Diogenesister, HappyDad, tenyearsafter, arwen :
Thanks for the kind words, my greetings to ya!
DesirousOfChange:
I would find it interesting if you shared a little of your "story" and I think other Newbies would as well, How is it that you showed up here 21 years ago? What was that first doubt or first event that opened the floodgates of TTATT?
I don’t think I’ve ever written on JWD (as I know it) much of my personal details; that’s been for family reasons common to many hundreds of us I guess. My wife posted here for many years as Mrs Ozzie and from our posts people can ‘put two and two together’.
In later years some dear people here became friends particularly on Facebook so that many know of our identity.
We had both been raised as Dubs and raised our children as Dubs so that since we left the Borg around 25 years ago and were disfellowshipped we have been shunned by family and every JW relative.
What caused us to see TTATT? A number of things but beliefs-wise it was the Dub teaching on the nature of Christ. I came more and more to the conviction that Jesus is so much more than an angel, much more than the archangel Michael as the Dubs teach. When I read in Scripture that he is the Creator I asked how could he not be divine?
For some time I was conducting a home Bible study with a Catholic man and every week the sticking point in our study was the divinity of Christ. Try as I might using Watchtower dogma I couldn’t overcome the objection. It troubled me. I spoke confidentially to other leading elders in our branch office where I was working as a commuter Bethelite. We would speak in hushed tones about it. What I learned was that there are leading men in branch oversight who do not agree with all the Watchtower teachings, but that’s another matter.
My wife, Mrs Ozzie, was similarly outraged that she was expected to believe that Jesus is not her mediator. This of course derives from the ridiculous teaching handed down from Joe Ratherflawed that there are two classes for salvation.
We determined to spend time in earnest Bible study and bought simply hundreds of Bible commentaries, dictionaries, audio tapes and spent a year determining what is truth.
It didn’t take long to be convicted that we were christians but not of the Dub kind.
We looked for where other christians were gathering and started attending a church. Soon after we were DF.
Since then we continued studies at Bible college (theological college), we both became lay ministers in the Anglican Church where I still worship.
We started an international charity (Rice4Life) which called us to make many visits to Cambodia. My wife had always wanted to be involved in charitable works but of course as Dubs this was forbidden. Even as a schoolgirl she and her parents were reprimanded by the congregation elders for fundraising for the Red Cross! How happy she was to finally find her vocation! This continued until my dear wife was diagnosed with a terrible neurological disease. Her suffering lasted ten years until she finally passed to Glory two years ago.
How did we come to JWD? It was only after making our exit and finding Ray Franz’s two books that we learned of this site. We spent many hours here and very much enjoyed the cameraderie. I feel very warmly towards some of those long-time posters.