Being Raised One of Jehovah's Witnesses

One of the greatest gifts my mother (and father) ever gave me was that of teaching me everything that they knew from the bible. I was raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses from the time I was born. That meant several things for me; for non-witness kids the most noticeable thing about me was I never celebrated holidays (if you wonder why ask me!) or birthdays. Even as a little kid I got used to being different from other kids and learned to be okay with that.
Being a witness also meant going to three meetings a week where we would learn from the bible in an almost school-like way. We studied before going to meetings to better understand what we were learning there. It also included preaching from door to door, doing what Matthew 24:14 taught us to do.If you think being different in school from everyone else, going to meetings to learn about the bible all the time and preaching were easy for a kid... then you would need to think again. But those were times when I learned vital lessons about who I wanted to be and what I wanted my life to be about. I definitely knew what the choice I was making meant for me when I was baptized at the age of 12. I had committed myself to being one Jehovah's people for life- not a thing to be done lightly, and really it wasn't something I could just jump into even if I tried. I had to answer many questions first to prove I knew what course of action I was committing myself to (as everyone who gets baptized as one of Jehovah's Witnesses does).
Just because my parents put all of this hard work into raising me, it doesn't mean I never let them down. Anyone who knows me from high school knows that I was not a shining example of how a Christian should act. I made several HUGE mistakes- I knew better, but thought I was missing out on fun so I did things I shouldn't have. There were several things that I could have been removed from the congregation for. Definitely things that were against the course I had committed myself to when I made my promise to God. I sorta just faded away from the congregation for awhile and did my thing. I have a lot of regrets from those days because a lot of my choices hurt other people, witnesses and non-witnesses alike.We are going through old pictures this week for a sideshow we are doing at Mom's memorial, and one that struck me is at my own graduation- my mom is hugging me and she just looks so SAD. I hate that I hurt her in those days! Mom never gave up on me- she saw the truths she'd taught me as a child as a vehicle to save me from myself. I don't know how many times I asked her to JUST STOP trying to get me to come back!!! I got to the point where I felt so low, like I could never feel good about myself again- I'd made so many bad choices. Mom NEVER gave up on me though, and eventually I woke up. Mom and Dad let me move back in with them and I talked to the "elders" in our congregation who helped me talk about what I had been doing. They could see I really regretted the choices I'd made and they helped me move passed them. They could have chose to remove me- I had shown complete disregard for everything I'd promised and hurt others and myself in the process, but I learned there (and several times since-I'm apparently a slow learner) that the elders want to help me. A person is only removed when they decide that they no longer want to be part of the congregation, and would rather live a life that isn't the one they previously committed to in their babtism.
I am SO grateful for the help the congregation and elders have given me in those times and in times like we are having now.
As an adult I go to meetings and study the bible, and still go in our bible door to door ministry. I'm passing on the gift my parents gave to me to my own children. The hope from what I've learned from the bible is so worth living a life that means swimming against the current(and fighting myself!) on a daily basis. Especially in times like these- losing my mom has been the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. Losing her to cancer was an unimaginable horror. My dad,sister, niece, nephew and I were her primary caregivers that last month, and it was like watching her die in slow motion. A living nightmare for her and for us. The only thing that gets us through it is the hope we have from the bible that if we are loyal to God, we will see her again. When she wakes up she is going to be healthy and feel so much better again (Daniel 12:2 says there will be many of those asleep in the ground of dust who will wake up, these to indefinitely lasting life...). I refuse to let anything ever come between me and that hope ever again.