It happened yesterday morning. I'd just come out of the shower and had been drying my hair when the doorbell rang. So I threw on my robe and went down the stairs to answer the door. I could see a person dressed in black through the gauzey veils of the curtained window beside the door. I knew. My attack plan firmly in mind, I swung open the door... to two Sisters? to whom I had been very close years and years ago. My attack plan evaporated. I couldn't go through with it, not with these two. After all, I'd gone through a pregnancy with each of these ladies, one of them has a son a couple of months younger than my eldest daughter, and the other has a son a couple of months older than my youngest daughter. We went to doctor's appointments together and prenatal swimming classes together and compared our growing bellies and labour stories. We'd felt each others' unborn children kicking through our tummies. We'd sat together nursing our babies in the Mothers' Room, cooing Kingdom Songs? to our babies when the pre-recorded piano music played overhead. I couldn't deliver my caustic messages to them the way I wanted to do it to an unsuspecting Elder?. I knew these two ladies, at one time at least, and possibly even now, genuinely considered themselves to be my friends. I admit it, I was unprepared for this possibility. I am a weakling where emotional warfare is involved.
I invited them in for coffee, and went upstairs and quickly got dressed, while they waited in the living room. As I put the coffee pot on to brew, they looked at the photographs of my family that hung on the walls and commented on how the children had changed over the years (it's been over 8 years since they've seen us).
We made small talk for a while, and then one of them told me that the CO was visiting this week and there was a Special Talk? on Sunday, and that I would be welcome to go. She even offered to sit beside me and hold my hand if I was nervous. I said that I may have to work on Sunday, but I would give it some thought.
Then the other one said "Just because [my husband] wrote a letter and disassociated himself, doesn't mean that you aren't welcome."
"I beg your pardon? [My husband] NEVER wrote a letter and disassociated himself. Was there an announcement saying that he did?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure he must have, otherwise the Brothers? would never say that."
"I know for a fact that he DIDN'T. And if there was an announcement, it was a lie and slander. I don't see how I can ever show my face there if the Brothers? are going to slander my husband and lie about him like that."
"Well, did he ever tell the elders that he wanted to disassociate himself?"
"No. In fact, the only time we've seen any of the Elders?, was about a year ago, and [one Elder?] and someone else we don't know spoke to [my husband] outside in the driveway. They just asked if he was interested in going back to meetings or having someone study with us, and [my husband] said he wasn't interested in that." See my previous thread: Two Elders Came to Visit This Afternoon
Then the other one said: "Well whether they made an announcement or not, I'll ask and get to the bottom of it. But that still doesn't mean you can't come to meetings and worship Jehovah, for your own sake and for the kids' too."
"Why would I want to worship anyone whose followers spread lies and slander about my husband? Why would I want my kids to associate with people who gossip and spread lies and slander about their father? If the Elders? made that announcement or not, the lies and gossip are still being circulated about him. I wondered why my parents have been so cool to us. I wondered why my brother stopped speaking to us. I guess now I know why."
"Did the Elders? ask him if he wanted to be a Witness? anymore?"
"If they did, and they took that as an act of disassociation, that was pretty sneaky and underhanded of them. I didn't think Jehovah would approve of that kind of deception and trickery. I mean, if the Elders? are so Spiritual? and Righteous? and if that is their goal, to disassociate someone, why not just be honest about it and ask "Is it OK if we announce to the congregation that you have disassociated?", why resort to deception and trickery the way Satan the Devil does? That was the kind of nonsense that was happening that made us QUIT going to meetings in the first place."
heh heh... the subject changed to small talk again, almost immediately! LOL and then it was "oh, we'd better get going... look at the time!"
They left me with some magazines and a brochure. I won't be going to any meetings on Sunday either. It'll be a much better day if we put up our Christmas tree instead.
Love, Scully