Do you believe there are genuinely happy JWs who don't need to be rescued?
St. Ann:
This an excellent question.
I spent almost a decade as an agnostic. During that time, I did not try to "rescue" anyone else from the Watchtower. I knew the Watchtower did not have the answers, but I didn't have any answers either.
For many years before that, I was a "happy" Witness. That is, I would have told anyone that asked that I was happy, and I really believed that I was. I was (am) married to a man that I was (am) crazy about, I had (have) three beautiful daughters, my dad was my best friend (he died in 1991), my mom was my "hero" (she died in 2005). Thing is, when certain things in this "wonderful life" started to fall apart, I discovered that my "faith" was no help at all.
Now that I am Catholic, I find myself much more able to deal with everything that life throws at me, and I really want for other people to find the REAL happiness and faith that I now have. I don't so much feel that is my job to convince people to leave the Witnesses as it is my job to let them know, mostly through the way I live my life, that there is SO MUCH MORE to being a Christian than what the Witnesses offer -- so much more reverence, so much more history, so much more beauty, so much more prayer, so much more EVERYTHING! And then, for those who find their way out, I want to be able (in the words of a friend of mine) to give them a hug, pat them on the back, and point them in the RIGHT direction.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that happiness is relative to the standard that you have for it in your life. I was once very happy by Witness standards; I now have happiness greater than Witness standards because I have a peace of mind that I never had before.
Great question!!
Pax,
Ruth