...when you remember that you are free from that religion?.
for me, it is the best pick me up i can ever have.
i may have had some really dark days, i may still, but that is the one thing that pulls me towards myself: i am free to think for myself, i am free to associate with whom i want, i am free to sleep in on the weekends, i am free of the guilt, i am free of an angry god that made me feel shit about myself.. i am fortunate enough to have put that time in my past - though i am happy to speak to ex jw's - to share experiences, to laugh, to cry and then to celebrate we are out.. i know that many of us still have people in that faith that we love.
My feeling was of gratitude. Words can't say how happy I was that I hadn't died in the Borg. I lived to see the day.
I was selling my wooden spoons at our local farmers market when the "unbelieving mate" of a dear JWfriend of mine (who can't talk to me) stopped to visit about our families. He asked directly about myself and I startled him and others--I couldn't help shouting--"I'm free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty! I'm free at last!"
Yep. LouBelle, it's always a day brightener!
...when you remember that you are free from that religion?.
for me, it is the best pick me up i can ever have.
i may have had some really dark days, i may still, but that is the one thing that pulls me towards myself: i am free to think for myself, i am free to associate with whom i want, i am free to sleep in on the weekends, i am free of the guilt, i am free of an angry god that made me feel shit about myself.. i am fortunate enough to have put that time in my past - though i am happy to speak to ex jw's - to share experiences, to laugh, to cry and then to celebrate we are out.. i know that many of us still have people in that faith that we love.
i have seen on this site recordings of jw elders at tribunal meetings claim other churches hate the name jehovah.
one former baptist now jw elder said other churches hate the name and never use it.
please look at the following and there are many more hymns not included than these.
It was commonly referred to in the USA pre and post Civil War. I'm reading the autobiographies of three black women preachers who did their work before the War and they use it all the time.
If the name is hated now it could be because the WTS has made it stink. I don't care to use it for that reason.
Maeve
a canadian in china, facing the elders in a starbucks.
great story.. .
the believer - leaving the witness.
I loved it.
has anyone ever heard of someone getting their baptism reversed?
ever?.
How long ago, Phizzy? That was gutsy.
has anyone ever heard of someone getting their baptism reversed?
ever?.
Yes. One elder in my Iowa congregation had his "annulled" when someone pointed out he was on active duty in the military. I knew him from 89-91. So it was sometime before that the bogus baptism took place. He had to wait til his commitment with the gov. was over.
.
from my place of forgetting, and out of my utter despair and loneliness, i tap out my pathetic message desperately hoping that there is someone, anyone that might possibly hear ... .
.
Dear friend,
Welcome. The shadow life you live is so well known to many here. I don't know how sensitive you are to outside/apostate information. In my dungeon time when I did not know if my inquisition and pain would result in a reslution of doubt or not--I did not want to increase my turmoil by reading the writings of a known apostate, a book I had heard quietly spoken of, CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE. So I did something that I believe may help you see that the Organization cannot strip you of your identity your history if you choose to walk free.
Go to Amazon and read the reviews of CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE. Between the two editions offered, there are perhaps 130+ persons who wrote to express the appreciation-even love- they have for a man whose prime years were given to an organization that tried to destroy him as it had others-- Ray Franz is better remembered for his years "of decline" out of the Organization. Certainly some of us love him for climbing out of his oubliette and helping us leave as well.
Don't give up.
what was the result?
i have seen answers strewn throughout many posts but never consolidated.
this is important.
Before I was a Witness,I knew enough of how words and writing developed among humans to understand why the WTS was set on "accurate knowledge". But over time my personal study convinced me that literal knowledge of the biblical past was unlikely--at least in the manner the JWs presented it.
But there was one story that I knew was wrong even before I had studied up on it--before I ever met the JWs. I hated the way the literature (especially the MY BOOK OF BIBLE STORIES) always says God told Abraham to kill and burn his son. Simply not the word that Abraham had usedin connection with his drama with God--- in any translation.
I raised it with elders in one congregation and they told me to talk to the CO next visit--They weren't disturbed with me at all--probably figured I was just a stressed sister w/ unbelieving mate. The CO was very cautious of the topic, mostly refreshed my memory for who the slave was and did I know the care with which our food/info was developed. I reminded him that considering the literature infallible was expressly denied by the WTS in opening chapters of the PROCLAIMERS' book--and did he think we should stop reading the bible if the literature told us all we needed? No, he didn't think that was right. He wasn't mean to me, but he wasn't able to help me. He said maybe I needed to put it as" a question from readers."
I soon learned that was a dead end if you hoped the FDS would study and pray on it.
I knew an old pioneer sister who had a son in the writing dept. at Bethel. When she heard I had a concern about the matter, she said she would run it by her son. I had a premonition of the outcome.......He said nothing showed up in the reference literature on it. That's how the holy spirit works? I wondered.
Ultimately I wrote th brothers in my last congregation about no longer being able to say what the bible itself didn't express. Making a statement like that did draw fire. I knew it would. The brothers throughout the next several months were neve free to reason from the scriptures while I had to see the judgemnt passed on me by the Corp, that was itself revealing.
The elders were not free to read and think with me.
The dime dropped in slo-mo for me but drop it did.Especially distubing was the brother that we had always depended on to have "the mind of Christ". He couldn't grasp that even if I was WRONG about my concern, I had to live with my conscience.
The letters leading up to my expulsion/leaving the WTS is in Photo-bucket linked into the JWN search archive: "How I left Jehovah's Witnesses"/Maeve Courteau.
By the way. The WT's response didn't refute-couldn't refute-my stand based on research. ButI was just wrong in principle--they didn't explain why. They just told me to get in line.
The elders never truly search the scriptures --they are scared to.
i have been wandering around the board for a while now, and have decided it is time to contribute a bit of my history.
i have described my involvement with the witnesses as being from the outside looking in.
my sweet honey has been trying for two years to get reinstated.
I read the whole post.
Unforgettable. Clearly spoken.
I admire you unvarnished description of help from a power higher.
I respect your naming your salvation as something other than the evangelical definition yet knowing Jesus saved you.
That is staying true.
Mental illness in a family sets you apart, it is hard for others to understand the shifting emotional weights in one's family life as you try to deal rightly with their needs and your own need to stay sane.
All the best JGnat.
Maeve
author chinua achebe wrote the 1958 classic 'things fall apart' an africans view of africans in light of the european/missionary invasion.. 'the white man is very clever.
he came quietly and peaceably with his religion.
we were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stand.
wonderful post. thought-provoking video.
Sheds a light on the sickness of a spiritual life that is chained, bound, gagged and streamed one version of reality to its ears.
