Does the Watchtower break up famelies? (page 5)

claudia

Hester, I am so sorry you lost a child. That is the ultimate heartbreak.

Had Enough

To TMS:

I'm 2 days late at answering your post to me but thanking you for it now.

I wish I would have known that then, just to help back up my dad. He had no one supporting him since it was assumed by everyone that by being df'd, I deserved it by being non-repentant. Little did anyone but the committee know, that I was repentant. They just chose to not believe me (not enough grovelling I guess). Knowing that and not being able to help me just about did my dad in, so in no way was he going to turn me out into the street.

So not only did my dad commit "organizational suicide", they hung him for good measure so to speak.

I can't believe now that I worked so hard to get back in after all that. Now I realize my real motive was to free up my parents to be able to associate with me. Even a phone call from me caused them to be threatened by my sibling to be reported to the elders.

They had to miss my re-marriage too. To add to my anger, my father's health went straight downhill from there. I had only a short time left with him after I was reinstated before he died.

IMO...any good that the elders do accomplish is vastly outweighed by the harm they do. What a mountain of sins the elders and the GB guiding them will have to answer for.

Had Enough

patio34

JT, I'm glad you liked my quote. I saw it from Jan Groenveld, who uses it all the time. It's one of my new mottoes, that and 'live and let live.'

Hester, So sorry to read of all your troubles. You asked whether to refer inquiring folks to the ones doing the shunning. I think that is absolutely appropriate. Let them feel the awkwardness and try to explain it--that's it's being done because of the bible, etc.

Patio

TMS

Had Enough:

Your actions were consistant with a daughter who loved her parents, dearly.

Our son waded through four reinstatement hearings and attended every meeting for two years before his 10 minute reinstatement.

I am convinced his primary motivation was the "guilt" he felt and the hurt he observed in his parents.

The irony is that Watchtower policy brought our family closer together, inadvertantly.

TMS

Had Enough:

Judicial committees are commissioned, not only, to observe repentance, but to "move to repentance, by readjusting the sinner". Their primary goal is to restore their brother.

My son appealed his disfellowshipping. While he was sitting in the second school, he heard the appeal committee tell the original committee: "We think he is repentant."

For the next two and a half hours he listened through the walls as the chairman of the original committee chastised the appeal committee in a loud voice to not undermine their decision. Needless to say, he came away from that process a little shaken in his confidence in divine direction.

TMS

JT

PATIO

I LOVE IT SO MUCH I'M GOING TO USE IT FROM NOW ON AS WELL

thanks

james

Had Enough

To TMS:

I am so glad that at least some good came out of the ordeal your son and your family went through. I'm moved by his persistance and the reward for you all is a closer family.

I agree that the elder's duty is to "move to repentance, by readjusting the sinner" and "to restore their brother". (Wasn't that accomplished in your son by his repentance in the first place)

Repentance is to feel deep regret and sorrow over a wrongdoing and to turn one's back on the sin..to do it no more.

So what is it that moves the elders in many, many cases to disregard the show of repentance and even, as in your son's case, to disregard an appeal committee's belief in the repentance? Their excuse is that anyone can express repentance and they have to look beyond that.

I agree that some may feign repentance to avoid discipline, but those elders do NOT scripturally have any right to decide that for themselves. ISP's post on the June QFR on Confessing To The Elders really makes it clear from the scriptures who the confessing is to be done to, and what role the elders actually have...to pray over the sinner.

Yes, they are to readjust the sinner, to move one to repentance, to restore their brother, not to kick a sinner when they are down and cast him away.

And yes many elders do lovingly restore one from wrongdoing, but as I've said in many other posts..they are far outnumbered by the ones who wield their power like a sword as is evident in all the experiences that have been expressed here and I know that doesn't even scratch the surface.

Had Enough

HesterPryne

Claudia,

The lose of a child is the most terrible thing a parent can ever experience.It took me quite awhile to come to grips with it.

I am a single parent and come from a small family. The only person I have had in times of stress has been my mom.
JW's aren't much comfort to people who are grieving the death of a loved one.
I got so tired of hearing that we would see my daughter in the New World. My Dad even yelled at me for crying after my daughters funeral because.."I knew better". Stephanie was 23 years old when she was killed in a terrible car crash. She left behind a husband and 2 children. We buried her on her 3rd anniversary. Her baby daughter was 9 months old. There were so many things to cry about and all I got from my parents was JW bullshit. Its like they shut themselves off to the whole picture. They were so cold.

Had Enough

Hello again Hester:

My heart just breaks. Being a mother too, I can only imagine what the loss of a child is like. I ache just thinking about it. How unthinkable that you didn't receive the support, tenderness and strength from your parents and fellow JWs

To make matters worse, so many JW's just don't know how to feel one's pain in these matters because of the indoctrination of "we'll see them soon in the new system so true Witnesses won't cry but rejoice at the good news of the kingdom."

You are so right. Many do just shut themselves out of the reality of the real world.

Sorry but that just doesn't cut it. Coldness was not a quality or emotion that Jesus showed.

I can only be thankful every day that I have been able to learn how to reason with insight and not with memorizing WT articles.

Be assured of the love you will find here because we all are liberated from the burdens placed upon us by an out-of-touch with reality org...the burdens which Jesus had no intention of his sheep having to endure.

Had Enough (of the pressures and burdens of a cold borg.)

HesterPryne

Had Enough,
It must be the JW thing about 'keeping there eyes on the prize'
regardless of what is going on around them. If only I could believe in fairy tales.

Does the Watchtower break up famelies?

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