human level, much less the pace at which a "good" JW is expected to operate. I was supposed to turn the other cheek when cong. members said rude and hurtful things, denegrating my parents' deaths as less than worthy of acknowledgment simply because they were 'worldly.'

  I suffered 8 years of constant stress from the immigration waiting, the illnesses, the deaths, the subsequent lack of empathy and compassion. I suffered a nervous breakdown that kept me off work, unable to go buy a litre of milk without help. I did 98% of all my dealing completely alone, without any connection to the congregation. And it hit me one day that I *was* completely alone through that. I may have heard something at the Assembly that day that made me feel like God was directing me, but I already knew what I needed to do...I just needed "permission." God wasn't there when I was begging him to make my Mom better. He wasn't there when I was asking him not to let my Dad be terminally ill a month after Mom died. God ignored my cries as a JW in good standing, even when I'd stood up for him and kept my integrity through numerous trials. God doesn't try us with evil things...so did these events come along from Satan one after the other...my parents being sick that soon after grieving the crushing humiliation of a very public breakup, the loss of my childhood dream of finally having children and a family of my own, the constant stress leading to a nervous breakdown...were those just tests of my endurance? Of my faith? How sickening. How cruel. God did NOTHING to step in.

  It wasn't long from that epiphany that I left. There were other markers along the way, like watching 'worldly' people rally around a grieving person and the complete difference in how these people 'without real love' and who weren't 'plugged in to the real god' showed such unconditional and beautiful love and compassion. That was reality, and now that I'm out of the fantasy, I can live it, with all it's heartache and warts, and sunshine and rainbows.
• 

  candidlynuts

  if there are wt spies that read here..

  these posts should wake them up. how heartbreaking.

  how many of us would never have doubted the "truth" if we'd just been shown love and compassion and were allowed to live "normal" lives.
• 

  meggidon555

  right now read my posts

  see yahs
• 

  Balsam

  
  My Child is Dead

  My son Dak was theocratic - bright and promising and a true servant of Jehovah. He dreamed of going to Bethel to serve Jehovah more fully. He prepared for meetings on his own, pioneered during summer breaks, handled the microphones at the Kingdom Hall, and timed the student talks for the Ministry School Overseer. He even gave talks at assemblies. We as Jehovah Witness parents were so proud!

  He was 15 years old and in the 9th grade when he and another young Witness were in a terrible auto accident. The other boy was driving my son home from the Sunday meeting from the Kingdom Hall when the boy raced the car, lost control and flipped it many many times. I was at the time a faithful Witness for 29 years, and my husband and I trained our son to refuse blood transfusions just as we would ourselves to please our God Jehovah. To prove our undying love for him. Dak told the ambulance drivers, "No blood!" and he said it again at the first hospital before he became unconscious. When he was air lifted to the trauma center, he was immediately transfused because he was unconscious and a minor and the law permitted the doctors to try and save his life with blood if they could.

  By then, however, a lot of time had passed (about 2 hrs) and there had been severe internal bleeding that had damaged his heart and other organs. When we arrived at the trauma center, the doctor told us that he had no chance of survival without blood transfusions, and that they had given him several units when he arrived. This angered my husband a great deal but I said nothing. Secretly, I had hoped the doctors would give him blood despite our wishes if a transfusion could save his life. The doctor said they restarted his heart twice and that gave us a glimmer of hope but twenty minutes later, with tears in his eyes, the doctor said they couldn't restart his heart a third time ? he had died.

  My husband and my two other sons and I cried and cried and cried. I have never known such anguish and physical pain! I wanted to die. The pain was unbearable. I kept thinking, "Would he have lived if he got blood at the first hospital?" But Jehovah says we must not save our lives with blood. I thought hard, how could it be that my loving God would demand the death of my son if blood could have saved him? What kind of God was I worshipping and giving honor too? A spiral of profound change began in my life because now I was not sure what I had just spent the last 30 years of my life doing. Wasn't God suppose to care for his people? It seemed to me at that point that our God was killing his followers by this restriction of life saving blood.

  When you see your child lying wrapped in a white sheet, their pale lifeless face - there is no comfort. I will be forever carrying that picture of my son in my mind - wearing the face of death. No longer smiling and laughing, hollering out MOM when he wanted something. I still remember the faces of his brothers and his Dad, the aching pain deep into every fiber of our beings hurting. No words can touch that place where your heart is dying when your child dies. The hope of the resurrection means nothing when you can't see or touch the living-breathing child that filled your life with joy. Never seeing them smile at you, laugh with you, or give you a hug ever again in the days to come. Never hearing them say, ?I love you? again. I've suffered pain, but nothing compared to the pain of losing my beloved son. Your whole body becomes sickened with the most horrible physical pain one can feel. I've suffered pain, but nothing compared to the pain of losing a child.

  I pray that any Jehovah?s Witnesses who has children and reads this will never have to face such a loss such as mine. A loss that can be prevented if they have a true understanding of what the Watchtower Society is asking them to sacrifice. After my son had died, I realized my nagging doubts about the Watchtower?s blood policies needed to be fully investigated. Hadn't I just lost a child for these purportedly God given laws I had lived by for 29 years?

  I soon learned that over the years the Witnesses have changed many teachings about blood and that the Governing Body was about to change more of its blood doctrines. Why are some parts of blood permitted when others are not? Where did they find this in the Bible? In addition, if the Bible says nothing about transfusions, how can the Governing Body say with certainty that blood transfusions are wrong in Jehovah's eyes? How could I forgive those men for my son's death? In my opinion, the men of the Governing Body have the blood of many innocents on their hands. They who taught us falsely in God's name are accountable to him.

  My heart is completely broken - my child is dead. I beg of you who read my story, don't let this happen to you. Educate yourself now before you are faced with a similar tragedy. If any child can be saved by their parents thinking now rather than after they lose their child, perhaps my son's death will not have been for nothing.

  This is published at AJWRB.ORG in an effort to educate the public and encourage Jehovah's Witnesses to think before giving up the life of their beloved family members.

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  This is my story folks, I share it at ajwrb.org. I loved Jehovah and Jesus passionately. I had dedicated my life exclusively to preaching what I thought was truth about God, the universe, and the salvation of man kind from the wicked forces that lived among us. Little did I know I had been decieved by the very organization I trusted to protect and represent my God Jehovah back then. They failed me, they failed my entire family. They (the leaders or Governing Body) were in part responsible for my son's death and it was all for nothing I trusted them.
• 

  CeriseRose

  {{{{{{{BALSAM}}}}}}}

  I've known the pain of losing my parents...it's very like what you describe. I've always thought, however, that losing a child would be a thousand times worse. It's unnatural and heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing your story freely, and for the love you show others in doing your part to warn them of the danger of the WTS's unscriptural doctrines.