Often when family members are faced with a terminal illness of a loved one the family spends much time together. Even taking costly vacations and building memories. Trying to get in as much qualilty time before death seperates them. Isn't it odd that if jw's truly believe that their loved ones will not survive the big A because they have left the org or never joined, they don't feel this same sort of emotion? If they truly believed that the non jw would cease to exist forever wouldn't you think they would then want to spend as much quality time with the non jw? Or is it more of a protective thing, thinking 'I must protect my heart by not getting to overly attached to the person'? (besides the rules of the org re:shunning policies, speaking from an emotional point of view only. I'm well aware of the shunning policies)
jw's and terminal loved ones, the big A
by carla 1 Replies latest jw friends
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jgnat
It is fear that impels them. Fear for their own lives. Fearful people forget to love. As you know, the lack of love is one of the tests that we are not dealing with a Christ-led organization.
I once studied the impact of Tuberculosis (TB) on our society before antibiotics. Just like AIDS today, a diagnosis of TB was a death sentence. Worse, TB is far more contagious than AIDS. The sick were packed off to sanatoriums to be cured or die. Family members were so afraid of the disease, often letters from the patients were returned to the sanatorium unopened.
Wrenched from family and friends and thrust in to this institutional environment, it's a miracle more did not throw themselves out the windows in despair. But people being what they are, they organized, socialized, and made the best of it. Doesn't this remind you just a little bit of the ex-JW community?
Here's a few scriptures to make a JW think about their prime motivation:
(Hebrews 2:14-15) 14 Therefore, since the "young children" are sharers of blood and flesh, he also similarly partook of the same things, that through his death he might bring to nothing the one having the means to cause death, that is, the Devil; 15 and [that] he might emancipate all those who for fear of death were subject to slavery all through their lives.
(Romans 8:15 NIV) For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."