Fear..

Happy Monday,

How is everyone doing this fine Monday? I do hope you are all doing well and staying safe. All is well here in my little world. I’m in full project mode and trying to get everything done that’s been on my to do list. How was everyone’s weekend? Seems like for many of us, the days just run together. I know for me, Saturday was the first time I think ever, that I didn’t even get dressed. I stayed in my jammies all day. This weekend I didn’t accomplish a whole lot, but I did start on a few things that needed to be handled. I did get a chance to talk to both my sons, so that always makes me happy. I’m supposed to get to hang out for a bit with Kevin and Jagger one day this week, and hopefully I’ll get some Tommy time too.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my blog and where I want to take it, so I hope you can all bear with me as I try different subjects to see what I’m most comfortable writing about and where my passion lies. You see, I’ve been thinking a lot about my faith in God and my life being raised in a very restrictive religion. As I sit here and think back on why I stayed as long as I did, it’s very simple really. Fear. I had a fear of God. I wasn’t afraid to die, it’s never really been something that I was afraid of. My fear of God was misplaced. I feared letting him down, disappointing him and not measuring up to his expectations. Looking back, I can say, my thought process was crazy and beyond reach. Even though I never feared death, I feared being destroyed by God at Armageddon. I feared the “great tribulation,” that I was told was coming. According to the way I was taught, this tribulation was described as, “God’s righteous act against ‘those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news,’ about Jesus Christ.”-JW.org. During this period of tribulation, “Babylon the Great would be destroyed. The nations will have no control over what happens at this point. God will put into their hearts to carry out his thought. What is that thought? To destroy the world empire of false religion, including Christendom. God will put his thought into the hearts of ‘the ten horns’ of the ‘scarlet-colored wild beast’. The ten horns represent all the political powers that support he ‘wild beast’- the United Nations. When those political powers turn on false religion, that will mark the beginning of the great tribulation. It will be a truly catastrophic world event.”-w19 October p. 14-15, JW.org.

I feared if I didn’t do enough, if I wasn’t completely immersed in helping those who I preached to, my family, friends and most important, my sons, I would be met with God’s wrath. In all honesty, my biggest fear was seeing my children persecuted. From the time I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a mom. I loved my children from the very moment I knew they existed. I didn’t want them to suffer and I carried this sense of fear and guilt with me from the time they were conceived. Being a mother won over my reasoning to not have children because of living in the last days. Once the boys were born, once I held them, I didn’t want them ever to face this great tribulation, I didn’t want them to be taken away from me. “All who are devoted to Jehovah and who are loyal to him experience persecution of some sort. However, many Christians have come under pressure that is extremely severe. In modern times, some have been hounded by mobs and thrown into concentration camps, prison’s and labor camps under inhuman conditions. Governments have take on the role of active persecutors, or they have allowed lawless element to run wild with impunity.”-JW.org, W2003. I feared being imprisoned, or being put into a camp and not being able to have my babies with me.

Here I chose to have children in this “wicked” world, being taught, knowing that God was soon to bring on this war, killing everyone that didn’t serve him the way his one and only true people did. “Only Jehovah’s Witnesses, those of the anointed remnant and the ‘great crowd,’ as a united organization under the protection of the Supreme Organizer, have any scriptural hope of surviving the impending end of this doomed system dominated by Satan the Devil.”-W1989, Sept.1,p.19. The photo I’ve posted below is from a Watchtower, 1997, September 1. Photos like this were something I was raised with. The fear of knowing my children would have to see such a war, that I chose to have them and bring them into this impending destruction, was the worst feeling in the world. I feared my choice to be a mother.

The photo below is from one of the children’s books, Learn from the Great Teacher and the photo was described saying, “Jesus said that another part of the sign would be ‘more and more badness.’ That is why there is so much stealing and violence. People everywhere are afraid that someone might try and break into their homes. Never before has there been as much crime and violence in all parts of the world as there is now.”- Chapter 47.

Photos such as these were a part of my entire life. I lived in fear, not for my own life, but for the lives of those I love. I was taught that if I wasn’t living up to my dedication and service to God, then my children would suffer the same consequence as me. They would be destroyed at Armageddon because of my actions. I lived my life in fear. I lived my life fearing not being good enough. I didn’t want my children to ever suffer such events as shown in the photos.

Through my journey over the past couple of years, I have come to learn that God is one of love, and not one to be feared, though I still have fear because of an entire life time of being taught a certain belief system. I have learned so much in my study of God and his word. Salvation is ours if we accept it as a gift from God. “Salvation can be defined as the work of God’s grace by which He pardons our sins and bestows upon us the gift of eternal life. This means we are saved not by our works, but by God’s love and undeserved favor. When Jesus died, he paid our sin debt in full and opened the door for mankind to be saved.”-intouch.org.

My fear is still there. I still doubt myself. I still have in the back of my mind am I doing what’s right in God’s eyes, but I don’t fear God the way I did. I am like an onion, peeling off one layer at at time in hopes of being completely at peace with my choices. I do know God is reading my heart and he knows me better then anyone else. It is for him alone to judge me. I am beginning to experience peace within, thanks to my deep faith in a loving and forgiving God. My fear was displaced. Fear is defined as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat.”-Oxford dictionary. God is not one to cause us pain nor does he threaten us. Psalms 91:2, “I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust!”

“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”-Psalms 118:6. While I still have a fear of man, while I still have some of the fears I developed from my infancy, I do take comfort in knowing “God’s love is like an ocean. You can see it’s beginning, but not its end.”-Rick Warren.

Well my dear family, friends and everyone who may read this, I do hope you are doing well. I hope you are safe and I am thankful to have you with me on this journey and I am so appreciative of you taking time to read my blog. Please leave me a comment or send me a text so I know if I’m on the right path with my writings. Until next time, don’t forget, Love Life++

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