You know, I was reading one of the posts about how dubs rat each other out - and good god, I was excellent at that, I even frickin ratted myself out, sad really! It brought to mind my judicial committee meeting:
I'd been employed in a job that required skip-tracing. For those who don't know, skip-tracing is just that: tracing people who have "skipped" out on their financial obligations, in this case their car loans. So at times, under a lot of pressure to find the debtor, I'd call someone and make up a blatent lie to find out the info I needed. I came up with some good ones - well, some good ones and then some ones that were so stupid I can't believe anybody fell for them. Oh well, that was before caller ID was big and I was maybe 19 at the time.
Anyway, I go to the elders after a particulary bad lie and fall apart, crying, begging them to help me. We go in the back after meeting and of everything that happened, the only thing I remember was their endless repetition of the question: "Does anybody else know you lied?" Well...I knew what they were getting at, so I lied again (d'oh, going to hell now for sure!) and said no, the only person who'd heard me say what I said was the debtor and they didn't know it was a lie.
Funny how a) it's so much easier to tell the truth now that I'm not a Witness! b) how much more important it is for me now to live by the spirit, rather than the letter, of the law and c) how the only thing they cared about was "God's name."
I think they may have asked me once...no, never mind, they never asked me even once how I was coping or how I was going to cope with my job in the future or gave me encouragement for coming forward. Wow, I guess they didn't say one positive thing at all. Good for them! If they'd been nice maybe I wouldn't have been so easily swayed by the evil doc to leave their kind clutches!