Thanks for your warm welcomes again ,sorry to be away from the computer for a while but I guess we all have to sleep and work. Well I gave it a bit of thought today and thought I might give a condensed version of my life leading up to me getting baptised over 20 years ago and then relate some of the puzzling things that occured to make me think I had found truth .
There are lots of things happened after baptism but these can come later if you don't mind. As I've said I was a baptised Mormon kid till twelve when mother left after sleeping with a 14 year old boy from church, (she had issues for sure) and as a kid she encouraged me to develop my powers of the super natural kind. These things included telepathy, seeing vividly the future, move objects, oija board , project music to records that were finished playing etc. Over the years till I was 19 I would get terrified of these events sometimes not knowing for sure where the real source of this power was, at 19 I forced myself not to think of these things for fear of alienating myself from people by them being scared of me. I will give one example only at this time...I was a Biker in a gang at this time and had a vivid vision of a companion dying by decapitation while riding pillion on a bike........I knew the date, street ,time, circumstances ,and was terrified and puzzled why I had to go through this experience, finally I got the courage to tell my best freind and the victim of what I forsaw..........as you can imagine they thought it pretty weird and word got out ......needless to say when it came EXACTLY true people kept there distance for a while!
This and many other things that happened kept me tormented for years.......then I met my first wife whose parents were witnesses and I had discussions ,and while living before marraige with my wife we began studies ,she with a sister and me with an elder ,this in 1974....I had to ask him when he thought the end was and when pushed he said about Oct.1975. Well I stopped my study as my future mother in law had said to me "nobody knows the day or the hour".contrary to what he said. So I never got to discuss my past with him.
Marraige came then babies etc and the daily grind till about 1980 and this is when it gets interesting. My wife took callers at the door and wanted to study again and wanted me to as well .I studied with a nice brother and gave him hell but I still did not reveal my past secrets, then one study night a another brother rang me to say he would study with me that night as the other brother was sick and asked what book I was doing and I replied no particular one(as I was giving the nice brother a hard time HEH HEH). Well he replied in a gruff manner and then came over at 7.30. Well he did the prayer and then just sailed into me very angrily saying I am mocking Jehovah and spitting in his face etc etc etc. This went on for what seemed ages and I could sense my wife getting upset behind the passage door but not as mad as I was .....gripping the table and shaking with rage I almost reached across the table and pulled his face apart ....but suddenly this unusual peace came over me and he suddenly stopped and asked to PRAY!!!! I was beside myself but watched his face as he prayed for about 15 minutes and he was crying!!! Then got up and left.....well needless to say I stopped studying for some months and just read the magazines quietly without my wife knowing. Now for years I have always attributed this experience to Gods hand calming me and leading me to him. Well there's more ....some months later I started studying again with another brother and soon was believing more and more for he was a great user of the Bible only, we went to meetings and it got harder for me as every time I went my head was full of obsenities and distressed me no end . A woman rang on the phone with a real evil voice around this time and said she was going to kill my little children ....did'nt know her but after learning about demons I thought this is a possessed woman and I cunningly asked her her address and SHE TOLD ME!!! Rang the police and they arrested her. Well I thought GOD may be protecting me but we then we had chairs flying around the house , doors slamming, horrid noises and such like and we were getting really distressed as I told my wife that I felt a weird feeling when these things happened ,just like when I was a teenager . We thought about things and the only thing we were doing different in our lives was studying...so we concluded this must be Jehovahs organisation and we must seek protection in it. Then came the final "attack" when we went to bed one night and just turned of the light and I was crushed on the chest and neck and could'nt breath, my wife was screaming ,the bed bent down to the floor and it was then I recalled before I thought I would black out ,an old sister had said to me once that Jehovahs name was a strong tower so with all my strength I called his name though there was barely any breath in me. Instantly I was released from this unseen and unwanted power. Naturally I felt I had found God that night and was baptised not long after.
So here is the beginnings of my many experiences that convinced me that I had found the truth. If it is'nt the truth then how come I have this dilemna now because I have over the years seen bad events ,and bad people, and seen the changes in doctrine that I and others knew would have to come ,and I can't reconcile these things with the "TRUTH"? And feeling God is not with me when other serious trials came was hard to accept,had I lost favour with God for secret sins? NO......So if these special events that happened to me are'nt from God , where have they come from, I can't agree that they are gifts from within myself like mystical people would like to think! And heres another problem , when I have rarely shared my strange events with other worshippers they have treated me just like people did when I was a teenager! So if the experience is in a Watchtower that is believable but even when witnessed by other people ,my events are the words of a crazy person who perhaps has a demon????! Can you see where I'm coming from ? I have other events to discuss if you all will be patient with me and my dilemna, I'm not crazy and dillusional and have served as ministerial servant for some time once.
