Baptised 52 years today!

by Phoebe 44 Replies latest jw friends

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  steve2

  I cannot remember the exact date. But I remember the year - 1971 and the venue - although its name eludes me. But it was the District Convention/Assembly in Dunedin. New Zealand. I was 17.

  I had hoped my JW grandparents and my JW uncles and aunts would observe my baptism and be proud of me. I remember how keenly disappointed I felt when I looked around for them and they were not present. Very few people understand how highly anxious and agitated I felt during the entire convention. In retrospect, I had longed to have a sense of belonging and purpose and when it dawned on me that my baptism was really a non-event to my JW extended family, I felt a deflation that I had seldom felt before or since.
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  john.prestor

  Something I always found strange about JW baptisms is how everybody rushes out the door for lunch or a cup of coffee like they couldnt care less about the people getting baptized to save their soul from Jehovah's fiery wrath. Other Christian faiths tend to make a big deal out of baptisms, they perform them in front of a crowd of onlookers, maybe even hold a special service or mass just for the occasion. Yet JWs shove them off to the side at any convention I've been at and pretty much your family and maybe a few others look on at a distance. Just another way they devalue and depreciate the individual.
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  Still Totally ADD

  September 12, 1970 at the Bay Front Center in St. Pete FL. I was 16 years old and did it because two young married couples I was going out in service with said I was old enough to get baptised and why wasn't I baptised already? I remember how hot it was outside and the water in the baptismal horse trough they used was so hot it turned your skin red. For awhile I thought it was a great thing I did and I felt like I was approved by God until those damn hormones started acting up. Lol. Still Totally ADD
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  Tameria2001

  I was 17, and it will be 33 years this summer. My mom never pushed the issue of me getting baptized, but the congregation that we had recently moved into was putting on the pressure big time. Finally, after putting up with it, I decided to just get it over and to get those people off of my back about it. While going through the study, the one where an elder goes over questions to see what was in my "heart", he said there were several others getting baptized, and if that was why I was doing that. That was news to me because I didn't really know anyone else. At the time I was really shy, because of a ton of crap that I had been dealing with over the years, and didn't see the need to allow anyone to get close to me. Still that way to some aspects, not enjoyable.

  Anyways later found out that there were around 12 (myself included) who got baptized from the congregation I was attending. If any are wondering I was the last one of that group to leave or get kicked out of the Watchtower. Most of them were gone before they even reached their first year. One of the girls actually got kicked out of her home by her step-father, because she was dating a "worldly" guy. She was baptized only 2 months before this. She ended up moving in with her boyfriend and dropping out of high school as a result. Another one of the girls that got baptized had only done it as well because certain people in the organization was expecting her to do it as well. Another one of the girls who got baptized ended up moving to Texas and became a dancer (stripper), just to piss off her JW mother.

  The awful part about that baptism that summer was there was a little girl sitting next to me during the baptism talk at the convention. I don't know who she was, but I asked her how old she was, and her response to me was 8 years old.
  
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  Beth Sarim

  I was 17 and it will 29 years this summer. I totally believed everything I heard at that time from anybody, anytime, anyplace.. Makes me sick just thinking about it. How naïve I was uggggh
  
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  sparky1

  I was baptized 48 years ago tomorrow. January 30, 1971 in Nashua, New Hampshire. I was 15 years old and did it to get my god-intoxicated, religiously fanatical, dyed in the wool Jehovah's Witness mother off my back. I did not believe in the religion since I was a very little boy but got baptized anyway to shut her up. The rest as they say, is history.
  
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  scruffmcbuff

  March 2004 disfellowshipped a year later.

  Haysbridge assembly hall is the venue.

  I was so excited. I thought as i came out of the water I was going to feel the holy spirit and a new found connection with Jehovah.

  I came out of the water extremley underwhelmed.
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  Beth Sarim

  ''I came out of the water extremley underwhelmed.''

  I share a similar sentiment. LOL!
  
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  sir82

  Other Christian faiths tend to make a big deal out of baptisms, they perform them in front of a crowd of onlookers,

  maybe even hold a special service or mass just for the occasion. Yet JWs shove them off to the side at any

  convention I've been at and pretty much your family and maybe a few others look on at a distance.

  That always struck me too.

  In theory, your "day of baptism" is supposed to be THE most important date in your life. They've taken to telling the candidates to memorize the date, write it down, it is so so SO important, etc.

  So what do the observers of this oh-so-important ritual do, while the baptism is going on?

  Stuff their maws with gooey dripping Subway footlongs, burp up the lukewarm Coke they've just swilled, spray their half-chewed Doritos on their neighbors as they recount what a great bargain they just got on their new 65 inch TV.

  "The most important day of their lives" - commemorated by thousands of people chewing and ignoring them.

  If I took this stuff seriously, I'd be either sad, or enraged, or both.

  Fortunately I grew out of it.
  
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  SAHS

  Actually, I’m 52 years old now, and I know only too well the profound fear about dying at Armageddon. My dad used to scare me about the ‘sin against the holy spirit.’ I was convinced at the time of my own inescapable Divine demise. But now I know the truth about the truth (TTATT). Thank goodness for sites like this which help us all to learn about ourselves.