I've procrastinated for a long time about telling the story of my spiritual experiences. These are some of the reasons why.
When someone has told me that due to their own lack of knowledge of spiritual experiences, they are overwhelmingly skeptical and adamantly suspicious of the validity of these types of experiences, I've had to respond with....
The flip side of the coin is that those who've had such experiences dread to tell others about them because of such perfectly normal attitudes of skepticism on the part of those who haven't.....but, yanno?.....I also have a tendency to be skeptical of others' related experiences.....the why of it lies in the fact that those who haven't had these experiences are in the vast majority, ergo the attitude of skepticism and downright ridicule toward those who have had these experiences prevails.....and because of this even those who've had these experiences are caused to doubt their validity or lucidity in regard to their occurrences.
The majority of mankind has and will always be skeptical to the point of ridicule and outright censure of things about which they have no personal knowledge or experience. Ergo, the Salem Witch hunts, etc. throughout history.
The story about my spiritual experiences is a very lonnnnnnnnnng and complex one......it begins even before my partaking at the Lord's evening meal for the first time in 1982, during which I was encompassed by a spiritual "cocoon" until I had released the last emblem to pass it on.....Then there were two visions and my transformation each time (which was witnessed by my daughter) less than two weeks apart, in 1988, 4 years before I instigated my own df'ing {another story which I thought (that's a key word) had little to do with the experiences}. There are many more spiritually profound experiences which occurred to me, both prior to and after my df'ing, which I instigated (including the realization that I actually met and repeatedly spoke with the resurrected Christ (he's already here) over a period of 3 to 4 months, but I really didn't want to "go into" the details here on JWD for fear that someone would take it as a bid for attention (yeah, I already know exactly what kind of attention this type of diatribe elicits) or an attempt to proselytize to start a "new religion" (blech) I've thought that what I really should do is sit down and write all of it down in detail on a website and then if anyone is interested, they could "go there" and read it......Now I've decided to just post it on JWD where it will be handy and easily accessible.
The bottom line regarding the why's and wherefore's of my own personal experiences?......the bottom line is that ALL the things that occurred to me was His way of leading me out of the borg.....and away from the scriptures which limit God to what is written....giving me a resurrection to "life"....Perhaps I should just "go for it" and make the best I can out of the life given me, eh? Things aren't always what they appear to be nor as they are portrayed by others to be, yanno.
Even now, I sometimes wonder.....was it all dellusions?....but how can it be, if others saw some of the same things as I experienced them or saw them? Were these things a product of our collective imaginations? Or resulting from what we'd been taught or taught ourselves? But how so since the experiences were not such that were condoned (approved) by the WTS, so they shouldn't have been a part of our belief system, eh? (scratching head) But then....there's always that "bottom line".
Autumn, 1981
I have to say that when I first began studying with the witnesses, my search was for God?s people, not for the "truth". I had been pouring over the scriptures myself and searching in out of the way little churches for God?s ppl, but was time and time again only disappointed by the hypocritical attitudes displayed everywhere I went. I allowed the witnesses to sway me and impress me with their seemingly vast scriptural knowledge. Early on, during the course of my studies with them, I profoundly disagreed with their view on the anointed of Christ. I let them know it, but again, I allowed them to persuade me to "set it aside" and go on with my studies.
By the Autumn of 1991, I was again sidetracked by scriptural content from the WT publications. As I continued reading them late into the night, the scriptures began to become more personalized, as though there was an effort to reach out to me from within them. Oh, I had been thoroughly indoctrinated into the witness mindset by then, except for my niggling doubts about their views on the anointing and those who were chosen. As I continued, certain scriptures seemed to profoundly "speak" to me personally about my being one of the chosen anointed. When I say they "spoke" to me, there would be certain scriptures that seemed to almost jump from the page, leaping into my vision, so that I couldn?t ignore them, as though they were in bold print amongst the other scriptures. I also had huge doubts about my perception of this because of the teachings and attitude pounded into me verbally by the witnesses.
Finally late one evening I decided that the only way to resolve the issue was to perform a spiritual experiment. I set down my NWT and went within myself. I decided to treat the anointing as if it were a garment, a coat....I said to myself, "I?ll try it on and see if it fits and how I feel with it on." Then I proceeded to visualize doing so. It was comfortable to have the "garment" on....and comforting at the same time...... "Now," I said, "I?ll take it off and see how I feel." When I visualized taking it off, I suddenly felt as if a dark void had swallowed me up. The feelings of dread that overcame me were almost terrifying. If I hadn?t realized where I actually was (in my own living room) and that I was only visualizing this occurrence, I would have freaked out, and I?m really not a hysterical person, though I sometimes tease others as tho I were. ;) Anyway, to me, the issue was resolved. I wasn?t totally happy about it, because the prevailing attitude (as you all well know) of the borganization is one of ridicule by most....ridicule of those professing to be newly anointed, and especially the women. So I wasn?t surprised by the teasing and ridiculing that occasionally came my way.
Though it was late at night, I phoned my best friend, a shy and sweet little sister that I dearly love. When I told her, she gasped....then she told me that this was the answer to her prayers to Jehovah to be close to one of the anointed. She said she had tried for years to draw close to another older sister who was anointed and was always rebuffed by the sister, even tho gently so. And she kept praying to Jehovah and asking Him "Why not?" This had been happening while we were becoming close friends.
During this time period, my best friend also had been writing to a "feller" she?d become interested in....and she shared different tidbits about their correspondence, as it went along. One evening she was visiting me and as she started to leave, I noticed that not only my front porch light had burned out, but also the street light by my house, so we were in almost total darkness while chatting on our way out to her car, which was parked in front at the curb. When she got to her car, she turned and said to me that she?d been having doubts about whether to continue corresponding with the "feller" and had told Jehovah to send her a specific sign if she had Jehovah?s approval for this. She was just about to tell me what the sign was when I was startled by the very loud sound of the fluttering and flapping of many pairs of wings, as if a large flock of birds had been startled from the trees around us. My head automatically jerked around as I looked around to see the birds at the sound of those wing beats, but there were none.....then....around us appeared a group of spirit creatures....encircling us.....I could only see the bottom half of their robes, which looked as if they had been white, but were dingy and gray. I could see their bare feet beneath their robes, because the robes only reached to just above their ankles. Then their appearances quickly faded.....At this point, I stopped her from telling me what the specific sign was that she had asked Jehovah to give her, telling her that we couldn?t ever know who or what might be listening. I didn?t tell her at that point what I had heard and seen, but later, when I DID tell her, she commented on the fact that she had wondered what I had heard that made me jerk my head around so suddenly. I was surprised that she had noticed and that she remembered that.
Memorial, 1982
The time for my first partaking had arrived. I was anxious and nervous and excited, of course.....I hadn?t told anyone except my best friend up to that time. There wasn?t anyone else I could talk to that would have understood. I felt it would have been ridiculous to have asked the BOE for their input and opinions. I called my sister, also a JW, in Louisiana, and told her and invited her to our memorial, so she could be with me for moral support. She came and my best friend and her two children sat directly behind us in the KH. We all sat towards the back.......When the emblems began being passed around and they reached our row, they were passed from my left, so my sister was the one who handed the plate to me. As she reached out with the plate in her hand and I reached out my hand to take the plate, I was suddenly enveloped by an invisible spiritual cocoon..... I would say that?s the most apt words I can find to describe what I was experiencing, but there are more. While I couldn?t actually see it, I felt it to the point that it felt like a bubble around me and the atmosphere within this phenomenon was very calm and peaceful, also rainbow-like, mildly humming and vibrating, and I felt buoyed....my hand almost floated to the plate (to me) and the plate had no weight at all.....and to me, it was Jehovah?s reassurance that He was "with me" in this matter. The "bubble" lasted until the wine had also been passed and I had partaken of that, too. Then it suddenly dissipated.
Frannie B