Posts by life is to short

8

Gotta love the ministry. LOL.

by Sabin in

you know how you go to the mid-week meeting & it is all about field service, how you can improve, do more etc.

do you remember how they would say things like..... "you get up brothers & you really don't feel like going out today, you look out of the window & the weathers just not good, then you look in the mirror & you say to yourself, i don't feel so good today.

you know your looking for an excuse not to go cause it's tough to get motivated on your 1 day off.

life is to short

I loved what you wrote as it was totally how I felt. My husband was an elder and always felt we had to set the example which meant we could NEVER MISS SERVICE NO MATTER WHAT!

There were no Saturday mornings of just being together as a couple, going for coffee or a breakfast out or just having a marriage, it was always met for service and than Jehovah will bless us with time together afterwords. Even when we went on vacation we had to met with the group before we headed out as no other elder would even conduct my husband's group.

My husband also felt sorry for all the mentally ill ones in the hall so the other elders in what ever hall we were in soon learned that and then they would put all the crazies in our group. I remember one time the CoBE hated this one extremely mentally ill brother and this guy was bent and determined to talk to the CoBE so the CoBE actually started to run in the hall from this guy. Now the CoBE was a fairly heavy guy and it was so stupid looking and yep we got that mentally ill person in our group also, Oh the joy.

I would come home from service so wiped out, sometime I would just sit in a chair and stare at the wall for hours trying to decompress. I always felt so crazy after spending the morning with the mentally ill. I knew that I was not trained to help them but I was forced to be with them and I felt bad not wanting to but they were so demanding and rude even at the doors and of course they had to take all the doors as they were so much better at talking to people then I was, or else I would get a car group that wanted me to do everything and they just wanted to ride around but mostly they were very demanding rude people who were all on government aid and felt the world owed them even more. They would hit me up for money, etc. The householders would look at us like we were all just a stupid crazy religion which I felt like we were.

I used to ask my husband why we sent out so many extremely mentally ill especially ones who refused to bath and smelled and I mean reeked. My husband response was always that Jehovah was using everyone because he could make the rocks cry out if He wanted and so Jehovah was using the mentally ill to weed out those who truly wanted the "truth" as it would take humbleness for people to accept the truth from people like them. It would take the three H's honest, hungry for the truth and humbleness and that was why the mentally ill went out.

I always felt bad and horrible after a day in service and if I was not with the mentally ill I was in a car group of self rightness JW's, I could not win.

LITS

25

JT & Lady Cee Why we left the Jehovah's Witnesses - Part 2

by JT-LadyC in

jt further expounds on why we left the watchtower.

why we left the jehovah's witnesses part 2.

life is to short

I loved it and for one huge reason is how calm and composed JT is. So many ex JW's may have really good points but they say it was such anger and such horrible language that it looses it's message.

This video is so well done, it something that you could show to any JW that has a somewhat reasoning mind and they might actually listen.

I agree with Cofty that anyone who truly takes the Watchtower's doctrines seriously will eventually leave. JT comes across like he truly believed it was the "truth" and now because of critical thinking he realized it was wrong.

Thank you for putting together such a great tool to use.

LITS

14

Chapter 1 My Bethel Experience First Posted 9 Years Ago A Walk Down Memory Lane

by new boy in

part 1. i when to bethel march 21,1970. at the time you had to be a pioneer for two years to apply, by the time i left in 1974 they were calling people in who had never pioneered..........average stay was 5 months (they had signed up for 4 years)..........the reason they left was......well, it was hell.. one of the reasons was, knorr hated bethelites, but he loved the gilead students and why?

because when they screwed up they were thousands of miles away!........just before i got there, they had kicked out over 30!

homosexuals (at one time) ....the would kick out 1-2 bethelites a week.

life is to short

I was there form 1992 to 1994, I loved and hated it. I loved it well over serving where the need was great, now that was peer hell so anything was better than that but now looking back it was fairly missed up I was just so glad to be around at least some people who like me. Pioneering where the need was great everyone hate me as I was just just an elder's wife and got in the way of their using my husband more.

LITS

79

The really cool feeling of community within JWs

by Phaedra in

i remember going out with other jws after the memorial.. small gatherings.. picnics at some local landmark.. the feeling of closeness, camaraderie, friendship with like minded people you could trust.. haven't experienced it since i left.. really miss that..

life is to short

I too used to love the getting together after the meetings. As a teenager I lived for it. I was not allowed to attend school as I was home schooled and had little association with anyone except my parents and sister so those times after the meeting were live a life line to me.

My parents were on the fringes of the "truth" and were avoided by most of the JW's and most of the world. I was extremely lonely as a child and a huge amount of the JW's kept their kids away from me also because of how strange my parents were.

So going out after the meetings and being with people was everything to me. So I will never forget the huge pain I felt when this sister who was in her mid 30's came to me as a 17 year old and told me to NEVER come to the restaurant again after the meetings because no one wanted my parents around and they would not let me come without them.

I went home that day and tried to commit suicide. I had no one in the world, my parents hated me, I had no contact with those outside the religion and to be told that those inside did not want me around them was the beyond painful. I felt so alone in the world.

Even now writing this as a 52 year old women, I just do not get how cruel and hateful that sister was. No one was there for me in the "truth" coming from a family that they clearly knew had problems. I had no mentors, no help, no nothing and to be told that I could not even come to a public restaurant because of my parents was unbelievably hurtful.

Yet I hung on to the religion as it was the only thing I knew and I bought into that it was the "truth" as I did know that my parents were crazy, now I realize that was what attracted my parents to the JW's the crassness of the religion.

Funny thing is I still look back at those time before I was forbidden to go with fondness.

LITS

11

Simon, How do you sustain this website?

by Wonderment in

simon,.

first, i hope you and your family are having a nice christmas.. we are at the end of the year, so it's time to ponder a bit about how grateful we should be to you and all the contributors for making this site for what it is.

i have noticed other jw's forum related sites come and go, but this one has held steady for many years.

life is to short

Yes thank you so much Simon. This sight has been such a huge help to me when I woke up. I honestly do not know where I would have been without the support this sight has given me.

Just a huge thank you for all that you do.

LITS

25

When did district conventions become regional conventions and why?

by slimboyfat in

i think it was gary and heather bottings' book the orwellian world of jehovah's wifnesses that noted the function of the habit of the watchtower organisation of changing organisational terminology periodically.

congregations became companies and then back to congregations again.

circuit overseers became circuit servants and then back again.

life is to short

Blondie I so remember when they were switched from assembly's to conventions. I was about 16 and i a car group of about 5 all older ones and I asked what hotel everyone was staying in for the assembly. I just got ripped to shreds by this older sister who was in her 50's at the time, belittling me for not keeping up with the slave and calling it the proper name convention. I mean she just went on and on and on over it it was like I had used the f bomb or something. It just really worked her up to no end.

Oh how I wished that had woken me up that something was truly wrong with this religion. It was just peer craziness.

LITS

23

How did you feel on Christmas as a JW child?

by cookiemaster in

this is obviously a question for born-ins like me.

so, how did christmas feel to you as a child?

to me it was awful.

life is to short

When I was really little under the age of 7 we did Christmas because my grandmother was alive and she gave my parents money, no Christmas no money so we put up the tree and everything. It was great expect when an elder would stop by and we would drag the tree into the spare room. Even as a little kid I saw it was crazy to hide like that. I totally loved Christmas not just the presents but the time together with family and it just seemed like a happy time of the year. Than my grandmother died when year I was seven the first of December. That year no Christmas, no tree, no nothing.

For a little kid it was horrible, and that year was worse than horrible at school. I got made fun of and even beat up by a fellow JW little kid because I was so confused and just did not get why we had stopped so suddenly.

After that I hated Christmas time because it was depressing.

LITS

51

Rivalry among the sisters

by Esmeralda001 in

when i was first introduced to the "truth", i was so distracted by the love and affection that the members were showing me that i was ready to convert into the religion without thinking twice.

i was conviced that jws were god's people (i still think some of them are).

i made it my goal to get baptized as i wanted to be part of the "only" religion that produce such good people.

life is to short

I never could understand it myself. I was treated the way the open posts describes myself. I just never could grasp the hatefulness. One sister in the hall always got tickets to the opening season of baseball the first year my husband and I were invited to go along. Now everyone had to pay for their own tickets so it was not like she was out money but after the first time we were never invited again though she would always make it a big deal in the hall so we knew we were excluded? Why?

I always got my cloths used and this one time I splurged on a new skirt, I felt so good in it until I went to the meeting and this sister came running up to me and loudly said 'you look so nice? Is that new?' I was like yes and thank you I think. She than said 'how much did you pay for it' very loudly. I just wanted to crawl away but I instead mumbled the price as I was just so shocked at her rudeness. She than said 'WOW I could never spend that much on a skirt, maybe for my daughter but I just never would spend that for a skirt for me.' Even the other sisters who were clearly overhearing this looked shocked as I crawled away in shame.

Another time I got a new service bad that was leather it looked very expansive but cost me $4.00. Again the first time I used it a different sister who had, had three children out of wedlock with three different men before becoming a JW and who lived on welfare while pioneering came straight up to me and told me what a cute service bag I had and how she wished she could afford something like that but well you know with three kids that would never be possible. Again I was just appalled. Really?

This does not even begin to go into all the times I was excluded from get together, etc. I was always told after the fact of how much fun it was and how they enjoyed the movie or dinner together, to bad I was not there but maybe next time.

It was just spit-fullness and hatefulness. And for what reason I could never understand. What was their pay back?

LITS

49

A rhetorical analysis of the Sept. KM Question Box

by Leolaia in

some have pursued an independent group study of biblical hebrew and greek so as to analyze the accuracy of the new world translation.

they have also held conferences and produced publications to present their findings and to supplement what is provided at our christian meetings and through our literature.. throughout the earth, jehovah's people are receiving ample spiritual instruction and encouragement at congregation meetings, assemblies, and conventions, as well as through the publications of jehovah's organization.

rather, the claim is implicit.

life is to short

This is such a great post.

I am reading the book "when God becomes a drug" by Leo Booth and he states that in that book on page 30 "for thousands of years, humans beings have been accustomed to living under an authoritarian theocracy in which the few, the chosen, and the called control the many. This divinely appointed power group claims not only to speak for God but insists that it is the only way to God. From the cradle on, we are trained to look to someone else to tell us what to do, when to do it, and what will happen if we don't. So it so it is that people allow themselves to be abused in the name of God."

When I read that it reminded me of the Sept 07 KM and I just had to get up in the middle of the night and try to find it. This is such a great post that I wanted to bump it up again.

LITS

17

The Donald knows the JW's are the truth

by life is to short in

i swear you just cannot make this stuff up.

i just heard from an older sister in the hall that donald's trump son-in-law bought part of the brooklyn heights compound, i think she said the 25 building but what ever.

she than went on to say and to quote her "the donald knows it's the truth.

life is to short

I swear you just cannot make this stuff up. I just heard from an older sister in the hall that Donald's Trump son-in-law bought part of the Brooklyn Heights compound, I think she said the 25 building but what ever. She than went on to say and to quote her "the Donald knows it's the truth." She than hopes that Donald gets elected as president because she is sure he will be the one to turn on religion and bring in Jehovah's kingdom.

It's kind of sad this lady has given her life to this religion, was promised she would never grow old and die and she is pushing 90.

Crazy and sad.

LITS