Part 1: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/163998/1.ashx
Part 2: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/164136/1.ashx
Part 3: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/164163/1.ashx
Part 4: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/164402/1.ashx
Part 5: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/164488/1.ashx
Part 6: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/164546/1.ashx
My Story: Part 7 – The Box of Delights
The Box of Delights is a children’s novel written by John Masefield, the central character being Kay Harker who is mixed up in a battle over a magic box which contains magical powers allowing those in possession of it to shrink, fly and go back into the past.
I use this analogy to compare to my own “box of delights” – this particular box allows me to talk to people all over the world, find out information on anything I desire and to go back into the past by exploring the history of various subjects.
For some reason unknown to me, my landlord decided to get his computer hooked up to the internet – nothing wrong with that, but he was in his sixties and not particularly computer literate and I couldn’t figure out why as he hardly used it.
Without the internet, the computer was a pretty boring machine. Once the connection was made to the outside world, this computer became my magical box of delights. The keyboard seemed to hum with power. I was ready to access the world beyond mine. This was in the good old days of dial-up access.
I wasn’t aware at the time that apostates used this medium of communication. Nothing had been spoken about the internet prior to the Kingdom Ministry of November 1999. One of the first subjects I searched for was Jehovah’s Witnesses. I could hardly wait. The pause between pressing enter and waiting to see what I would find seemed to last forever. I discovered many websites that focused on Jehovah’s Witnesses, some good but most were critical of the organization. Of course, being a loyal witness I avoided like the plague those that were deemed apostate, but not all sites were so clear cut.
One particular site called H20 welcomed serious discussion of JW doctrinal issues. Once I started reading I couldn’t stop. I felt compelled to defend the organization against the vicious attacks on it by those who opposed the Society. The more I read the more I learnt and I began to feel uncomfortable with this forbidden knowledge. I discovered a more positive JW discussion forum called Witnesses.net which I found to be a safe haven. I soon discovered that there were many in my situation that yearned to feel part of something bigger than themselves but for one reason or another they just didn’t fit in. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel so alone – here were people like me who had experienced life as I had.
These forums became my social life, replacing the social vacuum I lived in. I enjoyed the lively discussions about seemingly harmless subjects and debates about the future of the new world we were all looking forward to.
At this time I was studying for my A-levels in English and doing quite well. The commute to college was long but worth it. I was putting my energies to good use and I felt like I was gradually coming out of my depression. My new “social life” was no substitute for the real thing though and I became aware of this every time I logged off the discussion forum. It was as if the lid of the box of delights had snapped shut ending my virtual world. A few months later I would receive an email from someone who would not only change my life, but enrich it forever…