My sister made me incredibly angry yesterday. I sent her a politely worded message asking for her why she had waited 4 days to give an important message to my gran (who doesn't have email, and I don't have a phone line for long-distance).
Among other things, this is what I got back:
"I am tired of you treating me this way. I am a human being, too."
*****
Don't make me laugh. I'm the shunned one. Here was my reply:
I will reply to this at the weekend. I'm too angry to answer you right now. Perhaps you should reconsider your words. After all, I'm the one who isn't being treated like a human being, let alone a member of the family.
No, come to think of it, I'm going to answer this now. It'll probably spoil whatever chances I have of ever seeing Christopher again, but I just can't believe what you just said.
You know full well that the Bible doesn't agree with completely shunning your family members because they have made a different decision than you have. Jesus still associated with his family members when they didn't believe in him, and he's the son of God. Why should you be any different? The Bible says that he that doesn't love his brother isn't capable of loving God. Now, you SAY you love me, and I think you probably believe that. But you certainly don't treat me in a loving manner. You can't even be bothered to sign your emails, "Love, Wendy" anymore. I've been watching. I sign, "Love, Lisa" and get an abrupt answer in return. What the family has done to me is not love at all, and you know it. You choose to do what someone tells you to do, without even checking to see if that's really what the principles in the Bible say. You choose to act as if no one else did anything wrong.
I can speak my mind just as easily as you can. You're my sister, I should be able to tell you anything. But I've been holding back what I really know, because it would destroy your world you have so carefully built around you, and I love you too much to do that to you. If I told you what I really know and what has really been going on, you would go into shock. You would not be able to function, and one of two things would happen. You'd either spiral into confusion like I did when the truth came out for me (you don't know the half of it), or you'd push me even farther away in disbelief.
Well, I'm your sister. I love you. You choose. You can stay happily blind to the truth, and pull what you have left around you, which means pretending like you don't even have a sister who loves you. Or you can choose to treat me like a family member should.
You know what I was like as a JW. Yes, I made mistakes, but so did you. You know how hard I worked, how much I studied, how often I pioneered, how hard I tried. And you know that I am now married, so I obvioulsy am no longer doing what I was disfellowshipped for. So you should know, if I haven't gone back, there's a really REALLY good reason for it.
You decide whether you want to know it or not. But I will not be told that you aren't being treated like family when the entire family pretends like I don't exist.
I love you.
*****
I edited out a few bits about my family that would mean nothing to you. :)