fading promises

by candidlynuts 23 Replies latest members private

• 

  candidlynuts

  
  hi everyone..hope all is well..i've not been around much cuz life has been kinda difficult lately.

  i know everything i will say will be stuff we've all heard before and i've said before but anyway i was reading lady lee's thread http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/9/105357/1.ashx and jgnat posted a comment that struck a chord in me. she said:

  Today, for instance, there was yet another talk on the Noah example. Yet congregation members were exhorted to "take care of your health" because who knows how long this current system will continue. Then of course, a prayer that this old world please last not much longer. I wonder how such talks affect the older ones who have lived through failed dates and fading promises.

  i know how the older ones handle the failed dates, " new light" explains it all away.

  but the fading promises... how can that not affect everyone who has been in the wtbs for any length of time?

  a woman i knew from childhood, never married, never had children, worked at bethel more than 20 yrs, got terminally ill and was sent home to her elderly parents to die. i dont know if she did or didnt recieve any money i know that she had to get state insurance aid for her medical care however. anyway, what were her thoughts before she died? she never had a lover that i know of, never had kids..I remember as a teen she'd say that Jehovah would provide her with the perfect mate and children in the new system really soon. there was too much work to do NOW for Jehovah to spend time marrying and starting a family!

  and she died about 3 years ago i think, in her late 50's i think. how sad! the promises she heard from childhood were the same ones i heard from childhood: PARADISE IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER! ACT NOW BEFORE ITS TOO LATE. THE END WILL DEFINITELY BE HERE BEFORE THE NEW CENTURY ARRIVES! YOU"LL NEVER HAVE TO GROW UP IN THIS SYSTEM! YOU"LL NEVER HAVE TO WORK IN THIS EVIL WORLD! UNLESS YOU GET SICK OR DIE IN AN ACCIDENT YOU WILL NEVER KNOW DEATH!!

  the wtbs can deny they ever said these things but i heard them from the podium at meetings , circuit assemblies, district assemblies.. from elders, circuit overseers, district overseers, bethel visitors and even once from wtbs president Knorr.

  now i'm 40, i did have children but the wtbs took them away. i have great parents but they do are distanced from me.

  new light doesnt explain away the promises. the only explanation is time.. and time has shown that those promises were and are empty.
• 

  Ticker

  Good post, lots of us feel this way at times.

  Ticker
• 

  Eyebrow2

  hey there candidlynuts...good to see you again. I was wondering about you lately. I was gonna post a where is candidlynuts if I didn't see you soon!

  Sorry life has been rough for you. It really isn't fair these damn promises...
• 

  luna2

  Hi, candidly. Glad to see you! Ugh on life being difficult...hate that. Hope things are a bit better now or that they improve soon.

  I think the fading promises of the WTS are what helps some to open their eyes to reality. You believe the good old FDS and make important life decisions according to their inspired/uninspired (it seesaws depending on if they are trying to get you to believe some new light or trying to distance themselves from their old light) utterances but, as time passes, you can't help but become aware that no amount of patience, prayer, service, meeting attendance or wishful thinking is going to make their promises come true.

  I know that I felt that these things had to be given time and, since I came in well after the 1975 debacle so there was no exact date we were waiting for, I gave them 20 years of my life before doubt started creeping in. Seems like there was always some explanation or some scripture (endlessly drummed into us for just this purpose, I'm sure) that would come to mind that caused you to think that you needed to keep waiting on Jehgoober some more.

  When you finally do some research and see that NONE of their promises have ever come true, its a real shocker. Some folks, though, would rather live a fantasy. I guess its too painful to admit that what they have dedicated their lives to is false.

  I've heard stories like your's of the sister spending 20 years of her life at Bethel before. Can you imagine giving up everything most people want in life, slaving away for this stupid publishing company masquerading as a religion for all of your best years, then becoming terminally ill and being kicked out for your family and Satan's despised government to take care of? Disgusting! I, too, was wondering if she got any sort of severance pay. Certainly if she'd worked for a normal corporation for 20 years, she'd at least have had some sort of pension or something.
• 

  inbyathread

  Yeah, and at our summer convention one of the brothers made a comment about "some of us might not make it to the new system above ground" meaning that many more will die and have to hope on jehovahs memory to ressurect them.
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  Hi Candid!

  Great to see you! Sorry things have been rough. :-(

  I've noticed that the last few true-blue JW's that popped in here have been in "the Troof" for about 10 years. It's no wonder they are so idealized, they've only recently hit that trough where they begin to do things whether the Society ok's it or not. (Like posting here)

  Once they've been in long enough to survive a cycle of failed promises, I'd wager they'll be back.

  Looking forward to it! Not to gloat, but to welcome.

  Dave
• 

  jgnat

  I also like the bible instruction to live each day fresh, but you don't hear that from the Kingdom Hall. That message is in the bible, in Ecclesiates, and in Jesus' talk about the sparrows. JW's cheat themselves of life every day they put off living for a promised future. A rich future comes from daily choosing life, love, creating, and giving.
• 

  wednesday

  
  Hi Candid, I too have wondered where you were at. I have been looking for your posts. I'm so sorry things are not the way they should be. I know you get depressed , I can "feel" it in your words. But you see, Candid, others here do miss you and we do care about you. I do know how it feels to be shunned, there is hardly any of our family that will speak to us, and I have 3 jws "friends" left, (they will still speak to me that is) well maybe two now, I just sent one an email about shunning so I guess I'm testing the limits of our friendship.

  Someone said thet the jws must know they are bing lied to (or some words to that affect). Actually , when I was an active jws, I sincerely believed everything they said. I never dreamed they were lying to us. It was the late 70's early 80's before I began to see the orgs true nature and then only in brief glimples. It was just too painful. It has taken years for me to get this far. I truly believed in everlasting life.. I think now perhaps everlasting life may mean something like you will always be remembered, ie, we all know who Elvis Presely was (wow I'm some deep thinker, huh?) So he lives on. I read somewhere that "hell" or in our case the opposite of living forever,is actually what happens when we sin against God. Sort of reaping what you sow thing. (this is all in the very early stages , ie my ideas about this. I'm reading everything I can ) Anyway, I mention that b/c my hubby was asking if i rejected the everlasting life belief now.. I am trying to open my mind and see different possibilites for mankind, ones other than what jws teach, or even what mainstream religion teaches.

  I will give a moment of slience and prayer for the sister who gave her life to this evil org. and died having to use public assistance. Thank you for telling us about her.

  Weds
• 

  garybuss

  Life's like a bank account except with the real bank account, we start out broke, with a zero balance. With life, we start out rich, our account is at maximum balance, then we withdraw one day at a time, and the balance declines.
  The Watchtower tries to get us to enter into a legal contract with them as early in our life as possible (for me it was age 12) that promises our only real asset, our time, to them. They knew I wouldn't contract out my time to them, so they told me I was dedicating (contracting) my life (which equals my time) to God. Then they quickly established that God wanted me to allocate my time (I had dedicated to God), to the Watch Tower Corporation.
  It's done so slick that most people don't notice. Virtually no 12 year old notices. Now the Watch Tower has all these time accounts to draw from AND CONTROL.
  Now their challenge is just how to turn all that available time into cash and how maintain the illusion that the Watch Tower Corporation is authorized to collect that debt of time owed to God. The Society's done a good job. They turned a person's love for an invisible conceptual God into an obligation to go to 7 to 10 and more meetings a week (sometimes 6 in one day and 4 in one night), donate for materials, attend conventions and donate (often towards use of group owned facilities), do door to door solicitation and collect donations again, and embrace a below reasonable financial attitude for living.
  That's the basic outline of how to steal a life.
  There are people who are good with real money, people who are pragmatic with debt and cash. They think and they spend wisely. They avoid debt. They avoid entering into foolish contracts that are to their detriment. If they find themselves in a bad deal, they work to get out and they don't make the same mistakes again.
  There are also people who are practical about living and people who are foolish about living. There's the person who makes a bad decision like joining a high control group and then digs in deeper. There are people who spend their time wisely and avoid living debts. The person who willingly lives in debt and foolish spending, and the person who willingly gives their life over to a living debt and foolish living, are defective in some way, unable to extract themselves. If they have a defence system designed, installed, and functioning, like the Witness people, they become hard wired to adversity, to institutionalization. They like it.
  All ritual is for comfort. Ritual becomes a compulsion like the gambler returns to the machine that was designed to take her money. The ritual and the reward becomes hard wired and the dopamine receptors eventually won't open up unless the ritual is repeated, even if the ritual is harmful. The patient becomes rigid and protective and builds the wall higher. Reason won't work on a addict and reason won't work on a rigid Jehovah's Witness because reason won't work on an unreasonable problem. That's why it's called unreasonable.
  
  
• 

  IronClaw

  Hi, I am living through that hell right now. I posted just last week ( don't remember the thread it was on ) that my mom who now lives with me is 80 yrs old, when she accepted a bible book study back in 1969 she thought then that she would live into the new system. Well now she is on her last legs with no New system in sight. May of us have gone through this and lost loved ones who worshiped the Society for years. And they still dangle the carrott. Should be really interesting when she passes, having to live with me for the past 2 years. Wonder how the elders will handle it, me not going to any meetings for quite a while now and being considered an apostate though not dfed yet. Stay tuned.....................................