hey all,
This is my first time posting here. When I was reading through the topics and saw this, I just had to respond. My name is alan and i dated a Jehovah's Witness for a couple years off and on, long distance. This is my story and I hope that it will help someone else who is going through the same thing, realize that there is a light at the end of a tunnell and that God does work through all situations. I am not sure how many here believe in God, but this scripture helped me alot looking back, its romans 8:28 which basically says that all things turn out for good for those who love God.
I was raised in a Jewish home, yet never really believed in God. I was bar-mitzvah at 13, yet still was more athiest/agnostic than anything else. At 19, I met a woman online who i fell for. This was in the beginning of 1999. At this time, I had yet to have a girlfriend so this woman meant alot to me. She lived in NYC and I in L.A. For the first few months I didn't know she was a JW, until one night when I went online and saw her on,and I located her and found her in a JW chat room. I then called and asked why she was in there, and then she told me how she was a witness, as well as all of her family. She then told me we had to stop talking since I was not a JW. Well being that this was the first girl i cared for, it broke my heart. She had become my joy, and therefore I lost it when she told me we couldn't talk any longer. At that moment I decided to study with the witnesses if it meant I could keep talking to her. She said that would be good but it wouldn't change the fact that we couldn't talk. I then began days of sadness thinking i couldn't talk toher again. Eventually, we started talking a few days later and I went into the local kingdom hall to study. I began my book study with one of the elders and started the knowledge book. We continued talking, however every few days she said we couldn't talk any longer, so this caused me to always be stressed thinking this was it. Yes, it was long distance, and I had never met her, but you tell a 19 year old that it wasn't real and see what happens. I finally ended up meeting her in June of 1999 in Arizona when she went to visit her cousin. She hadn't told her family about me and therefore they didn't know she was going to meet me. While in Arizona, we were sexually active, doing everything but intercourse. I was happy and so was she, or so I thought.
The following day, before all three of us were going to goto the Grand Canyon, she began to close up and not talk to me. She wouldn't even hold my hand, well this destroyed me. I didn't know what was going on. This happend for the next 3 days, with the day before we left, she totally closed up. Turned out she told me she would have brather been there with a man in her congregation she liked although she never told. This destroyed me and i was ready to never speak to her again. We went our seperate ways and I thought that would be it.
I got home, and by this time my family knew i was studying with the witnesses. My mom cried when I told her and my dad had very hard time. However they let me continue.I continued my studies for a year. Our relationship continued, always being up or down. I was either ecstatic on cloud 9 or depressed. If she told me she loved me, I WAS HAPPYYYYYYYYY, if she didn't I was ohhh so sad. We probably "broke up" 25 times during the year. Eventually, she told her mom and dad about me, and finally told the elders and her parents what we did in arizona. She said because SHE HAD TO, all the details of what we did. She was reproofed for this, losing all of her privlidges. Well eventually i went to visit her the following july in NY and i met her family. Suprisingly her dad was awsome. He took me out driving one day and told me that i was a good guy and whatever happened before was water under the bridge and that he was glad to have me there. Her mom on the other hand gave me the cold shoulder all week. Eventually my girl once again shut down a few days before I left, when we wentupstate to visit her grandparents, she told me we couldn't be together. Then I overherad her telling her uncle she didn't love me. Well, I went home a few days later and again though that was it. She called me at work one night and said she was pregnant which was impossible since we never had intercourse. Eventually she retook the test and it came back negative, I took this as a sign from God saying if we kept fooling around, something would happen.
Well i continued studying, until august of 2000. I stopped studying and instead, i began praying for a few months and reading the word. Eventually I was shown in the word that Jesus wasn't an angel but rather God incarnate. I then got baptized as a bible believin believer in jesus. While studying with the witnesses, I began to believe in God, not for her but for myself. So my new faith in Jesus was real. When she heard that i got baptized, she couldn't believe it and stopped talking to me at all for quite some time. However, we started talking again in early 2001. Eventually she came to see me give my first sermon at church which was an amazing thing for her to do, even telling her family that she was goinig. However, our time like the previous ones, were cut short by her closing up on me after an incident when she took off a cross i was wearing when we were lying down. Well, she went back to NY and i really believed that was it. That week I knew that God would show me whether we had a chance or not and he showed that we didn't.
Well, that was 2 years ago. Since then, i graduated college, and began going to seminary to be a pastor. I met a woman who instead of debating me in the different areas of our faith we disagreed in, she prayed for me. We are both born again and her parents are pastors. We have been dating for a year and a half and on xmas day i am going to propose to her to marry me. I love her more than i have ever loved anyone because we have grown so much together, fighting for one another and letting God work out our issues. I will be 25 in a week and so much has changed since the day i met the jehovah's witness.
God has taken me on this road and I wouldn't have changed anything about it. The witness is still in NY, and although having some tough times in her life as a witness, she is still one none the less. I don't know if she will ever leave since all of her family are witnesses. Her grandparents were put on the cover of the WT for being the perfect married couple. I hope she leaves and is able to walk in the fullness of the grace of God.
I hope this story has helped someone, thank you for your time,
Alan