My wife applied for reinstatement. Here is what happened. I am not sure where all I will send this account, but I'll start here. Please excuse the length, but every word is true.
I am not going to exaggerate this account as it is not necessary.
After about 10 or 15 minutes with my wife, ** comes out to the car & tells me they cannot get her to respond & maybe I should come in & get her. I go in to the KH & she is sitting there as if she is in a coma. Total blackout. She was afraid this would happen but she still put herself at the mercy of these people. I have seen this happen before, so I knew if I just gave her some time, she would come around after while. So I went & sat down beside her & put my head on her shoulder & reassured her. Still no response. I assumed that since there was 4 elders there, that I could just sit with her for a while. They all stayed as far away as they could get & still be in the KH.
So I said ' I hope you know that she is not going to remember what you told her.' ** asks if I would like to know 'the bottom line'. Yes. He said not enough time had passed & yelled from the back of the KH giving me a reference to a WT & Insight article. (As though I was going to remember it sitting there with my comatose wife). I asked for a scripture. ** angrily told me that he did not have a scripture 'off the top of his head' , but if I read the articles I would find them in there. I told him he seemed to have the WT article 'off the top of his head'. He also told me that they did not come there to talk or argue with me. All I was asking for was a scripture to give my wife. After all, he called me in the KH & asked if I wanted to know what they told her. I told him in the talk this morning we were told to back everything up with the Bible & yet he gets angry when I ask for such. In talking to my wife later , she claims that they did not read a scripture to her either & was very dissapointed about that.
That is all I said about that then. Then he said that since I was an elder for a hundred years , I shoud know the scriptures. I replied that I could understand, because if I had to come up with a scripture showing why a certain amount of time was required before being reinstated, I could not do it either.
Here is the clincher. If not for this part, I would not even be writing this account. After I had sat there for less than 5 min, 2 of the elders start being concerned about needing to 'close up shop'. They offer to call the medical people to come help. Why?? (And there is no misunderstanding here) They had other things to do. I asked 'You're really that busy? The answer was 'yes'. So here are 4 elders standing in the back of the hall showing no concern for this sister who, over 40 years had brought 15 to 20 people 'in the truth', has a history of mental problems, & is sitting in an unresponsive state. Could not one elder stay a little while to give us some time to get it together? (You're probably thinking we were there a long time. We were on the road in 20 min from the start of the meeting.) I asked 'where is the compassion of the shepherds?' I was not abusive, but after all I have seen over 40 years, it still defied belief that they could be that cold.
It was like, 'we stepped in something in here. Come clean it up'
I finally got her up & she began sobbing & asking if they had hurt****** (the dog). As we were walking out, I had to tell them that I could not believe how cold they were.
She did not expect to be reinstated, but what she did expect was some kindness, which she did not receive. She looks for the good in everybody, & is nieve enough to think others do the same. She later told me that they would not talk to her or offer any words of encouragement.
All they did was read part of a letter to her from her original committee. Period. And it took 4 of them? As busy as they were?
I am not saying any of this to make myself look good. I am a sinner in need of undeserved kindness. But these elders claim to be so much more.