Posts by Butterflyleia85

21

Help what should I tell my mom?!

by Butterflyleia85 in

jw
friends

little background.

i'm dfed been dfed for about 4 to 6 years if you include the first dfment and getting back in for 6 months then 2008 dfed second time.. i did alot of research in 2010 to now and well from getting dfed for a total different reason just makes me look like a sinner who is unrepentent in my family.

the only people who know my researching is mainly my sister and mom.. .

Butterflyleia85

Thank you Diest!

Well I need to respond to her and I did...

Mom it's your choice I will love you no matter what! And like grandma I respect her choices. She doesn't shun me in fact she called me yesterday to tell me she was leaving on vacation and was going to call you when you got home from work. I'm not even against my sister and would gladly love her to be apart of my life but she choices what she only knows is right and doesn't what to be apart of my life! Like her the scriptures apply, we should love god more or "hate" "love less" even our family compared to god like Matt 10:37. We love god and he loves us. But the 10 commandments still apply and that is love and respect your parents!

I just seen on Dr Phil the other day parents abusing a lil girl kept her in a closet then only took her out to rap her. Her strength and love for god astounded me. She is 18 now and healed but it makes you think wow her own parents?? This world is corrupt and we do have to rely on god. I do not feel god has chosen the organization to fulfill his purpose but has chosen individualsto bring light to his name and his true loving kindness!

Her responce: I know waht you are saying...I don't even think it's the organization as much as it is the ones in it that is being obsessive. I know [sister from our hall] wrote the socitety and asked if it was ok to help her DF daughter set at meetings with her and talk to her. The letter that came back was yes she is still her daughter so she took it to the hall and sat with her daughter and showed the elders when they told her that it was wrong for her to do it.Like they told me about you.

I will look up some scriptures for [her daughter or my sister] to read and let her decide if she want to talk to me... I will not go back for her or anyone else... I will go back for me only and if she does not talk to me when I'm gone then it will stay that way if I do decide to go back.

Well that was that mostly...

But really I don't want her to go back and it kills me inside... How can anyone justify such reasoning... I forget what it was like not knowing what I know now. For one the organization has different people on the writing department as will as those who write back to members in the hall.... Where do they say yes it's ok and no it's not? Why are they so ferm even to shun one minute and then the next say it's up to you and yes you have a right?

See the confusion. I got a call from an elder too actually quite a quincidence... asking if I needed encouragement to return to the meetings. I haven't heard from them for over a year and now they call? I was going to go back but that was befor I had my son and just so I could talk to my family and maybe save them from the organization by planting lil clues. All is changed now I just want to be happy with my family not loose my mother or grandma... they are the only ones in that talk to me that I'm very close too.

21

Help what should I tell my mom?!

by Butterflyleia85 in

jw
friends

little background.

i'm dfed been dfed for about 4 to 6 years if you include the first dfment and getting back in for 6 months then 2008 dfed second time.. i did alot of research in 2010 to now and well from getting dfed for a total different reason just makes me look like a sinner who is unrepentent in my family.

the only people who know my researching is mainly my sister and mom.. .

Butterflyleia85

Little background. I'm DFed been DFed for about 4 to 6 years if you include the first DFment and getting back in for 6 months then 2008 DFed second time.

I did alot of research in 2010 to now and well from getting DFed for a total different reason just makes me look like a sinner who is unrepentent in my family. The only people who know my researching is mainly my sister and mom.

My sister was baptised in 2009 after my DFment and is married and pioneering.

My mom hasn't been to a meeting sence my DFment and even went to my wedding and has supported me as a mother should.

She doesn't want to choice between us and neither do I. But I have said if they don't want to be apart of my life I don't want them to be wishy washy about it. I can't handle it emotionally.

Things have been good til recently.

Well while my mom has been free doing what she wonts she also kinda took advantage of the silence from the elders and her freedom (persay because she is baptised) anyways and done things my sister doesn't aprove of.

Here's the problem: My mom's text to me about my sister: Well I just told {my sister} that I missed her and asked her if she was working or busy tonight because I missed her. She told me that I was bad association becasue I'm not going to the meetings... And she could not associate with me until I go back to the meetings. I told her that I am tired of being judged... I told her that I had a brake down cuz of my job last week and i needed to see my baby she said if i relied on jehovah that would not have happened.

It continues today: My sister wrote this to my mom and then mom forward it to me: Then if that's where u stand I can't give u wat u want either... I love u and I want u to come back to the organization, but as long as u continue to rely on urself and put {butterflyleia} befor jehovah then I can't have a relationship with you that might jeperdise my relationship with jehovah... I read a scripture the other day that altho at first glance it seemed harsh it was straight with me. it was Luke 14:26... it means that i have to love Jehovah's above all else... Even that of my own flesh and blood... Just because ur inactive and ur not tied to the congregation anymore does not mean ur just going to be looked over, u are baptized... Because i dedicated my life to Jehovah's i am also responsible for my actions and i know ur not relying on jehovah, because if u were we wouldn't be having this conversation, so its not ok with me the way u live your life and i can't support u... I love u so much and i know this hurts, because it hurts me to even have to say these things...

38

Christain terms I never heard of as a Jehoavh's Witnee??

by Butterflyleia85 in

is it me or is it i been out to long to remeber but terms like - grace, jesus being immanuel, gospels, epistles.

etc they have a lot of meaning to christians yet all i truly remember is jesus being ark angel, the messiah, undeserve kindness, greek and roman scripture, etc.. .

Butterflyleia85

Haha Fernando!! Yay! Just had time to look at those videos!! Very interesting and enjoyable!

Thanks again Ding for being such an inspiration and helping me understand salvation in Christ!

I like the Christian way of understanding Grace, where our sins are forgiven if we come to Jesus. Confess and Repent. All sins are the same... so-so, bad, worse, and horrable... there is no "oh well that calls for: public reproof, or being marked", or "that calls for disfellowshipment" (a disapline layed upon a baptised, Jehovah's Witness for committing a sin that the Elders think is not forgiven worthy, we can be reinstated if we deal with the punishment (which they say don't look at the shunning that way) that could last to a year or more (Elders use to allow a couple of months but told my grandma the governing body changed it to a year, and wished they could let me back in)); I NEVER LEFT GOD or JESUS in my heart!! I STILL WON'T... And because of my deep research JESUS has blessed me with the knowledge and understanding of his true kindness... GRACE! I can't go back being a Jehovah's Witness again because I feel now they are WRONG for their beleif and rapped so many people of this blessing!! It's not an obligation to preach to others anymore, I tell others about God because I care and want to out of love. I no deep down Jehovah's Witnesses can change if they only just sat down and listened to Christians, not with the thinking that Jehovah's Witnesses are the ONLY way, the righteous path, but with the thinking that Jehovah's Witnesses could be wrong, governing body could be wrong, satan could be blinding us, I know that sounds so crazy to those in because "all the brotherly love"! ... I know Jesus is in your hearts but I think when things go wrong it's when you yourself, personally don't read the scripture but go with the flow of the watchtower, awake, broshures, and books that have been transelated for you and the only way of understanding. You don't look at the other side of the story... or test the spirit... 1 John 4:1. How? By decerning weither it's the spirit of truth or spirit of error. http://www.creationists.org/how-to-test-the-spirits.html

So now I am feeling like I am 27 years behind in learning all these Christian terms that probably most teens know... lol

They were in the scripture but sometimes we read them over quickly and mess these... or we allow ourselves to just read certain scriptures our childhood leaders present to us.

My goal now is to find a good Bible... I know I said this before but my husband said that they are free at churches so don't buy one online! lol But the thing is I don't belong to a church yet. I do have a few, I want to try out and see but I haven't got the guts to attend to one yet.

33

What Are Some Of The Critical Items (Clues, Free Thinking) Ray Frantz Left Behind In Articles?

by Bubblegum Apotheosis in

one of you mentioned ray frantz had left behind clues, bold information within plain site.

a "mine field" of data is suppose to be on the wt cd-rom, what information where you talking about?

my favorite book before i knew ray was an apostate, was the "james book", it still is and i love the insights ray wrote, that remain timeless about the letter of james..

Butterflyleia85

(got to go pee, sorry!)

Crap. I jut lost 2 hours of writing somehow. I'm going to bed. I am so pissed, it was the grand finale of my experience with Christ.

[sigh]

Ha (It's ok your efforts are defiantly a great benefit! Thanks so much for sharing this!) Reading as we speak...

19

Blondie's Comments You Will Not Hear at the 04-22-2012 WT Study (POSITIVE)

by blondie in

jw
friends

a loving spirit in the congregation.

be zealous in the ministry.

9. how does our attitude toward the field ministry.

Butterflyleia85

Good Read! Thanks for sharing this! You are so right with alot of things you said. I remember too when our family wasn't the elder's family anymore (my grandpa died), my mom, my sister and I were just coming back to our home town (moved away because my mother married a worldly guy). And they treated us like CRAP!!! I hated going to the meetings, but I went faithfully with the help of a dear friend of my mom's. then when she got DFed there was no one!! I went out in service faithfully an was so incouraged by her... I felt my mom was jealous an she never really been all that great of a spiritual influence (after my father who abused her etc. and still to this day is a JW). Anyways, going to the meetings was hard, all I did was sit next to my grandma and sister, and we left the hall shortly right after or ate out with an older brother that had a crush on my grandma.

I just remember feeling lost with no friends, plenty my age but they wouldn't except my sister and I totally, (delt with that age 11-18 my sister being 6-13).

Long story short, My goal when I got baptised was to support the younger ones, help the older ones, and let me tell ya it was hard work!! I to was greatly disappointed with Elders and their families yes they gave great comments, talks, and went out in service faithfully, but when it came to the lil people, I was disappointed; but I stayed pretty faithful despite my own agravation. I bet you did too. There are bigger issues that got me not to go back to JWs.

322

My son was murdered today

by truman in

i have been on this site daily, almost from its beginning, since i left the jws in 2001, but i have been more of a reader than a poster, as you can see from my post count.

i know few here know me, although i know many of you through reading your posts.

maybe it is not right to ask for support, when i generally stay quietly in the background of this forum, but i want only to speak a human misery of the deepest kind.

Butterflyleia85

anne,

hugs to you!

38

Christain terms I never heard of as a Jehoavh's Witnee??

by Butterflyleia85 in

is it me or is it i been out to long to remeber but terms like - grace, jesus being immanuel, gospels, epistles.

etc they have a lot of meaning to christians yet all i truly remember is jesus being ark angel, the messiah, undeserve kindness, greek and roman scripture, etc.. .

Butterflyleia85

askduane... i reread your post with understanding that you were true christian not one of jehovah's witnesses... ha i know for a fact the unity that jehovah's witness share is not accepting of christiandom but true unity would be loving of their neighbors and not judging... even the sinners like jesus was to the lady at the well!

i'm so so very hurt by the jws! :(

38

Christain terms I never heard of as a Jehoavh's Witnee??

by Butterflyleia85 in

is it me or is it i been out to long to remeber but terms like - grace, jesus being immanuel, gospels, epistles.

etc they have a lot of meaning to christians yet all i truly remember is jesus being ark angel, the messiah, undeserve kindness, greek and roman scripture, etc.. .

Butterflyleia85

clarity thanks for sharing! sorry i missed your post!

33

What Are Some Of The Critical Items (Clues, Free Thinking) Ray Frantz Left Behind In Articles?

by Bubblegum Apotheosis in

one of you mentioned ray frantz had left behind clues, bold information within plain site.

a "mine field" of data is suppose to be on the wt cd-rom, what information where you talking about?

my favorite book before i knew ray was an apostate, was the "james book", it still is and i love the insights ray wrote, that remain timeless about the letter of james..

Butterflyleia85

Awesome Randy! Thanks for sharing this I wondered the same thing.... I never guess Edward Dunlap did in writing because Ray Franz said in his book "Crisis of Conscience" page 5 that he was the major contributor to the organization's Bible dictionary (Aid to Bible Understanding [now titled Insight on the Scriptures}) and the writer of it's only Bible commentary (Commentary on the Letter of James). Then it goes on:

"He expressed his differences of viewpoint on certain teachings only in private converstation with friends of long standing."

"The Four Presidents of the Watchtower" by Ed Gruss, I'm beginning to smell Freddy behind this.

I would LOVE to learn more about Ed Gruss! I'm going to try and research any biography of him or maybe anything he said or wrote.

I found stuff on Edward Dunlap and it was very moving recording tape I heard of him. It made me cry because his ideas were the same ideas I held inside, deep down inside, I felt maybe my idea constaintly needed tuning and force certain ideas toward JW way of thinking. For example, control over how I dressed, coming to the elders with every aspect of my life if I felt I was being tempted by Satan, who I should date in the halls, and when, how much contact if any should I give the brother, etc. It was over welming and will I just felt like maybe I was being a rebel deep down inside. He made a comment that was very moving and I can't remember off hand and I wrote it down on my other computer. But let me tell ya it was such a blessing hearing his words.

114

What exactly is a relasionship with God?

by tootired2care in

jw
friends

growing up and jw and being around them all my life i constantly heard the expression "a relasionship with god".

this always confused me, because how do you have a relasionship with someone that doesn't talk back to you after praying?

this was always rationalized as god talks back to you when you read the bible.

Butterflyleia85

Tootired2care,

Fernando said:

After a spiritual awakening and intense journey, my conclusion is that God speaks to all of us all the time by way of our thoughts. We simply have to tune in and be more aware. Tuning in is accessible to anyone that follows the map - the full unabridged gospel message - embraces it, and yields to it.

The higher one's SQ or Spiritual Quotient the more evident it seems to be that the rush of helpful new or profound ideas, concepts and thoughts are from another higher source - although the flow is experienced as very organic/natural, subtle and gentle.

Religionists being physical, temporal, natural and carnal cannot transcend the time-space domain to tune into and discern the metaphysical (spiritual) since they have not been granted faith (a wide opening of our spiritual eyes).

I think he said this quite well.

I read a book that helped me “Letters From A Skeptic” by Dr. Gregory A Boyd

The man describes his experience to his skeptical father,

“a lot of the time when I pray I picture Jesus in my mind” these I think is a good way to recall what step he took and then you can think to yourself now what would Jesus be saying to me right now.

“I let him remind me of my worth and lovability in His eyes because of what He’s done for me on Calvary.” (Calvary is a place that which the crucifixion of Jesus is said to have occurred)

“I let Him heal my memories. That is how all the growth in the Christian life takes place-from healing on the inside, from resting in God’s love.”

“Asking for things –what’s called “petitionary prayer” – is simply one minor aspect of this total relationship. It’s not that God needs our petitions to be informed or empowered to do anything. You’re right” He’s already as good, as concerned, as informed, and as powerful as He can be. But because a loving relationship with Him is His highest agenda for us, He constructs the order of things such that a loving relationship with Him will be facilitated. And thus He ordains that some things will only be done through pray.”

“It might help to look at it this way. Because God has love as His highest agenda, He gives us some “say-so” in the universe. We must have this if we are to be self-determining persons, and He must have self-determining persons in His creation if He wants love to be the creation’s goal. We’ve already talked about this. So we humans have a good deal of power to determine the outcome of things, to have some “say-so” in our little corner of the universe.” He goes on in describing this genuine relationship and what it in tells.

Then to your other subject you brought up in more detail, in not experiencing anything but silence, his father says the same thing. His son goes on to tell him his reasoning of the matter of it being impossible to actually test the effectiveness of prayer… him being a professor of theology at a college, his very detailed in his reasoning and therefore I can’t write all of it out but the part that caught my eye was described here.

“But maybe this is as it should be. If petitionary prayer could be conclusively “verified,” it would turn god into a sort of cosmic vending machine. Make your requests, pull the lever, and abracadabra, you have your wish granted. But this defeats the whole purpose of prayer which is to facilitate a faith-filled relationship with the Creator. So it takes faith to pray, and faith to see the answer to prayer.”

“Secondly, I’d again reiterate that, far more important than knowing the mechanics of unanswered prayer is knowing that God’s on your side even when the prayer is unanswered.”

He gives a good analogy of how this works. An example of a family safe at home base (beach cottage), but there was a huge war going on a ways down and the family’s father was Captain caught in battle. The family had a radio line to the captain and could make their request. He would meet his family’s request as much as he could but “given the strategic warfare of the enemy, he cannot. And perhaps sometimes their requests are not even to their own advantage given the course the battle is taking.”

He mentions “But the unfortunate family in the beach cottage doesn’t have this broader perspective. They only know that the captain is on their side, that their requests are heard and are taken into account, and that sometimes their requests are granted and sometimes not. But they lacking has strategic perspective, have no idea why this is the case. They don’t have a purview of the whole battle. Their perspective is limited to the tiny windows in their cottage.”

This book inspired me to have faith again and I think sometimes we need reminders. I too, have felt the way you do, and still do in some ways have my doubts. I’m still in the middle of this book, but I thought this part was good and thought I’d share.