Of all the people I lost because I stopped believing in Jehovah’s Witnesses…

Of all the people, both “friend” and family, I cut off because I finally had self-love and self-respect… because I would no longer shrink or serve to keep their company…

The only one I miss is you.

And yet… I’m not mad at you. I’m not even bitter. I feel sorry for you. I feel so sad that life broke you so completely that you would choose a God you believe would see me as worthy of eternal destruction. Not even “over me” … but at all.

Imagine if our spouses made us choose … them or our kids. Or our kids made us choose… us or your spouse… or our parents made us choose… us or your siblings… or our siblings made us choose… us or our parents. On what planet would that work? And yet your God says… me or them. And yet they say he is a God of love.

Where is that love?

I fail to see it.

I’m sad that you choose to bow down and worship a God who you believe subjects you to demonic attack to prove your worth to him. You believe that the more pain you endure… by spiritual attack, mental illness, the loss of our mom to suicide, the eternal destruction of your baby sister, the potential loss of your children who don’t want to be a witness… if you endure all that maybe… “probably”… you’ll get to live eternally with the God who stood by while you suffered all that. Maybe he will wipe us from your memory so you won’t grieve us.

And I’m sad that you don’t see that is a disgusting God. But I don’t blame you.

Life taught you to fight. To endure. To claw and scream to survive… to earn your safety.

Life taught you … just like it taught me… that love is not free and neither is safety.

But the difference is that I unlearned that lie.

We always deserved love.

We always deserved safety.

This is not another lie from Satan to deter you from your faithful path of suffering.

This is truth.

As a mother… you know it.

What would bring you to give up on your children? What suffering would you allow your children to endure while you stood by? Would you make them face your worst enemy?

No matter how you reason this out so that Jehovah comes out blameless… no matter what cognitive dissonance you must lean into to not lose your faith that Jehovah is a God of love who will one day reward you for how much you’ve bled for him… as if he is not powerful enough to fight his own battles…

The truth will remain.

Jehovah is not the true God.

He is not a God of love.

I can’t make you see that, though.

But I miss you.

Once upon a time you would live with dad just to be next to me. Even though you hated him and he threw you around and beat you. You endured that to be close to me and keep me safe.

You’re doing the same for your children. You think staying in an abusive relationship with Jehovah will save your children. That you’ll set a glorious example… they will “come to their senses” and worship Jehovah with you and earn life everlasting.

But love and safety are not earned.

And love does not ask this.

Lastly… how peculiar it is to grieve someone who still lives and breaths… and to wonder if we will ever speak again in this lifetime. To wonder how many years because of the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Perhaps all of them that remain.

This blog is neither eloquent nor a particularly good read… it doesn’t fill in the blanks. But it’s what was on my mind today.

If not for my fear that the ego death required to leave that cult might take your physical life I would wish for you to leave so that I could have you back in my life… but seeing as it nearly killed me to leave… I only wish you the best rest of your life.

Love,

Your baby sister Corree.