Just curious of anyone else's experience with this watchtower behavoir.
I ran into a df person 2 weeks ago and she tried hiding from me, my guess she was embarrassed and knew I shouldn't talk to her, but I approached her anyway. We hugged and talked briefly. She told me she was disfellowshipped, she knew I wasn't attending meetings. She gave me her email, I emailed her a quick email about how things are going for myself. She emailed me back and said :
I've been disfellowshipped for just about 9 months now. I've attended just about every meeting since then, even the one when they announced my disfellowshipping. I would like to be reinstated but I'm not happy with my writing skills. Been attempting to write the letter for about a month now but nothing ever suits me. I'm used to people not talking to me by now, I even told my sister thats why I'm not writing my letter "because I like having people not talk to me!!!!" But I truly do want to make my relationship with Jehovah good again so I'm gonna have to get off my high horse sooner or later!! This situation couldn't have happened at a worse time for my daughter either, I believe. She's 15 and this is when she should be getting close to people in the congregation. Sad thing is: there's no one her age. I can completely understand how you can get offended by people at the Hall. There's been many a time where I just shake my head in disbelief at what someone said to me. Most of the time, I've been successful at letting it go, realizing that we all have our faults, remembering that I'm not the easiest person to get along with either, remembering to tread lightly around certain ones or maybe watch what I say. But let me ask you this: Do you feel, in all honesty, that you are not attending the meetings anymore because of the people or because of the teachings? Did people annoy you to the point that you began to look for faults in the organization?
I emailed her back, and I didnt exactly tell her why I don't go. I wasn't sure If I could trust her not going to the elders, seeing that she was trying to get back. But I may have told her too much. yikes. My email: I didn't know you had to write a letter for the elders to read to decide to undisfellowhip you. Is there a time limit that you must be disfellowhipped for? I don't know all the rules they made for that sort of thing. All I know is I'd be in big trouble if they knew I was talking to you. OOPS! I don't really like talking to many people either. I'm antisocial. Haha. I'd much rather be with my animals. Hence why I have so many. I don't mind at all that no one talks to us or tries to contact us from the hall. It is strange though, since we were regular in everything when we did attend and it's weird no one noticed or paid any mind that we disappeared. Hmmm.... It's not that I was really offended by the people there, it's more that their actions made me question whether it was the truth or not. I attended a Lutheran church most of my life and as I grew older I noticed when people wouldn't practice what they preach. I knew a bunch of people in high school that attended a church near mine and they would preach what the bible said but then they would act against their belief system. I was sickened at it and then decided to question whether I was in the right church or not. If I didn't question the church by its members actions what good would that be? I seen faults in those churches, and I left. When I was 18, I was your typical teenager who didn't know what to do with life and thats when my friend (who defriended me because I don't attend meetings) stepped in to teach me her beliefs. They seemed all good and juicy at the time and being she was a person I felt close to and we had many things in common I listened and wanted to be a part of her life. When the witnesses said my family could hate me for it and when that proved true I really thought it was the truth and was separated from my own family. As doubts arose, which they did within the first year of going to meetings, I kept them to myself.The watchtower said to put all your questions on the back shelf and wait to the new system for them to be answered, and I blindly obeyed that. Once I started wakening up to the fact that these questions were getting too big and too many that their wasn't any room on that back shelf for more I had to find out. I wasn't being true to myself and was liveing a life of guilt, fear, and confusion. I was miserable, but pretended I was happy. What pushed me to find out is the actions of a lot of the jehovah witnesses made me think they were no different then any other church I was familiar with. I didn't see the love that was proclaimed, and it wasn't just our congregation. Just because they don't go to war doesn't make them any more loving then a religion that does go to war. There are other ways to express love besides not going to war and I just didn't see it. Its seemed like a club where you socialized and made friends like any other church, yet the friendships within the jehovahs witnesses seemed shallow and would end as soon as you are considered 'spiritually weak' I have a friend, a non witness friend, whom has been my friend through thick and think for 19 years. The year I regular pioneered (the year before we stopped attending) was like a bomb was dropped on me. I was awakened to a new world of lack of love within the atmosphere of the 'spiritually strong'. It was like I seen the backstage of things. Pioneer school was torture. We left a few months after that. Soooo........I took the advice from the bible, not the 9 men who oversee what goes in the watchtower magazines, and became Detective Jennifer and started where it says in 1 Thess.5:21 'Make sure of all things; hold fast to what is fine'. And the scripture in Acts 17:11, where the Bereans 'carefully examined the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so.' I examined the scriptures, I questioned every belief as the scriptures said and I arrive at a different conclusion. If I would of taken the bibles advice before being baptized, things would have turned out differently. I don't disagree with everything, but I have strong doubts about some things. I will gladly tell you what doubts I have, maybe you could clear them up, or maybe you even have the same doubts. I will let you decide if you want to hear more, I don't want to seem like I'm trying to get you to believe the way I do. I would never want to do that. Every person is entitled to believe how they want. Hope to hear from you soon! My husband said it sounds way too apostate and thats why she never resonded back. Then I took my neices to a school function, and her daughter was there. Then she came to pick her child up and seen me and turned the other way to avoid me and looked very unhappy at that moment. My neice went after her and said hello and she told my neice she hasn't seen her at meetings for a while (she doesn't attend because I don't go..I used to bring her) and asked her who brought her to the school function (obviously she knew I brought her) and said my name, then she acted like she didn't say anything and the conversation ended with my neice. Very Strange! I guess that is over with her.