for "born-ins"

by Mandette 42 Replies latest jw friends

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  misguided

  The Malawi thing terrified me. My parents had me write a letter to some official there, and my mother put my rough-draft copy of it in a scrap book for me - and I still have it.?

  That was a turning point for me when I was reading COC, to find out that it was for a silly political card that they were getting persecuted for, when the JWs in Mexico could bribe there way out of military service.

  Then there was the fear instilled that we could be separated from our parents, watch them be tortured, etc. And those tortuous pictures we were subjected to in the Paradise Lost book and Revelation book.

  When I was about 2, my parents asked me "why do you go to meetings?" I'm sure they were waiting for the "because I love Jehovah answer," but what they got was, "to get a spanking." LOL. My parents actually find this story amusing.
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  nondescriptex

  When I was a kid, I took it all in stride and didn't feel worried. That is to say, I was not aware of the tight knot of anxiety building inside me. But as the years went by I gradually realized how strange and damaging it was to automatically expect to be brutally tortured some day, not IF but WHEN. I think it messed me up in ways I could not realize until growing up and looking back. I was always careful not to feel too happy, careful not to enjoy anything too much, because one day soon I would be taken away from home, persecuted possibly to death. If the official teaching had simply taken what the Bible says about the various sacrifices the Christian way of life may entail, that would have been good enough. But why hype up the ugliest possible situation and constantly burn it in to the tender minds of children?
• 

  yknot

  We had a kiddie TMS on Saturdays......Sometimes we had older Bros/ Sis come and talk about there endurances....

  Lots of WWII stories, the most memorable for me was of fingernails being pulled from victims by the Nazi's.

  Brothers & sisters being tarred and feathered.

  Mob violence by Christendom

  False imprisonment.

  School children expelled from schools for being JWs.

  Children dragged from schools and murdered for not pledging the allegiance to a flag.

  Children kidnapped by non-JW parent.

  JW children suffering to abstain medically.....with fake vacinations burns.

  JW children pioneering at 10 and wearing billboards.

  We were totally prepped to 'stand firm at all cost'.....'to be bold for Jehovah'.....but never giving up fellow JWs.

  I can still flip that Armageddon mentality on like a light switch.

  (of course we also got to hear about the WTS screw ups and too, like once you live through one 'great disappointment' you are never the same.)