Is it ok for me to be part of your 'gang'? You see I'm not a JW and never have been and a bit of of me feels like I'm gatecrashing.
I was raised in a strong Roman Catholic family - I was expected to believe everything the Church taught without question and I did. When I left school, I found myself working with an evangelical Christian who, because she questioned my beliefs slowly made me look into them for myself - I truly hated her at the time for doing that and admit that I made her life a misery in revenge - but eventually I began to see that some of the stuff she was saying was right, we became very good friends and my real journey out of The RC church began.
I was too scared to leave straight away because of the doctrines I'd grown up with - no salvation outside the church and you can only really communicate with God through the priest (big issue here was how do I get my sins forgiven cos if I don't I'm gonna go to hell) - it was another 10 years before I finally plucked up the courage to leave and this was because of two things that happened:
One Sunday the priest said in his sermon that you either accept all the churches teaching or none of them. Needless to say this made me really uncomfortable and like a true hypocrite for being there.
Another Sunday shortly after, he was preaching on the gospel where Jesus talked about not prefering your parents more than
him - the priest said something which really hit a nerve, he said if you hate your parents then you are nothing to God. BANG! It was like someone turned off all the lights. This is because I had an abusive father and I hated his guts for it (although at the time it was happening I was thinking I deserved it, I knew now that wasn't true) The long and short is that I got it into my head that God didn't love me so there was no point carrying on and nearly cut my wrists (providence saved me,another story)
At that time my friend who I'd worked with moved closer to where I lived and she'd found an Anglican church so I started going along there with her and after a year I became a member, because as long as I was a member of the RC church, I felt that I was tied to their rules. All hell broke loose, one of my sisters didn't speak to me for two years - if she does now its usually to make a backhanded comment and she always plays 'mind games' with me which makes me feel bad.
Two years ago I started doing home studies with some Witnesses and although they thought they'd no chance of getting me to change my beliefs, they've no idea how close they came - for a long while, everything they said seemed to make sense and they showed me a kind of friendship which I rarely encounter - I think its only because I know Mr & Mrs pubsinger and I was talking with them about what the JWs were telling me that I didn't join because they gave me the alternative argument. I still like to read and study the publications though.
Over the last year all my past baggage has come back to haunt me and I've been struggling with depression. I knew pubsinger was a member of this forum and the other week he showed me what was on it and suggested that I joined cos it might be helpful for me. He's right, it is helping me. Although I know you guys have come through some far worse stuff than me I see at least a little that I can relate to. Thanks that you're here.
sorry this is such a long post and thanks for reading if you made it this far!