by truthseeker 28 Replies latest jw friends
I'd be interested in hearing your experiences, if you were newly inactive and felt pressured to go to the Memorial.
Did the JW's pressure you to go or did you feel guilty for missing the Lord's evening meal (well, we all miss it anyway when we pass it round)
When I was newly inactive and the memorial was coming around, I had just moved into a new place that no one but my parents knew about. My mom and dad pressured me alot to see if I would be going. They called several times and even offered to pick me up and drop me off. Then when that didn't work, they sent a brother from my old hall to invite me. But my boyfriend was the only one home when he came calling. After the interrogation he got from my boyfriend (now husband) I never heard anything again...
I felt guilty because "it is what Jesus told us to do". The next year though Hubby and I bought the stuff from the grocery store and celebrated ourselves.
There was a provision somewhere in the OT that said if you missed the Passover, you could celebrate it a month later.
No harm in doing that now is there?
No. No one called on me about the time and date for 2 years. Then I started a study w/a different cong. elder and his wife. Then the heat was on to come to the mtgs. Went to a couple including the Memorial. I was in very serious mental state at the time and it didn't go well. I had to leave.
I have been recently inactive, just about two months so I figured that I'm going to feel pressured to go. And I might go, but to a different congregation.
I feel pressured not out of guilt but because some of my close friends are still thinking that this is only a termporaly stage on my life. They think I'm just tired.
The first time memorial came around after I had become inactive some friends of mine were determined to help me, encourage me etc.
(At this stage I still believed but couldn't bring myself to go to meetings anymore. I was so confused and didn't know my right hand from my left.)
So they invited me to come to dinner at theirs before the memorial and they would take me with them, let me sit with them etc so people wouldn't bombard me etc. Well I gave it my best shot. I went to dinner. I was dressed ready for the meeting. But when it came to time to go to the memorial I couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't explain it just happened like that. I felt terrible about it too...
My mother would try to guilt me into going. She stopped after I embarassed her in front of my aunts.
Josie
Initially this was the case but I got to thinking that it was hypocritical to attend once a year when all year round I wouldnt bother; so that was my stock answer.
'I could attend the memorial but the chances of me attending another meeting through the year is non existent; surely you wouldnt want me to be a hypocrite?'
DB74
Yes, when we first became inactive our parents put lots of pressure on us to go to the Memorial. We did not go and did our best to ignore it.
Jeff S.
