Ok - so I'm a huge LL Cool J fan; and when I read the title of this thread, the lyrics to his song Headsprung popped into my head:
"They call me Big L'y, Big Silly, Big Money, Big Billy . . . "
so i went to the memorial, the only meeting i've gone to for the past five years, i think it is.. i got the usual love bombing from some of the "friends", got ignored by some others but it was the elders that got me.
four different elders came up to speak and every single one of them called me "brother".
"it's good to see you brother undercover..." "how have you been brother undercover..." "staying busy at work, brother undercover...".
Ok - so I'm a huge LL Cool J fan; and when I read the title of this thread, the lyrics to his song Headsprung popped into my head:
"They call me Big L'y, Big Silly, Big Money, Big Billy . . . "
i'm new here so i'll give a little background first.. i've never been a witness and i'll never be one.
my husband is but he hasn't been to any functions in about 15 years, i guess if he did start attending again he would be df'd because he impregnated a "worldly" girl (me) out of wedlock and then married a "worldly" girl (me again).. i need advice because his family relentlessly asks my children to attend and bribes them with very extravagant gifts.
i won't allow them to go so they stay pissed at me because they don't get the gifts.
Welcome Never - Hubert gave you the best advice I can think of. It sounds like your husband is what we call a Witness-apologist - someone who defends the witness beliefs even though they themselves choose not to follow them. Many people are forced out of the religion for various reasons and leave feeling that it is the "truth," but that they can never live up to its demands. Your husband may have some guilt about not being able to live up to the requirements, but being the great father that he is; would love for his children to have the opportunity to do better than him. He won't stand up to his family until he sees the real truth about the truth.
Good luck! (((Nellie))))
was it as bad as everyone says, that if you leave the organization, you'll go back to the world, get into trouble and suffer?.
I lost friends - some of them I expected to lose, others really took me by surprise. Other than that, I feel like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders - THAT'S worth plenty more!
jehovahs witnesses (jw) are taught to never listen to a word, or read an article by those who have left their former faith.
any critical information is viewed as poisonous to your faith.
it will kill your faith.
Jeff - interesting post. Last week my family and I had this long discussion about the contrasts of the matrix and the truth, so we decided to watch the 1st one again. Even when we watched it the first time, we commented that we thought the writers had purposely made the correlation with JWs. Great movie - even greater meaning!
you set out the trash on the night before friday...the biggest batch you've had in a long time and wonder why in the hell hasn't any other neighbor set out there's as usual?!!!!!!.
i get back in and am informed its good friday tomorrow.
r. (i am not dragging all this crap back in!
LOL - THOSE white buildings! LOL - good one!
i was baptized in early 90s and live in eastern europe.. from your comments i noticed, that some time in the past jws had a problem with smurfs... like being afraid of or avoiding ... i never heard anything about that in my dub life... .
so is there some story behind that?
did you play with smurfs as kids?
I wish the issue was only with the smurfs. Basically, the WT frowns on anything of a mystical nature. Papa Smurf was a wizard - end of story. I used collect them (before the hoopla) and I even had a wind-up Smurf. I can't tell you how much self control it took for me not to bring it to the hall and make it walk down the aisle. It would've been hysterical - but I was too chicken to do it.
Witness children aren't usually allowed to watch - Wizard of Oz, Snow White, Cinderella, Little Mermaid, Harry Potter, Power Rangers, and the like.
i came on jwd a year ago tomorrow, having realized that jws were not the truth, quite painfully, on march 29, 2008. i was here within a week, and within 2 months i was officially dad by my congregation.. ever since joining, i have never actually wrote down a comprehensive look at why i left the organization.
what doubts caused me to leave?
why did a gilead grad leave what i once considered so precious?.
Let me add my thanks to you for sharing. Stories like this will help others who are doubting, but questioning their doubts.
"we missed you.....so nice to see you again!
the memorial is thursday ya know.....".
my wife hasn't been well mentally so i agreed to attend some meetings with her...this is the bottom of the barrell for me!
Try the wine BEFORE the meeting next time - maybe it won't seem so bad!
why?
is it better to disassociate oneself as one of jws or wait for due process and be disfellowshipped?.
Well, I faded for as long as I could - then came the knock at the door . . . so I DA'd myself. My reasoning - I wanted them to understand that I wasn't disfellowshipped because I "couldn't keep their rules" or "wanted to engage in wrongdoing" - I DA'd myself because I had found out that "they weren't who they claimed to be and I no longer wanted to be associated with them." I left on MY terms, not theirs!
Semantics, some might say - but it meant all the difference to me.