The Good:
I started studying the Bible with My aunt, a Jehovah's Witness, way back in 1975. My aunt saw about 60 of her Bible studies get baptized as Jehovah's Witnesses. I was probably her most difficult student arguing every point I was taught coming up with alternative interpretations. While studying I also attended meetings at the kingdom hall where my grandfather was an elder, my cousin's husband was an elder, his mother a pioneer. I was in the most well connected family in that congregation. My first congregation was like a big family. And the work we did together felt special, the joy of working together accomplishing God's work. I was baptized during a convention at Dodger Stadium in 1976. Before baptism I was already conducting about 5 studies of my own. Partly because of the family I came from, partly because of my enthusiasm for God's work and an ability I displayed in doing it, the elders began using me for tasks right away.
The Bad:
In 1977 I married the nicest person I've ever met to this day. My wife and I were assigned to a book study held inside a private home that was conducted by the elder my study was turned over to shortly before my baptism. I considered him a friend. One day while he and I were working together he said, " You comment a lot at the Watchtower study (a meeting he conducted) but your wife doesn't, she just comments at our book study." I answered, "yes I know I've spoke to her about that." His response was, "Cut her allowance." I listened without replying, and we continued spreading our Bible message. Of course I didn't follow his advise.
The very next Watchtower study the elder stopped calling on me at the WT study. For a very short time all the elders stopped except my cousin's husband. But in short time all stopped that behavior but two. In a very peculiar fashion one that never called on me asked me if I would accept the position of ministerial servant (deacon). I accepted, and I stayed there for about another year serving before leaving for a neighboring congregation. During that time those two refused to call on me at the hall every meeting. After my wife died my aunt told me they had this idea my wife would hold me back from getting promoted to elder, so they came up with this plot to put pressure on me to make her comment. She said three backed out but the two kept it up.
Shortly after I left the best man at my wedding also a MS moved into my new congregation. He told me, "I had trouble with someone at.... I tried to resolve it, but couldn't, so I left." I should have called my grandfather, an elder there, and I regret that I left without saying anything because of the nasty treatment that continued on others.
Several years later I moved to a different county. During an in home book study I spoke out of turn. A young man, a pioneer that I would work with was counseled not to date a young sister he'd been seeing. They were in their late teens. A question was asked, " who do we mark in the congregation?" I assume he asked it because of the counsel this young couple had received. In that small group several people raised their hands and answered giving incomplete answers to the question. My hand was up, and for some reason was not getting called on. I did something I should not have, I said, "My hand is up." The conductor called on me. I said, " When members of the congregation act against scriptural directions but their offense does not warrant disfellowshipping then it's appropriate for members of the congregation to mark them; however, once they stop that offensive behavior the marking should no longer be done." Then because everyone had left out the marking should stop when the offensive behavior stops I said, "You'd better watch out who you mark are it might not be long until you stop associating with yourself." The conductor tipped his head down and snorted like a bull. His wife looked at me with her head slightly tipped and shook her head back and forth as if giving me a warning.
The Ugly:
At the next meeting two elders were standing near me, one whispering to the other, the one receiving the message said while looking at me, "he did what?" After that the Watchtower study conductor stopped calling on me and stopped calling on my eight year old son. Our congregation got too thin so the circuit overseer sent 50 members in from a neighboring congregation. I let the not calling go one about a year. After that I told some of these new elders about it, and why I thought it happened including what I did that I believe they reacted to. They believed and asked me to talk to a circuit overseer who believed it.
I moved to another county I saw the same behavior. And this time for a reason possibly even more petty. I was targeted because someone spoke to me about their college experience? I found others including an elder used by the circuit overseer to go in and change operating policy was resented he and his family were targeted resulting in too much hurt for his grown daughter, so she stopped attending. I sent in what I knew to WT. Then about 4 years ago I heard Anthony Morris III (GB member) make some ridiculous statements during his national presentation. To me the most controversial teaching was when he spent quite some time teaching that baptized JW men who are 21 or 22 years of age and older that have not been appointed the office of ministerial servant (deacon) by the Watchtower society are not and should not be considered by single Christian sisters as appropriate marriage candidates. I researched WT and found their teachings and methods wanting.
The Miraculous:
One thing WT teaches is that God does not contact people today as he did in biblical days. So, I believed he didn't because of what I was taught. I learned he does, because I was contacted several times and God gave me proof those were contacts from him. The first time it happened I saw a part of my life that didn't materialized until 4 or 5 years after the contact. Then after that materialized I was contacted 3 or 4 more times. I can only have you understand some of the detail but it's the details that furnish the me the proof. I saw my future in too much detail to be coincidental. At first I had a dream. I was living in a house with some of my children but my wife was no longer with us about 5 years before she died. The house looked exactly like the house my wife and I had built 3 years before she died. It was furnished exactly like in the dream even though she picked out some of the furniture without me and brought it home before I saw it. A month after she died the furnishings were different than in my dream and a month before she died furnishings were different. We had a living room set on lay away that I received a month after she died, and we had taken the furniture out of the dining room to replace it a month before she died. But in my dream the furnishings were like they were when she died including bedroom furnishing that I did not see until she brought those home, and those were exactly like in my dream. After we moved in that house I told my family I had a dream I had lived there. I told my mother the same thing and said that my wife was no longer with us.
This is why it happened. A day or so after her death I went to bed and asked God to see her in my dreams. The first time I saw her there we were conversing in a park. Other people were there but not with us. The next day or in a couple days I said a similar prayer to see my wife in my dreams. I went to sleep and saw her. I knew she had died but come back to life, and this was the first time I saw her since she died. I had no recollection of having died myself. In the last one I again asked God to see her in my sleep. This time it was different. Instead of being on the ground I was floating down to the ground at an angle in the air. This is the first time I was afraid. I remembered the scripture in the Mosaic law saying not to inquire of the dead, so seeing my dead wife I got scared and yelled really load, "Jehovah." As soon as I did that I was pulled back up really fast at the same angle I had been descending in. Then I instantly woke up. As soon as I opened my eyes I saw there was an object right over my chest just a few inches above it. My awakening appeared to startle it because it instantly moved away about 5 feet and suspended itself in air . It appeared to hang suspended while I contemplated the thought it had been communicating with me. Then it moved real fast through the room's ceiling to vanish.
When my wife was alive her mother gave her what could be called a blanket, but a real small one, about the size of a tablecloth, but real heavy almost knitted material. My wife used to sometimes cover herself with it. The item had many versions of God's name in Hebrew all over it, Jehovah-Nissi "God My Banner"; Jehovah-Rohi "God My Shepherd", Jehovah-Shammah "God is present" etc, about a dozen similar names of God. The object that appeared over my chest that moved away and suspended in air for about a minute looked similar to that blanket with similar material, similar color and size, but the Names of God were not on it. It was not pleated as it hung, there were no folds but gentle waves in it. And parts of those waves glowed but not a bright light. It was an red-orange light, the color of a red in fire, but not a light like fire a glow with that color. After that last dream they never came again. The last one was about nine years ago.
God showed we both live on, all will be ok, and we'll be content.
I started studying the Bible with My aunt, a Jehovah's Witness, way back in 1975. My aunt saw about 60 of her Bible studies get baptized as Jehovah's Witnesses. I was probably her most difficult student arguing every point I was taught coming up with alternative interpretations. While studying I also attended meetings at the kingdom hall where my grandfather was an elder, my cousin's husband was an elder, his mother a pioneer. I was in the most well connected family in that congregation. My first congregation was like a big family. And the work we did together felt special, the joy of working together accomplishing God's work. I was baptized during a convention at Dodger Stadium in 1976. Before baptism I was already conducting about 5 studies of my own. Partly because of the family I came from, partly because of my enthusiasm for God's work and an ability I displayed in doing it, the elders began using me for tasks right away.
The Bad:
In 1977 I married the nicest person I've ever met to this day. My wife and I were assigned to a book study held inside a private home that was conducted by the elder my study was turned over to shortly before my baptism. I considered him a friend. One day while he and I were working together he said, " You comment a lot at the Watchtower study (a meeting he conducted) but your wife doesn't, she just comments at our book study." I answered, "yes I know I've spoke to her about that." His response was, "Cut her allowance." I listened without replying, and we continued spreading our Bible message. Of course I didn't follow his advise.
The very next Watchtower study the elder stopped calling on me at the WT study. For a very short time all the elders stopped except my cousin's husband. But in short time all stopped that behavior but two. In a very peculiar fashion one that never called on me asked me if I would accept the position of ministerial servant (deacon). I accepted, and I stayed there for about another year serving before leaving for a neighboring congregation. During that time those two refused to call on me at the hall every meeting. After my wife died my aunt told me they had this idea my wife would hold me back from getting promoted to elder, so they came up with this plot to put pressure on me to make her comment. She said three backed out but the two kept it up.
Shortly after I left the best man at my wedding also a MS moved into my new congregation. He told me, "I had trouble with someone at.... I tried to resolve it, but couldn't, so I left." I should have called my grandfather, an elder there, and I regret that I left without saying anything because of the nasty treatment that continued on others.
Several years later I moved to a different county. During an in home book study I spoke out of turn. A young man, a pioneer that I would work with was counseled not to date a young sister he'd been seeing. They were in their late teens. A question was asked, " who do we mark in the congregation?" I assume he asked it because of the counsel this young couple had received. In that small group several people raised their hands and answered giving incomplete answers to the question. My hand was up, and for some reason was not getting called on. I did something I should not have, I said, "My hand is up." The conductor called on me. I said, " When members of the congregation act against scriptural directions but their offense does not warrant disfellowshipping then it's appropriate for members of the congregation to mark them; however, once they stop that offensive behavior the marking should no longer be done." Then because everyone had left out the marking should stop when the offensive behavior stops I said, "You'd better watch out who you mark are it might not be long until you stop associating with yourself." The conductor tipped his head down and snorted like a bull. His wife looked at me with her head slightly tipped and shook her head back and forth as if giving me a warning.
The Ugly:
At the next meeting two elders were standing near me, one whispering to the other, the one receiving the message said while looking at me, "he did what?" After that the Watchtower study conductor stopped calling on me and stopped calling on my eight year old son. Our congregation got too thin so the circuit overseer sent 50 members in from a neighboring congregation. I let the not calling go one about a year. After that I told some of these new elders about it, and why I thought it happened including what I did that I believe they reacted to. They believed and asked me to talk to a circuit overseer who believed it.
I moved to another county I saw the same behavior. And this time for a reason possibly even more petty. I was targeted because someone spoke to me about their college experience? I found others including an elder used by the circuit overseer to go in and change operating policy was resented he and his family were targeted resulting in too much hurt for his grown daughter, so she stopped attending. I sent in what I knew to WT. Then about 4 years ago I heard Anthony Morris III (GB member) make some ridiculous statements during his national presentation. To me the most controversial teaching was when he spent quite some time teaching that baptized JW men who are 21 or 22 years of age and older that have not been appointed the office of ministerial servant (deacon) by the Watchtower society are not and should not be considered by single Christian sisters as appropriate marriage candidates. I researched WT and found their teachings and methods wanting.
The Miraculous:
One thing WT teaches is that God does not contact people today as he did in biblical days. So, I believed he didn't because of what I was taught. I learned he does, because I was contacted several times and God gave me proof those were contacts from him. The first time it happened I saw a part of my life that didn't materialized until 4 or 5 years after the contact. Then after that materialized I was contacted 3 or 4 more times. I can only have you understand some of the detail but it's the details that furnish the me the proof. I saw my future in too much detail to be coincidental. At first I had a dream. I was living in a house with some of my children but my wife was no longer with us about 5 years before she died. The house looked exactly like the house my wife and I had built 3 years before she died. It was furnished exactly like in the dream even though she picked out some of the furniture without me and brought it home before I saw it. A month after she died the furnishings were different than in my dream and a month before she died furnishings were different. We had a living room set on lay away that I received a month after she died, and we had taken the furniture out of the dining room to replace it a month before she died. But in my dream the furnishings were like they were when she died including bedroom furnishing that I did not see until she brought those home, and those were exactly like in my dream. After we moved in that house I told my family I had a dream I had lived there. I told my mother the same thing and said that my wife was no longer with us.
This is why it happened. A day or so after her death I went to bed and asked God to see her in my dreams. The first time I saw her there we were conversing in a park. Other people were there but not with us. The next day or in a couple days I said a similar prayer to see my wife in my dreams. I went to sleep and saw her. I knew she had died but come back to life, and this was the first time I saw her since she died. I had no recollection of having died myself. In the last one I again asked God to see her in my sleep. This time it was different. Instead of being on the ground I was floating down to the ground at an angle in the air. This is the first time I was afraid. I remembered the scripture in the Mosaic law saying not to inquire of the dead, so seeing my dead wife I got scared and yelled really load, "Jehovah." As soon as I did that I was pulled back up really fast at the same angle I had been descending in. Then I instantly woke up. As soon as I opened my eyes I saw there was an object right over my chest just a few inches above it. My awakening appeared to startle it because it instantly moved away about 5 feet and suspended itself in air . It appeared to hang suspended while I contemplated the thought it had been communicating with me. Then it moved real fast through the room's ceiling to vanish.
When my wife was alive her mother gave her what could be called a blanket, but a real small one, about the size of a tablecloth, but real heavy almost knitted material. My wife used to sometimes cover herself with it. The item had many versions of God's name in Hebrew all over it, Jehovah-Nissi "God My Banner"; Jehovah-Rohi "God My Shepherd", Jehovah-Shammah "God is present" etc, about a dozen similar names of God. The object that appeared over my chest that moved away and suspended in air for about a minute looked similar to that blanket with similar material, similar color and size, but the Names of God were not on it. It was not pleated as it hung, there were no folds but gentle waves in it. And parts of those waves glowed but not a bright light. It was an red-orange light, the color of a red in fire, but not a light like fire a glow with that color. After that last dream they never came again. The last one was about nine years ago.
God showed we both live on, all will be ok, and we'll be content.
-
1
- Show all
