Dear Fellow-Sufferers:
I'm reading your heartbreaking accounts of personal suffering, its often occurring in connection with domestic problems. Below is a paragraph from Aid to Bible Understanding, page 1331, that has always comforted me:
THE ANSWERING OF PRAYERS
"[...] But undoubtedly the most frequent answer [previous discussion on Jehovah's past, overt response to his people's prayers] was not so easily discernible, since it related to giving moral strength and enlightenment, enabling the person to hold to a righteous course and carry out divinely assigned work. Particularly for the Christian the answer to prayers involved matters mainly spiritual, not as spectacular as some powerful acts of God in earlier times, but equally vital."
Dear CoCo
,
What a wonderful expression
and another thread expressed some things that I argee with you.
Prayers and answers happen over time. Listening to the spirit is vital and doesn't necessarily mean that we know HOW to listen to the spirit, the JW's were told not to listen to the spirit inside each of us, but to the spirit coming from the governing body. Very sad! It made some of us dysfunctional in our learning to read and cultivate true holy spirit. Some of us went down some paths that weren't beneficial. The damage from those paths has been long and hard. I'm pleased to be getting some relief
. Satan's out and trying to mess with me though. But, I'm staying safe, I think
. LOL, I couldn't help not using the crazy, funny face smilie! I was thinking about updating my thread with my decisions with my life and found your post. Thank you for sharing your words of comfort
.
One sentence that slightly skews me is the part where matters mainly spiritual is not exactly complete. The spirit does make intercessions for us in our daily conduct, not mainly spiritual. The spirit is not easily discernible, that's why we get a chance to make adjustments. That's my two cents anyways.
Thank you for writing
.
With Sisterly Love, Debbie
Dear Debbie,
I appreciate your intelligent and heartfelt reply. Since I worked on the Big Blue Book, I've always been a bit partial toward it, despite some thoughts not being spot on. If you have the Aid book, you might find paragraph 5, page 955, interesting. It begins "Some critics think it incredible that the Ninevites, ..."
It's an explanation of why Jonah's preaching was heeded.
Thanks again!
Christian love,
CoCo
Dear CoCo,
I read a lot from the bible, as very young to age 14, with the big blue book. I kinda liked it, it made easy theocratic school material. I was born in 1971 and could read pretty good before starting school, thanks to my mothers well knitted family of JW girls and one brother. One of the things that made me leave my mom is that she hit my sister over the head with the big blue book because she didn't listen. Its my first flashback. Then I'm OK. I used and found things, when I was young that the spirit helped me find again as an adult. There's some weird mistakes in lots of JW material, though.
I found a book and a poem. It made me think of myself and then I wanted to share. I'll post it in poetry when I can copy. I have a test to take for sociology and I'm stressing. I don't know why, its pretty logical and we learned human patterns going door to door
. I should take the test and then have a sundae
.
Well, I'll be back, none the less.
So, you authored part of the big blue book? That makes you very interesting, indeed, to see why you are here
and I like your spirit, by the way.
Why the name CoCo? I saw a show on CoCo Chanel a few weeks ago. She was a strong, enduring women. But, if you wrote for the big blue big, you would have to be male, right?
Thanks for your friendship
With Sis Love, Debbie
Greetings, Debbie!
Thank you for your latest reply. It sounds as though you, too, have quite an interesting background. Sorry about that flashback ... We try to move on because the past is over. Yet there are those pesky triggers and we're living the nightmare all over again. For me, it's gotten better with time.
I didn't participate in writing the BBB; I prepared it for printing and, after that, took part in referencing it in another publication for the purpose of research. I knew some of the brothers involved with the actual research and writing of the Aid book.
My name is an abbreviation of compound-complex, a type of sentence structure. CoCo was an afterthought.
It's a pleasure becoming acquainted, and I look forward to chatting again.
Our Father's blessing through Christ,
CoCo