Newlight2,
Hi and thqank you so much for the information. I will read tomorrow, need to go to bed now. Can't wait to check it out, though. Thank you.
To all, thank you ever so much for all the replies and for your encouragements.
My story, please read
by fairchild 108 Replies latest jw friends
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steve2
Hello from New Zealand Fairmind!
It sounds like you have been going through a very tough time and I just want to encourage you to give yourself some time to sort things out. It will probably feel overwhelming for some time to come, but it's all part of facing the important questions in your life. Some days will be worse than others but one day you may look back and see this time of confusion as impelling you to work out what is really important to you, regardless of what others think. Sometimes in life there is pain no matter we decide and there are no easy answers. I agree with you: It is scary and scared people are sometimes too wiling to hand over to others the responsibility they would be better off keeping in their own adult possession.
I remember the confusion I felt as a teenager trying to sort out a host of questions: Is the Watchtower really the truth? If not, who or what else is there? The world was such a scary place back in the late 60s-early 70s and the JWs seemed to have worked out what it was all about. In my local Kingdom Hall, we had a kind of unofficial countdown to 1975 which was the year that Watchtower publications embued with fearsome significance. But I was still plagued by uneasiness - some of the easiness was about not feeling worthy enough to be baptised (I thought I was beyond help because of a personal problem). However, I was also troubled by things I saw happening among the JWs - especially the double standards. And the Watchtower's cold hubris truly disturbed me.
Trouble was, my JW family and relatives kept telling me that time was running out and that is was dangerous to doubt. Oh, if only I had met someone who could tell me, "Hey, the witnesses are always saying the end is near and it's so normal to doubt... especially teachings that keep changing!"
Now I realised that, if I didn't doubt, I would never have questioned anything and have never learnt anything. Surely, if Charles Taze Russell had never doubted the established religions back in his day, he would never have been "moved" to come up with his ideas on what was Scriptural truth. Doubt is the ordinary everyday stuff of human life; faith, on the other hand, is the strangely unsettling thing that requires blinkers and blind spots to embrace, and for many people in religious cults, faith is more an act of willpower than of a reflection of belief in God.
Fairmind, I read through your story and noted the strong parallels with my own earlier experiences. The JWs recipe for helping me was simply to do more of what wasn't working: Pray more, study more, attend meetings more, witness more.
Imagine: Trying to solve long-standing problems by doing more of what already hasn't worked! I look back as an older, wiser man, and am saddened but also staggered by the stupidity of it all: How helpful is it to keep doing the very thing that's making things worse? Children do that and it takes a loving parent to say, "Hey, son, you're hurting yourself there. Let's try something else".
Now, contrary to the experience of most people who have been disfellowshipped, I finally started to grow up and take responsibility for my own life, the day the Jws decided to kick me out. It's a scary world out there, whether it's the 60s, 70s or tens and the "child" part of me still longs to be taken care of and reassured. But the "adult" part needs to keep taking responsibility for thinking things through carefully and making strong decisions without JW- or any other kind of contrived emotional blackmail. Yes, I went through periods of low mood and experienced a lot of anxiety when I was disfellowshipped. But as I look back on my life - I'm about to turn 51 years old and am now a registered clinical psychologist - I will always thank the Witnesses for disfellowshipping me; they kick-started me into a new and more grown-up developmental phase of life: I was literally forced to come to terms with my normal doubting disposition and had to also give serious thought to how I wanted to live my life.
I hope that, whatever difficult decisions await you, Fairchild, that by taking increasing amounts of personal responsibility for how you live your life, you will be empowered. It won't happen overnight, and it may be helpful to keep talking this over with others. Keep talking to people who encourage you to take greater responsibility for your life decisions and who urge you to not hand your heart, soul and mind over to an organisation that shows contempt for those who dare to exercise their normal capacity to question and doubt.
All the best in your endeavours.
Steve
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under74
"Now, contrary to the experience of most people who have been disfellowshipped, I finally started to grow up and take responsibility for my own life, the day the Jws decided to kick me out."
AGAIN, WELCOME TO THE FORUM FAIRCHILD. -
steve2
Oops. You're right Under74. I've re-read what I wrote and I did not wish to make an unfavourable comparison with others who have gone through the expulsion. What I meant was, From the JWs perspective, disfellowshipping is viewed as a necessary chastising experience with a view to repenting and coming back. But, from my perspective, disfellowshipping was just the opposite: It was like a kick-start to facing up to my own problems and actually taking responsibility for sorting myself out. I acknowledge others experience may well have been different, but no less valid for them. Apologies for any offence - it was unintended. Steve
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under74
No, no apoligy needed. I re-read what you wrote as well and figured you didn't mean any offence.
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Black Sheep
Hi Fairchild and welcome to the forum.
I think the biggest mistake I made as a 'born in' was studying their literature as truth without studying it to ascertain whether or not it was truth.
This mistake lead me to many years of guilt and some really bad, life-altering, decisions based on their false prophesies.
Please do not make the same mistake.
Chris
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Country_Woman
Fairchild, first of all: Welcome.
second: I hope you don't commit yourself to the organisation - in the end you will probably hurt more.
I remember the first time I start to study, everything looks so good and feels so naturally. The few doubts I still had, I managed to reason down: I had to look on it from a different angle - so I went on and got babtised. But, once being a JW - there was a slight difference: I got a sort of inside information I did'nt get before, like the "old" teachingsi, the changings when there was "New Light" that made me uncomfortable - but still, I managed.
Then my daughter got daubts and went for answers which she did'nt got. One of her questions was: once a prophet is propheting in the name of God, and his prophecy turn out to be false, this prophet is not a real prophet and must die. (not an exact quote but this is what I remembered fromthe bible text) The Watchtower did several times propheted "the end of this times" and everytime it turned out there prophecy was false.
Even the very start - the beginning of this organisation turnes out to be questionable: A bad tree can't bear good fruit. I've overheart this very often in the Kingdom Hall - still, the founder of this religion, Charles Taze Russell, was a Free Mason and their symbols (the winged solar disk) is often used on and with the early publications. His idea was that God was living somewhere in the Pleiades and the great Pyramide did show us something about Gods directions. Knowing that Free Masonry is absolutely forbidden in the Watchtower organisation...... I wondered how this tree from the Free Masons could bear good fruit..... You will NOT hear anything about this in the Hall...
Any case, my daughter got disfellowshipped - I suspect merely because the elders did'nt have any answer on het questions - so they grabbed the first (false) reason they could find. Since then, she is shunned, she lost all the friends she had in the organisation (as well as all the trust she had in the Watchtower) She showed me where The Watchtower was not in line with the Bible at all.
Since then I faded, allowing me to speak with the few friends I still have in the organisation.
So I would urge you to think twice and again think, before you do something that can't be reversed: babtising.
Good luck.
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anuva
dear fair child
i read your story ..and i saw the pain of going through harshness of the world ,
i am a newbie like you on this forum, and you know i have a loved one who is in WTs , with conditions almost like you that attracted him to WTS and JWs,
and i have studied WTs and JWs as bible atudy and more ...
and i have almost successfully learned that , it is true that there is wickedness in the world, there is evil in the world, but the REAL truth that we all realize some day or the other is that EVIL and WICKEDNESS is everywhere , and IT IS AS MUCH A PART OF JWs and WTS as it is in the world, WTS and JWs cannot claim the SPIRITUAL PARADISE DECIET, and most IMPORTANT, tyhat WTS AND JWS NEVER HAVE THE TRUTH , it is jsut that few unknown PEOPLE in Brooklyn are trying to SEARCH THE TRUTH AND sadly they are forcing followers to think , THAT THEY ARE THE TRUTH .
you know what i value most in life god gave me , even at cost of many painful discoveries.....it is AWARE and OPEN MIND .
i wish you aware mind and best wishes for your stay in this forum.
anuva
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Granny Linda
When it comes to sharing some of the more personal secrets...be cautious on internet forums.
I remember when I did share my darkest moment with that trusted person...it seemed as though time literally stood still. It was a wonderful experience, but what was spoken will never leave my lips again.
At the time I was willing to accept something greater in my life then how I had been living, so I took the plunge into self discovery...with all the ugly things about myself that I did not like. It's been a wonderful journey of, oft times, pure insanity. But one I'd never change even if one could.
Any of us are always glad hearing how another potential JW (baptism) is seriously questioning what that church offers in exchange for their god. A god I want absolutely nothing to do with.
Jehovah is a mean spirited entity that comes alive because people believe in it. Any god/goddess imho that demands hatred towards the non-worshippers, can in a nut shell, kiss my backside.
Despite how the world is...pretty mean and cruel ..it's our responsiblilty to begin sorting through these things and making decisions based upon our experience and knowledge - not what some mean spirited, hypocritical and life hating rich bastard that loves control would have us believe. {I'm one who does not like any religion}. JW's in particular because I've lost family, too.
Stay of good cheer.
Perhaps you might find a group that deals with "growing up" issues that many of us had to deal with even at an older age. I found that horrible as some of our lives had been...someone else suffered much more, and yet they were finding happiness of their own making. Their/our/mine...happiness.
My personal advice is for running as fast as you can from that filthy religion. You owe those people absolutely no explaination. You only imo need to be honest with yourself - and the rest falls into place.
GL of the "I believe in Magick" class. The magic of our own divinity. Amen sista.
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frenchbabyface
Welcome !!!