Dear Still-A-Witness,
Hi. The issue you face is if your right to make a decision for yourself should be yours without undue influence or over-reaching. Yes, a family can change your life with their influence. If someone loves you, would they try to ruin your life in spite? Remember the arguments against their being an immortal soul - since many people seem to believe that the spirits of dead persons needing to be placated because if they became angry they would ruin our lives?
Why would a loved one who was good to us all their lives and loved us, who then dies, become vindictive if one did not leave a bowl of rice and milk out for them at an altar or give $ to the Ju-Ju priest?
Why?
If you actually answer to God YHVH and his Son Jesus then why worry? Yes, there will be noise, as I was told it would not be pleasant but it won't last long. Yes, God will ANSWER YOUR PRAYERS. Talking to God is prayer, but if God talks to you the WT says its SCHIZOPHRENIA. The Watchtower wants you to believe that at this time in HIstory he has left us with a pile of contradictory information which they publish. They want you to believe that GOD DOESN"T HAVE THE POWER TO REACH YOU ABOUT HIS WILL - PERSONALLY.
Did you think to ask HIM?
Perhaps you fall into one of the common groups of those who left the unholy Watchtower for good reason, hopefully you actually still want to live a good life and have found out how useless their hate-filled anti-religion actually is. Did they cloister you from "The World" and then warn you that you had to be careful of who you associated with in the Cong? Is it not really the case that by making your world so small that you could be controlled more easily. It is just another layer of control but it is the choke hold level of control. HUMANS ARE SOCIAL CREATURES. We need each other and I and millions of others are here for you.
Thank-You for trusting us, now trust that Jesus Christ has millions and millions of His - HIS PERSONALLY CHOSEN - followers at the ready where you are.
I had the worst time when I started to attend other Churches but as I and Others found out - you have so many unfound friends that you were warned were working for the Devil himself but are anything but. Did you ever Google research the Watchtowers origins?
TRUST THE LORD JESUS. I am just getting used to acting like a Christian and viewing others in my community as all being potential friends with Jesus bringing us together. What I mean is - would you expect to feel loved, encouraged, informed of what is in scripture when you attend your firsdt Baptist Sunday School and Service? I was. In the first four different churches I attended I found loving people. They are their because they love God. Perhaps the Mafia does go to Catholic Church for the Prestige and impratur of respectability but your neighbors are not likely to be 100% Mafia! Go to any church that appeals to you in the Yellow pages, listen to God direct you. He did me. I feel so much better and I have come home from CHURCH feeling so happy and relieved that I swear that if it were dark I might have been glowing! HAPPY!
It may be hard to concieve for you to go to a non-JW meeting. It was improbable in the extreme for me. 2years of age to 47 in the Kingdom hole. Some of them made me feel like I some sort of suspicious nefarious creep come skulking in. Before I wore a big fluffy beard. Now I look like a grubby street bum in good clothes however and I am treated like a friend and feel wonderful.
Did you say you wanted LOVE? Or freedom from the consequences of your personal choice? Did you want the benefits of making a great choice for yourself and the wonderful opportunity of getting loved and not being under threat of psycho-emotional deprivation? Or did you want to continue living under that heavy hand of the ALL-POWERFUL WATCHTOWER? The WT only has the power you give them. Mostly. They are implicated incriminal level conspiracy against those who get vocal as dissidents. I will chance it since I know this site might be monitored for those like me. I can call the police, radio & TV station, or mail a letter to the newspaper and that can sink them or get me nothing BUT they take that chance not me. I wrote all the major Kingdom Halls I ever attended and wrote my reasons for my disgust with the Watchtower.
I strongly feel that I have the right to remain silent and answer NO QUESTIONS. I do not answer for anything for any reason to the Watchtower. And they don't answer to me. My letter never said I am resigning .... Should I live my life by their rules and on their playing field with their slang and twisted thoughts clouding up my otherwise clear thoughts? Do you want to be independent using the WT's rules to decide if your belief system is OK? Or that you are a good person in reality. Thought control IS PERVASIVE in those who leave the WT. I still feel the oddest feelings of guilt for making the BEST CHANGE IN MY LIFE.
You must answer to your own conscience and that means that if you go to the Assembly of God for Church and You really don't agree with the trinity then You don't have to or say that you do. The same rules must apply or you will go from being ruled by one dictator to being ruled by another authoritarian pig. You can see this I hope. Follow this through and ask if I had NO FEAR - WHAT WOULD I DO? FOR MY GOOD.
Love and the best to you, Jesus sees you as his and his alone and he will help you. Ask the Father (YHVH) as Jesus did.
Paul