Posts by Sunbeam

28

I got my nerve up, gonna try this again!

by LostMyReligion in

jw
friends

i first posted to this board as "truman" about 2 months ago.

it was a time of deep depression, confusion, fear, and paranoia for me, as i had just 3 weeks before discovered that everything i had believed for 27 years was only a pipe dream.. everyone was very welcoming, but after only a few posts, i got so afraid i had to stop.

i was fearful of revealing too much, being somehow discovered, and of the possibility of saying the wrong thing, incurring the ire of my betters here.

Sunbeam

Hello LMR and welcome back !!

I hope that you'll soon feel that a more appropriate name for you could be 'FoundLotsaFriends' :-). I remember your first post, where you very effectively expressed the emotional rollercoaster that you were experiencing by alluding to a number of movies. I can't imagine how it felt when you first realised the extent of the WTS's deception. But the folks here are a living testimony to the fact that enjoying reality soon outshines existing in 'the truth'.

Please don't feel that you could ever say 'the wrong thing' on this board. None of us are experts or your 'betters'. In fact, many come here to learn from people like you! Even if they don't post, they can read about the paths that others have taken before them. Every story is an inspiration, helping people to regain control of their lives. You are expressing the thoughts and doubts of countless witnesses every time you post, and they can vicariously draw comfort from the warm response of the other 'outsiders' on this board. And perhaps wonder where those nasty apostates post, as they obviously aren't here :-).

I'm a bit of an imposter here, as I've never been a JW. But my family has been profoundly affected by the WTS over the same timescale as yours. If I were to step into your film, I'd be the wife of your younger son. Once an obedient JW, he became first disillusioned and later contemptous of the tower. His mother can't understand his change of heart and laments the loss of their onetime 'spiritual relationship'. By constantly referring to the society and forwarding literature to her family, she hopes to reach them. By declaring that God (ie the WTS) will always be chosen over family (as if a choice needed to be made!) she pushes them even further away.

As I said, you can help others. If I was your daughter-in-law, would there have been any way that I could have speeded your exit from the borg? Or do you think that extending kindness, trying to repair the strained relationship and praying are the only options?

Sunbeam
xxx

72

Adoption by Jehovah's Witnesses is blocked

by expatbrit in

jw
friends

adoption by jehovah's witnesses is blocked .

the independent - united kingdom; may 26, 2001. by brian farmer.

a couple originally approved by a council as adoptive parents have been refused permission by social workers to adopt a child, because they are jehovah's witnesses.

Sunbeam

Not so long ago, British TV ran a series about adoption. It followed a number of couples through the adoption process, showing how they were screened before being approved as adopters. In each case, they were allocated a social worker who conducted several interviews with them at their homes over the course of a number of months.

From beginning to end this procedure usually takes, appropriately, 9 months. Having put together a report about all aspects of the couple (their home, family relationships, values, religion, etc) and if they believe they are suitable, the social worker then pleads their case at a formal meeting of senior social services staff.

It seems to me that this time someone hasn't done their homework. In the tv series, the social worker even researched the small evangelical church that one couple attended to ensure that it wasn't a cult.

In the UK, there is a desperate shortage of potential adopters, especially for children who have passed the cute toddler stage. So the rules governing who can adopt have been relaxed. You no longer have to be in a longstanding heterosexual relationship, under the age of 35, to be considered. But whoever this couple adopt, it's possible that one day they try to sue Cambridgeshire social services for the damaged caused by their ultra-pc policy.

Sunbeam

19

Help - I'm in Love

by Downdog01 in

jw
friends

hi i work with a smart, sexy, single jw who i get a along with great and over the years i've developed enormous affection for her.

based on this i don't want to do anything to hurt her.

i am not a witness and though i would like to pursue her romantically my sense is if she were to accept my overtures it could ruin her life since her family is very involved in witnessing and close association with one such as me could lead to reprimands for her.. my question is this.

Sunbeam

DD

You asked how we managed to get married at all. When I said he was half in, I meant that my husband still wanted to be considered a JW (he viewed the prospect of being df'd with horror), still thought that they alone had 'the truth' and still carried the blood card. In other words, he was still a JW psychologically.

But he was leading a double life - lots of friends on the outside, liked worldly music, hated the meetings and all the rules and reg's and hypocrisy and was drifting away. Eventually this side of him won. The elders didn't bother us as he hadn't been showing up for meetings for some time. It was the same story with his witness friends. Very loving.

So although he was married to me, I felt that the borg still had some power over his mind.

If you attempt to help your friend, this will be an emotional rollercoaster for you. You could be the knight in shining armour that rescues her from the evil WTS so that you live happily ever after, like Rob and Gary. But as other posters have warned you, it may not go the way you want it too, so you need to be prepared for possible heartbreak too.

Sunbeam
xxx

19

Help - I'm in Love

by Downdog01 in

jw
friends

hi i work with a smart, sexy, single jw who i get a along with great and over the years i've developed enormous affection for her.

based on this i don't want to do anything to hurt her.

i am not a witness and though i would like to pursue her romantically my sense is if she were to accept my overtures it could ruin her life since her family is very involved in witnessing and close association with one such as me could lead to reprimands for her.. my question is this.

Sunbeam

DD,

We've all given you 'text book' answers, based on our own experiences. But only you are in the unique position of knowing your friend's situation and personality. If she trusts you and is perhaps attracted to you that could help, or it could make her feel that she is 'betraying' God and her family. So I think I'm all suggestioned out.

I didn't ask for any advice, I simply followed my emotions. We started our married life with my husband still half in the cult and me printing out copious amounts of literature from the web. He thought that I was belittling him for falling for the JW claptrap, but I was simply trying to remove its grip on his mind. This caused major fallout and we were both floundering.

Using photocopies of back issues of Watchtowers (Randy's site), I showed him some of the more ridiculous and obviously cultish things the WTS had said. He finally, some 5 years after meeting me, accepted that it was a cult. Now that we are viewing life from the same perspective, our relationship is great!

This technique won't work with anyone who's psychologically dependent on the WTS. His widowed mother is still a zealous JW. She claims that our back issues are fakes produced by a rival group and thinks that Satan is prompting us to lie to her.

This religion has damaged the whole family. Her other son is consumed with hate for her, my husband has to control his contempt for the WTS whenever he sees her and the rest of the family thinks she's a loon. I've been following Steve Hassan's advice in an attempt to build a rapport with her. It's been very successful so far and I'm determined to restore our family. That could take longer than the time I have left on this planet, but we're in it for the long haul.

Let us know how you get on with your reading.

Sunbeam
xxx

19

Help - I'm in Love

by Downdog01 in

jw
friends

hi i work with a smart, sexy, single jw who i get a along with great and over the years i've developed enormous affection for her.

based on this i don't want to do anything to hurt her.

i am not a witness and though i would like to pursue her romantically my sense is if she were to accept my overtures it could ruin her life since her family is very involved in witnessing and close association with one such as me could lead to reprimands for her.. my question is this.

Sunbeam

Hi Downdog

I've been in a similar situation to you. When I met my husband 6 years ago he was a JW and I was an atheist. We're still married, so I don't know if you'd describe me as stout of heart or foolish :).

As Simon has said, a lot depends upon the attitudes of the people involved. If she is already an 'independent thinker' (a sure sign of spiritual weakness to the JW's) with doubts about the WTS, she may be open to considering an alternative lifestyle. However, if she pursues a relationship with you, all her friends and family will regard her at best as a 'bad association' and won't view you too kindly either. Don't expect any of them to come to your wedding (if you get that far).

Strangely enough, if you do attain the respectable status of a married couple then your new family, having initially regarded your relationship with hostility, will probably treat you as though you have the memory of a goldfish and try to coax you both into the 'loving' atmosphere of your local kingdom hall.

It occurred to me too that the easiest option could be to go along with it or simply join the club. But once you've been exposed to a site like this and discovered that the nasty 'apostates' (ex-JW's) and 'evil slaves' (non-JW Christians) are actually the good guys, you're likely to become obsessed with helping her to see beyond the deception. The fact that she is expected to remain obedient to the WT's governing body to the point of death will also start to prey on your mind. A sure recipe for you to lose your marbles.

In my opinion, she needs you to be a friend rather than a boyfriend. As a friend, you can start to plant doubts about the WTS really being God's organisation on earth. Leaving the WTS will turn her life upside down, but I've yet to hear of an ex-JW who wishes they'd never found out the truth about their religion. They only regret not seeing through the deception earlier.

The worst thing that you can do is to try to 'bring her to her senses' by confronting her with negative material about the WTS, as she has been trained to regard this (and anyone who uses it) with fear and revulsion. A good strategy is to learn about groups that hold similar beliefs and that use similar mind control techniques (e.g. Moonies, Mormons) and find ways of discussing them with her. The aim is for you to drip-feed information so that she can begin to see the similarities with her own religion. Don't try to go for a knock-out blow, let her gradually draw her own conclusions. If you choose this option, it's going to be more a case of 'Great love requires great amounts of background reading'. Randy Watters' Freeminds site is a good starting point on WT doctrine/psychology/etc and Steve Hassan's book, 'Releasing the Bonds', re. strategies to help victims of mind control begin to think for themselves, is spot on.

If these techniques work, then a relationship is a possibility. Of course, I can't begin to speculate about where that could go. My husband started out trying to JW-ise me, but whilst researching his religion and the bible I ended up converting myself to mainstream Christianity. Now I go to church and he's not remotely interested in any religious beliefs.

Whatever you decide, you can be assured of the support of some great folks on this board.

Sunbeam
xxx

27

Answered prayers

by Oldhippie in

jw
friends

looking back over many years of prayers, i cannot pinpoint any time when i felt, unequivocally, that i had received a personal response to my prayers.

can anyone here relate any experiences where you have felt that god answered prayers for you?

Sunbeam

Scorpion, I'm glad your kids are doing well. Regardless of whether it was down to prayer, it sounds as though you're truly blessed.

Outnfree, I had real problems accepting the whole Trinity doctrine too. As you say, most of the usual 'proof texts' in John's gospel aren't necessarily conclusive. Eventually, I decided it wasn't that important anyway.

But not so long ago, I came across a book 'How to respond to Jehovah's Witnesses' by Herbert Kern, pastor of a church in Long Island. The intro says he took a special interest in JW's after he arranged a debate with them at his church in 1957. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall that day!

Anyway, his stuff on the Trinity is really good. He makes several assertions about it, each backed up by lists of scriptures. I don't want to clog the thread with it, but if you are interested here are a few examples:

As True Man, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, was hungry, prayed, said "The Father is greater than I" and did not know the day of final judgement.
But as True God, Jesus said "Before Abraham was born, I am!", fed a multitude and said "I am the bread of life", answers prayer, proclaimed his equality with God, and accepted Peter's statement, "Lord, you know all things"

Jesus is equated with God several times in scripture - same name and titles (Lord, God, I am, shepherd, first and last), worthy of the same honor, same qualities, same acts.

There's lots more, including stuff about the Spirit but I won't go on. I once tried to write down what I believed, and discovered that sometimes I couldn't decide which word was most appropriate - Jesus, God or the Spirit. In many ways they are interchangeable. As your friend says, the Trinity is also an experience. I can definitely feel all 3 at work in my life - God above me, Jesus beside me and the Spirit transforming me from the inside.

So after some time wrestling with it, it began to make sense to me.

Thanks for telling us about your grinning walk to freedom. It's not so bad out here on the outside is it?

Sunbeam
xxx

20

This hit a little too close to home

by mommy in

jw
friends

the following appeared in the newspaper this morning:.

a 17-year-old highlands school student was in jail thursday on charges that he had developed a hit list, naming several fellow students he supposedly planned to kill.

highlands police say they arrested andrew douglas quintero, a junior, without incident on wednesday and charged him with 10 misdemeanor counts of communicating threats.. in an interview thursday, highlands school principal jack brooks indicated he wasn't sure whether the student intended to carry out the threats, but said he wasn't taking any chances.. "whether this was done out of humor or it was an expression of anger, i had no idea," brooks said.

Sunbeam

Mommy, I think the authorities were right to take this chap's threats seriously. You can forgive them for being over-cautious in the light of the recent high school tragedies. But of course the poor kid might have simply been a misfit venting some teenage angst.

Things are a bit different here in the UK, as our gun laws are stricter. Any prospective mad axeman often has to become just that. There have been numerous nuts who have lashed out with samarai swords, machetes, etc. So I suppose you could say that our gun laws simply make the violent types more innovative in their choice of weapons...

Sunbeam
xxx

27

Answered prayers

by Oldhippie in

jw
friends

looking back over many years of prayers, i cannot pinpoint any time when i felt, unequivocally, that i had received a personal response to my prayers.

can anyone here relate any experiences where you have felt that god answered prayers for you?

Sunbeam

I'm with Bill on this one, I've definitely had prayers answered. My first *real* prayer(other than things like 'please, God, let me get to work on time for once')was when I first understood the gospel and responded in prayer. I received an unequivocal answer that out-fruitcakes somebody's dream experience.

I saw myself being lifted up (cue my husband's Python-esque interjection here) above the planet and at the same time felt greatly loved, safe and somehow 'chosen'. I had been fretting about the JW influence on our family, but suddenly knew that the whole JW thing was simply part of a continuum and that there was nothing to fear.

I later found out that my friend's church group had prayed for me as they knew that I was looking into Christian things. They had prayed that I would have a tangible, emotional experience.

I've discovered that these feelings are quite common at the moment when people come to faith. Wesley described a similar experience when he heard the gospel explained.

A friend, Dave, told me that he had decided to ask God to prove once and for all whether his Christian work colleague was nuts or if he (God) really existed. He was working late at the time and was sitting in an empty open-plan office in semi-darkness, with only his desk light on. At that moment, all of the lights in the building came on and then went off again. He nervously asked God if he could do it again. All the lights duly came on and went off. Dave said that he experienced an indescribable feeling of joy that night and literally skipped home like a little kid.

As someone has said - 'all I know is, coincidences stop happening when I stop praying.'

Sunbeam
xxx

19

Hugs from Geordieland!

by Sunbeam in

jw
friends

i've been lurking on this forum and previously on the old h20 for a long time now.

and have probably read every word that's appeared on randy's site too.

finally decided it was rude to enjoy all your insights without at least introducing myself :).

Sunbeam

Thanks for the warm welcome, folks!

My husband appreciates the sympathy vote. Although he does concede that I seem a lot happier these days, he's still bemused by my transformation from heavy metal rock chick to 'bible-hugging burger-phobe'(he's a devout carnivore, I'm a veggie).

ISP - I spent my undergraduate days in 'Mad'chester. How's the rain these days?

DM - cripes Chief, there's nothing special about me, all I did was follow the instructions, and it took me 5 years of JW-related research to find them! Eventually a friend pointed me to her church's web site - http://www.church.org.uk/ and I found the sermons there a really useful source of info about basic Christian beliefs. The gospel had never been presented to me before, so I found the content of their introductory 'invitation services' a revelation. At the risk of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, all I can say is just keep on asking ...

Thirdson - small world isn't it? We happen to live between Chester-le-Street and Newcastle too. Your brother probably knows my husband. If so, he's bound to remember him (and shudder) - an independent thinker with an untheocratic hairsytle! I don't remember seeing your 'Creator' critique, but if you've got some good leading questions that I could use in any follow-up discussions that would be a great help.

Prisca - I've never posted before, perhaps you are thinking about Gretchen...

I'll keep you updated on our progress with the m-in-law, but I don't expect it to be very rapid. She's only in her 50's, so I think time's still on our side. She's also a widow and quite isolated socially. She has the usual routine of typical JW part-time job and door-knocking, etc., but beyond that she's very alone. Her friends are all married and don't seem to involve her in their own family outings. Her JW-ness has alienated the rest of her family, so there's practically no contact there either. She's been quite depressed and ill recently, so we've tried to step in to fill some of the gaps in her social life. We're backing this up with letters and gifts.

So it's just a case of waiting for opportunities to plant doubts about God working through an organisation of infallible, over-enthusiastic, deaf men. If only God would stop playing Chinese whispers via the Holy Spirit perhaps they would get it right. Naughty God!

I've never heard of anyone who regrets finding out the truth about 'the truth', so I'll keep praying and planning for as long as it takes. Thanks again for the support and the info.

Sunbeam
xxx

PS Have you noticed all the mother-related posts recently? Not so many father posts. Don't jump all over me girls, but why do so many women become such fanatical JWs?

19

Hugs from Geordieland!

by Sunbeam in

jw
friends

i've been lurking on this forum and previously on the old h20 for a long time now.

and have probably read every word that's appeared on randy's site too.

finally decided it was rude to enjoy all your insights without at least introducing myself :).

Sunbeam

Hello everyone. I've been lurking on this forum and previously on the old H20 for a long time now. And have probably read every word that's appeared on Randy's site too.

Finally decided it was rude to enjoy all your insights without at least introducing myself :). And although I've never met you, I feel a great deal of affection for many of the old-timers (H20-wise) like Farkel, Cygnus (where did he go?) and Uncle Bruce as well as for relative newbies like Mommy and Had Enough. So now I feel like an affectionate stalker :I...

As the Brits among you will gather, I live in Black & White-ville in the North-East of England. Anyway, brief history: A few years ago I met a gorgeous chap at a nightclub who later turned out to have some bizarre beliefs (no blood, etc., not to mention believing in God and the Bible), ended up married to him and endured major guilt trips from JW mother-in-law, did my homework on the web(thanks folks) and talked him out of the blood card thing. Fast forward a few years - I'm still bugged for some reason by this JW thing, probably due to the occasional motherly reminders I receive that he loves me so much that he gave up his 'chance' of eternal life for me. Eventually convince him that it's a cult and that we need to get his mother out.

I've been working on this, following Steve Hassan's advice. I've had some support from my husband, but he's now got a very low tolerance threshold when it comes to his mum. Whenever she speaks to him, he just hears a rehashed Watchtower article and it drives him to distraction. They used to be very close, up until his late teens, but the truth about 'the truth' has destroyed any respect he might have had for her. Now he's mostly embarrassed by her, especially as she's quite vocal about her beliefs.

We got it all wrong at first, producing evidence that the Society has lied, and were met with the usual responses - 'it's Satan', 'what are your motives for telling me this?', 'the Society doesn't lie' and, the best yet, when reminded that the Bible doesn't include some JW doctrines, 'well, they didn't write everything down'. This one left me open-mouthed, what can you say in response?

So, we've tried to re-establish our relationship by organising family outings and now she's sent me the 'Creator' book as a thank you for the last excursion. She's not keen on discussing the Bible any more, ever since she discovered that I can out-proof text her. So, what do you think should be the next step? There are so many errors in this book, I don't know where to begin. All advice gratefully received.

I've rambled on too long already. Thanks for listening. Just one last thing. Whilst trying to prove the dishonesty of the WT, I learned a lot about God and the Bible and 2 years ago I was zapped by the Holy Spirit. So my poor husband now has a born again Christian wife to contend with as well. He likes to take the mickey out of me, especially as I was once so incredulous that he could believe all that mad God stuff. 'Oh yeah', he'll say, 'it's all different now that Jesus wants you for a ...

Sunbeam
xxx

Of course, it's very nice that I've had a spiritual experience but I'm still destined to die at Armageddon because my 'organisation' won't tell me to be a pacifist.
(Sigh)