i've finally got round to joining the site (after over 2 years lurking!
i was born into jws, pioneered for 10 years (met my husband at pioneer school).
had health issues that saw me catapulted away from 'the centre of the cong' and wow what a different place that was!
Welcome to the ste and thanks for sharing that story. I am glad to hear you guys are doing wel, and not looking back. So many unique stories and circumstances here....but the constant is the fact that nobody can leave with dignity. they try to rob you of it at every corner.
Good for you guys for doing what you needed to mentally and emotionally.
May I ask what it was that woke your elder husband up?
I'm always curious about how the light goes on for people.
hi everyone, this is my first post so go easy on me :) i have been a witness all of my life (i'm 37) and truly believed it until 3 years ago.
my husband and i had become spiritually weak and over time i began to question more and more until i came to the conclusion that the witnesses were not the true religion but just one of many religions and that if god is there then there are many paths to get to him.
anyway, i've battled with keeping going as my husband still believed and i didn't want to be in a divided household as we have a young daughter and thought it would be very confusing for her (and us).
Hey BB,
Honesty is shocking isn't it. Like when you really start to allow yourself to believe what you already think, its kind of amazing. Well that is just starting. Not "feeling like a fraud" as you put it, is its own reward.
I had a friend of 20 years tell me 2 weeks ago we could no longer be friends. That hurt. Last week I have a friend of 23 years old thank me because a conversation and link I sent him opened his eyes to the fact he was part of a high control group that does not speak for God.
That is a roller coaster. But I like you, felt like the price of living an authentic life was WORTH loosing those who would not be my friends. In particular, because my two young children need an authentic father with integrity to raise them.
Dont stress about what else you HAVE to believe or WANT to believe. Purge the REQUIREMENT to believe anything from yourself first, and then you can figure out what you think and feel on your own terms, with an honest heart.
Making friends? Not always easy. I'm aware of certain social awkwardness I was unaware of before because everyone I knew had t the same. But I'm fortunate.
In all honesty BB.......you have your husband on your side, and your little girl. that is more than a lot that leave get to leave with. So good for you!
And this place.......kind of therapeutic.
Welcome!
hi all, just got this letter (sorry about formatting - anyone clean it up?).
christian congregationof jehovahs witnessesthe ridgeway, london, nw7 1rn telephone: 020 8906 2211august 13, 2015to all congregationsre: making wise use of our magazinesdear brothers:millions of people worldwide appreciate the bible study aids that are provided by thefaithful and discreet slave.
(matt.
the past week has been hell for me.
my mother started feeling ill and we went to seek medical assistance.
we live in the mountains and the nearest large hospital is about 150 kms away.
I'm glad she listened. I'm also glad it seems to have taught her a lesson. the party from your father though, that is a bit confounding? Maybe there is a personal element to the story missing.
Either way I hope your family finds peace, and I'm glad she lives to fight another day. Maybe its a good opportnity to explain to her why she need not even ask forgiveness for this thing.
i have found an article on their website that moved me to contact them.
i share it here hoping more will contact in a similar vein and maybe we can raise awareness and tear down this propaganda.
i'm writing regarding an article about jehovah's witnesses and their blood transfusion doctrine, found here:http://tinyurl.com/pxku9dgit is clear to me, reading this article, that it's writer is either profoundly ignorant or profoundly biased.
Yeah I caught that as well. She didn't present it as fact, but it reads close to it.
This part below got me too. the Australian case is the one where a woman cost her both her life and the life of her unborn child in refusing blood.
When asked about the Australian case, she said, “Oh, honey, please don’t be sad for her. The two of them will be resurrected, and she’ll get to see her new baby, and neither one of them will have that leukemia.”
“This sister has more of a hope to live in the new world than I do,” she added. “Because I still live here and I could make mistakes.”
Yep....not only will god destroy 99.9% of people on earth, you may not make it because you could still make mistakes!
i have found an article on their website that moved me to contact them.
i share it here hoping more will contact in a similar vein and maybe we can raise awareness and tear down this propaganda.
i'm writing regarding an article about jehovah's witnesses and their blood transfusion doctrine, found here:http://tinyurl.com/pxku9dgit is clear to me, reading this article, that it's writer is either profoundly ignorant or profoundly biased.
This bit was fascinating. I don't know what to make of it.
In Ian McEwan’s novel “The Children Act,” a judge must decide whether to insist upon transfusion for a seventeen-year-old Jehovah’s Witness who has leukemia and who cannot receive two critical drugs without also accepting donor blood, according to his doctors. The judge visits the frail boy in the hospital, where he is writing poetry and learning to play violin. He is mature and articulate in his refusal of blood. Yet the judge concludes that he has experienced only an “uninterrupted monochrome” view of life, and that his welfare would be better served by not dying. (As the boy receives his transfusion, his parents, who have testified to their acceptance of religious dogma, weep openly, and he realizes they are weeping with joy.) Bloodless-medicine leaders at Penn Hospital and Englewood said that they had never faced a situation in which a Witness child needed a life-saving transfusion against the wishes of the parents. But if such a case arose, they would be obligated to get a court order, according to Pennsylvania and New Jersey state law.
i have found an article on their website that moved me to contact them.
i share it here hoping more will contact in a similar vein and maybe we can raise awareness and tear down this propaganda.
i'm writing regarding an article about jehovah's witnesses and their blood transfusion doctrine, found here:http://tinyurl.com/pxku9dgit is clear to me, reading this article, that it's writer is either profoundly ignorant or profoundly biased.
about a month ago i posted what had happened to two elderly sisters who were reprimanded by a couple of elders for crying because the jw broadcasting was going to be stopped at the kingdom hall and it was up to each publisher to learn how to use the internet.
if you recall the sisters got together with my mom and talked about it and it resulted in all of them declining to make meals for the pioneers.
here is the link.
so last night i was having a wonderful meal in a very nice restaurant when we heard what we thought was a loud clap of thunder.................. it was a bomb.
yards from my hotel.
thankfully i made a few decision that meant i wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Glad you are ok. So far 16 dead? Terrible. I'm not even sure what the point was. is it over the military still in charge? As if doing this would make them WANT to relinquish power?
this weekend
Depends on the nature of the way you intend to communicate. You just going to hand him a letter maybe? that could be fun.
Or do you plan on shaking his hand and posing a question that may make him uncomfortable? I would go straight for the Australian commission.
In a letter, I think something diplomatic that was written in a format to where he HAD to read the entire thing (not starting in on him with rants), might be a good way to go. Maybe lamenting how many people are leaving, and if he is aware of just how much damage is being done by the revisions of long held doctrine, the child abuse scandals, the unwillingness to consider reforming the ban on blood, and the way the local congregations are being guided by the "chieftains of the new world" (ie: elders).
