Posted by 5GJW [5thGenerationJW] on April 06, 1999 at 22:35:30 {JK6FUAMFdMlo6QIt25t6ZX9D1q7/.6}:
Several recently have commented on the fact that they had received some benefits from being a JW. This is something that I had thought of myself, in that there once was a time when I needed help, and I found it by becoming a JW.
I should explain here that I grew up living with my mother, but spent a great deal of time with my father going to assemblies, meetings, etc. I was 18, completely adrift, and on my own in a place where I knew no one but JWs. I had moved in with my father the year before, but he had moved to a different town where I did not wish to live. I found that the JWs that I knew were very friendly, and their friendship provided an anchor in the storm that I was passing through. I started to study, became interested in on of the sisters, and was baptized when the elder I was studying with told me that I was ready to do so.
After several years, however, I began to be disturbed by some of the things that I was observing in the cong., and I began to have doubts. I began to feel that I wasn't going anywhere. The anchor that I had found, I discovered, was impossible to raise. It seems that we were all anchored, waiting on Jehovah, unable to move. My personal storm had long since passed, but I was still stationary, not growing, not progressing in any real way. What had seemed like spiritual instruction had degenerated into mindless repetition, and I found myself thinking things like that I was not even going to bother trying to learn what the latest light was on who was the King of the North, it had changed so many times in such a short period of time. I was firmly anchored in the backwater of JW teachings, without the will to try to break free.
After 15 years of being a dub, I did finally cut that anchor loose, but only after a great deal of personal pain and anguish. Did I find some benefit from my experience as a JW? At first, yes, I cannot deny that I was helped through a difficult time by becoming a JW. However, I do think that the pain that being a JW caused me after this initial positive experience left me with an overall negative experience that was orders of magnitude greater than the positive experiences, but I cannot deny that there were some good times.
5GJW, examining his naval