Tina a former Jehovah Witness shares her experiences

my name is Tina Hilton I left I love being a Jehovah's Witness about 15 years ago and so I didn't quite have a plan of what I was going to say tonight I was just going to kind of let God leave me and see where it all took me so I felt like I'm watching part of the video and stuff I'd give my experience of what it was like being a Jehovah's Witness because that was its own ballpark and then I'll tell you a little bit about how I left and what my perspective is now and then I also share a little bit more about some family members they have left and what their perspective is and I try to make it real quick but growing up being a Jehovah's Witness I had like the over-the-top family my mom and my father my dad was an elder my mom was very active in being a Jehovah's Witness and then my aunt was a pioneer what he had talked about my grandfather's were both elders uh-huh and I have an aunt that's like a missionary one that goes a different way into different countries so my family was very over-the-top and my mom was also very overprotective I was very very sheltered growing up I was not allowed to do all the things that they say that you're not allowed to do I didn't celebrate a birthday ever did not celebrate any holidays I was not allowed to have any friends and how would we now it would be allowed to stay home from school so I wouldn't even be exposed to all the demonic forces that would be associated with the holiday trying to think what else I was never allowed to have friends outside of Jehovah's Witnesses so I was encouraged to have friendships within the kingdom Hall I was never if I wanted a girlfriend at school or a buddy I got their phone number I wanted to hook up with them I was not allowed ever ever ever so very tightly kept but in the meantime what's odd about it all because all of that sounds so dysfunctional especially where I stand today but in the in the meantime you also have this like great love and the sense of community like I've never felt before and probably to this day it is like very tight-knit community of fellowship that you have with everybody so it was almost like in your talk that everybody else is thinking is so wrong that you're almost like oh I'm so glad I'm not part of the world and you feel lucky because you're not part of them you're not part of the world and everybody else but at the same time you feel like you're missing out so it's this back and forth feeling and I don't know and so and when it what ended up happening for me personally and what happened for me too for why I left was when I was 16 when I was 13 my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and for three years she bought it and then 16 she died from my 16th to my 17th year my dad was my mom was like the caretaker she did everything and then my dad just lost it and I don't understand because like they had a year two years to prepare and he didn't know how to do anything with the money or cooking or just anything so he he lost it in the midst of that there was family turmoil and it was somewhat abusive of a home so I went from this super loving home to almost like an abusive home in some respects and I decided to I met a guy at work I was or can't toys-r-us I met a guy at work and he offered for me to come and live with him he thought he was rescuing me and so I just wanted out I blamed God for my mom dying I blamed God for my family being crazy at that point now and I didn't want anything to do Jehovah's Witnesses I didn't want anything to do with God or other churches but I don't anything to do with Jehovah's Witnesses oh and that other part about what he was saying about like I remember asking could we go check out another church I want to see what this is like I want to see what you're talking about what we're now allowed to go into oh no way you cannot be exposed to any other kind of thinking there is no way and also I did question things a little bit here and there growing up and I was always told it is what we believe it is what it is right here and so that it just there's no other way of thinking there's just no other way so even if you were to logically make a point in my family at least there was no other way of thinking and you would be guilt-tripped real quick back into it so anyway I ran away my family called the cops like all the time and they ended up I ended up getting arrested when I was 17 years old and they found me and I had to go back and live at home for a couple more months and ended up leaving the students I turned 18 and in there I got pregnant I had my son he was born premature and I was homeless at one point and it was just a very very bad circumstance for me and I said okay this is not working Jehovah's Witnesses kind of had a point and I miss my family and friends so I because I had left all of that at that point and stuff and so I went back I said I told my family I am so sorry please let me come back and so I was just fellowshipped at that point when you're just fellowshipped and you say you want to come back to being a Jehovah's Witness you have to go through this six months of proving yourself and what that means is that you show up at all those meetings that they were talking about those five meetings which is like two meetings on a Sunday morning two on a Tuesday night and one on a Thursday and you just have to sit there with nobody talking to you so I'm there with my little son my one-year-old son who was a handful and I'm by myself I don't know how I'm raising him and I'm just sitting there listening and as I'm listening I'm in my spirit I'm like this just doesn't feel right this doesn't feel like God but not quite like that but at the same time like this is my family this is all I've ever known in the meantime I'm kind of like dabbling maybe a little bit here and there and talking to Christians but not really hearing about God in a real way I end up working for Kirby vacuum cleaners where you are the person that goes door-to-door and tries to sell the vacuum cleaner and the appointment I had wasn't there so we're told to go around the circle of houses and try to see if the you tell the neighbor to get into the house a neighbor said sure come on in so I'm doing the demonstration but in between a demonstration she's sharing she's just asking me questions about my life I'm telling her about my mom how she died group Tova's witness don't know what I'm doing right now at the very end she's like wow sounds like you've been through a lot could I pray for you and I was like uh okay so she comes up and holds my hand and she says a prayer and that was actually like the first time I ever remember someone just saying that can I pray for you like that wasn't a language I heard my house even though prayer was a very big part of our home life it was just more the traditional prayer you know you pray at meals you pray before bed you pray at the kingdom home so but it wasn't like going to God to prayer to pray and I was like wow so she prayed and I was just kind of taken back I think I didn't even really process what was happening when she said well you know I go to this church if you ever want to go check it out I would encourage you to just come and check it out and I went there and it came in a little bit late and I just sat in the back and the pastor at the end was like saying do you want to know Christ do you want a relationship with him and these are words I had never heard and I'm like yeah yeah I want more of God that's what I want and so I did accept Christ that day and then I just remember standing in the church at different points and I remember overhearing like conversations and people were like passionate about God being in their life like oh I'm praying about this or God showed up here and I was just like whoa what is this and so it took me awhile it was a little bit of a journey I met my husband who's over there and but anyway his name's Mike so anyways it took me a little while because at this point I in this time period I had gotten reinstated now I have like all my friends and my family talking to me again so I have this beautiful this beautiful arrangement and it took a lot for me to get to the point to come back and tell them like nope I'm leaving officially now but now it's because I have found Christ now it's not because I'm rebelling anymore it is because I have found found this of course when I told them that I was told I was a demon worshiper uh I was it was just not pretty it was not good and once again I lost every one of my friends and family so I was literally a single mom somewhere in there my dad had met another woman and decided to remarry and when he remarried her I was asking my dad could my sister come and live with me and he left it up to my sister and she said yes she picks to come live with me and she's three years younger so my sister came and lived with me so I'm now a single mom of like a two-year-old and I have a 16 year old sister that's I'm trying to take care of a teenager so that was kind of like my story then it was really chaotic and really crazy there for a long time but I have to tell you in the midst of it and that whole thing about just going to God in prayer it was like almost like I was so desperate and so much like I'd have to hand it over to him and he showed up in such big ways and I could go into lots of stories about that because he still does and so that's the amazing part for me and he did he showed up so much and it just reaffirmed that faith in that like love and that passion and that confirmation that I was doing and I left for the right reason but in the same token it has been like a long journey leaving it has been really hard that sense of community is a hard thing to come by and also I had a very hard time wrapping my mind around Bible doctrines like it was very hard I went to a pastor a lot I went to my husband a lot asking him lots and lots of questions and there's some times I just had to come to like a sense of it's okay if I don't have it all figured out it's okay because it's all early about the relationship that you have and your walk and your journey and so for me personally that's where I come back to so even if I can't always line up every single thing in the Bible doctrinally which for the most part now I'd say but definitely at the beginning where it's really hard because Jehovah's Witnesses are very black-and-white there is no gray there's no balance it is black or it is white and I have definitely learned that you know like it doesn't have to be that way and to me like the more you focus on your walk in your relationship like everything else kind of falls into place and you follow you know reading the Bible and you're just that journey the relationship aspect of it and so like it usually when I talk to people what I try to say is when you're talking to Jehovah's Witnesses or you have an opportunity to share with them or be friends with them at work or they're coming to your door or whatever I can tell you that the one thing that they never ever hear is that can I pray for you or what God is doing in your life him being active that doesn't happen in Jehovah's Witness world it doesn't it doesn't it's doctrine doctrine and doctrine and teach and following all that stuff so if you ever have an opportunity to say I'm praying about this or can I pray for you about that or share your testimony or share what God is doing right now for you those are all that's a foreign language to them but that gives them a piece of who Christ is and it lets them have this exposure to him in that way and so they think that is like I always just say that's like a really good way to reach to hope as witnesses because they just don't know that part and and I think that the other thing that you have to keep in mind with Jehovah's Witnesses and like as he's teaching you all to like this is how you can this is how you can dispute Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses can have one Bible verse and you could have 20 and they will come back to their one they will always come back to their one so it does not matter that you have twenty verses and for most of them if it's if it's a different scenario it's because they're already doubting and then you have a way to get in that way so anyways that's my own personal experience but as far as like my family I just in this past nine months or so on Facebook my cousin Tiffany Facebook - my sister and me and she said we also have left and my whole family my soul my two cousins and my aunt my uncle who live in Tennessee and we just had the opportunity to go on vacation with one of my cousins and my aunt and my uncle this past June which was a prayer answered in a prayer like almost I didn't truly believe whatever happened Like a Prayer I put out there but like yeah we'll see can't believe it when I see it so when we it was it was a very beautiful vacation it was it this whole past year has been like oh my goodness the hand of God never stops and never ever stops but so for their experience and for them leaving and it was interesting hearing their perspective because they just left recently and so he also wasn't elder his wife was a pioneer very active in being Jehovah's Witnesses and so for them it was I was very curious to see where they were at and why would they leave and for them it was actually doing what he's talking about it was going in a they were in a Bible study with somebody and they had their Bible out and she says well how come your Bible says that but my Bible doesn't say that and he was just like hmm and she's like because with the way my Bible reads it it doesn't make it sound like that and the way your Bible makes it sound it makes it sound like this and he went and looked up he went and researched the actual a Greek translation of it and he said you're right Jehovah's Witnesses are twisting it on top of that they have this whole belief system I think that in 1914 is supposed to be the generation sees then come and that generation is dying off now there's not too many people left so their prophecy or their prediction or whatever is not true so I think a mixture of two different things so for him it wasn't so much that I've given my heart to Christ and I can really see his hand in my life like it was for me it was about going to the scripture and like yeah you actually did make a point and so I think it's awesome and always good to know you definitely know your Bible and and and be able to you know go back and forth with them I think just keep in mind that their perspective is always that they'll always kind of come back to their one Bible verse it's kind of like their heart has to be open to it and that's why if you can just establish a relationship with them a friendship that's more I think where you're going to have their heart be open to any scripture you can show or to even get to that point you know or whatever and and I think the only other thing I was thinking of during all of this is that the Jehovah's Witnesses don't prepare people for the real world at least when I was in it you weren't taught to save for retirement I was not taught I was taught not to go to college you do not seek anything you don't do anything with the military you don't support your government you just submit to them or whatever and so like my my uncle right now is in a position where he's in his 50s and he has no retirement he has no like plan he has no way to because he because for them they thought it was going to be the end was coming oh and then the one other thing I wanted to share with you is I had I just had the opportunity to reach out to my dad after many years of not talking to him and I asked him if I could talk with him it's taken me all of this time literally all of this time to make peace with the situation where I did not have bitterness and a deep pain and somewhat anger looking at my family because I have three beautiful children and under Jehovah's Witness guidelines when a daughter or child leaves Jehovah's Witnesses they still have the opportunity to beat the grandkids because the grandkids are innocent and so all of my family has chosen to never see my children so my children have no grandparents or aunts and uncles besides my sister and so it's hard to not resent them but oh and even like when my grandmother died two years ago I went to her funeral at the Kingdom Hall just you know just to give you an idea of what the funeral was like they didn't even talk about my grandma they didn't talk about her one bit they gave the Jehovah's Witness lecture like it was like oh and my kids were sitting in there for it but um yeah and so anyways I went see my father and with him mmm it's always like don't you miss the truth don't it was it was two hours i sat there with him and I was telling him I'm sorry for the things that I have done and that I have no more bitterness and no more hurt and if it does come inside of me I'm choosing to let it go like I'm not staying in that place anymore you know I've been there for a lot of years and so I'm sitting there with him I'm talking with him and he's just like well don't you think your mom would be so disappointed it's like a guilt trip they guilt you into it and I'm like I won't go into all the details of that but it was like you should come back to the truth they do you and I was telling him I'm like telling him about mallesh as you want me to come back to jehovah's witnesses I want you to know God the way I know him he's like what do you call him Jehovah it comes back to these like things and and I said you know does it even really matter but the one cool thing and I did say yes I said yes I call him Jehovah but he has other names in the Bible but you know when it all comes down to it the one part of it I was sharing like how God shows up in my life and I as much as you want me to be back to being a Jehovah's Witness I really would love for you to understand and see God the way I get to see him because it's so amazing and he's like well I did have this one way that God showed up for me and he tried to tell me about this thing with Social Security and it but just but yes but just let me tell you my entire time growing up we never once said God showed up for me God doesn't show up for people and Jehovah's Witnesses that that's just not language that you hear so even for my father to try to impress me by saying well God did show up this way for me and his hand was out my life are that way it was but anyway that's all I really have to share and if anybody if you do know anybody that is trying to leave or is thinking about leaving and just need somebody that's been there done that you know please feel free to contact me and I would always love to be a support structure you know or help somebody do that that time period I've never actually been able to do that but if I ever had the opportunity to because you are leaving everything and you need that you need someone that maybe has been there done that I would I could have really used that and didn't have it so that would have been really nice for me and it's all I have okay [Applause]

Channel: Truthdebate

Views: 1,395,408

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Id: dAczIObBWI4

Length: 19min 1sec (1141 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 22 2013