Testimony My way in and out of Jehovah's Witnesses

Susan Joy Ryea

New member
Aug 2, 2021
1
2
3
I was raised Catholic in the state of Vermont. It at least gave me a basis of faith, but not a lot else. As a child I was a victim of incest and when I found out the teachings on fornication and the churches view on a girl not being a virgin at marriage, I become very discouraged and promiscuous. This later led to me becoming the victim of a high school teacher. We use to walk to a vocational center from our high school for afternoon classes, and it was not far from the Catholic church. I new when the priest was in the confessional, so one day I detoured and went to the confessional in search of help. What I got was a rant about my guilt and to make sure that I did not try to blame the teacher. This put a lot of scars on my heart in regards the Catholic church.

In 1988, when I was almost 23 years old and pregnant with my fourth child, married since shortly after I turned 18, my sister was killed in a car accident due to a winter storm on February 12. Her funeral was on the 15th, her 24th birthday. She had gotten married when she was 18 and had 2 children the same ages as my two oldest children 4 and 2. At her funeral, all I heard the priest saying was how guilty of sin my sister was and how she could only receive a right to heaven if we prayed hard enough for her.

*I do not know why the Catholic church in Vermont taught things these ways. The Catholic church I attended with my dad, after my mom died and I became his care taker, in South Carolina did not teach this way.

Between the high school issue and my sister's funeral, I was desperately looking for God, and not believing the Catholic church new him. In September, after my fourth child was born, Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on my door. This was the first time I had ever talked with them. They quickly began a bible study with me, and I thought I had found what I had been seeking. Things moved rapidly forward, and I was baptized. My husband followed in my wake and we stepped into what I would later recognize as quicksand.

While we were in the organization we went out in service at least 2 days a week. We attended all the meetings, Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, Sundays. I studied everything, fully. I looked up every reference, every scripture. I answered every question. I became very proficient in finding texts in my bible. My husband would eventually become a ministerial servant. Which did not make a lot of sense to me. I love my husband and say the following not to make him look bad. I knew when I married my husband that he was not the greatest of readers. But I always encouraged him to do it anyways.

I had read all the articles, I knew what was expected from the organization of husbands and fathers. I had been the one researching and writing all of my husband's talks. About the only thing he studied was his Watchtower study, and minimally. I was the one studying with our children. When they announced him as a ministerial servant, I questioned them. Their response was that he 'let' me study with the children, and by researching and writing his talks, I was being his helper. That may have some truth, at least the last part. But I was becoming frustrated with every second that my husband was home and awake, he was expected to be at the Kingdom Hall or out in service.

We had had two more children. Due to my husband's rarity within the home, I had insisted on homeschooling our children. That may not make sense, but it did to me. If I was going to have to do all the training of our children by myself, I could not handle it being torn apart on a daily basis in the public school. Our youngest child ended up having some breathing issues and this brought complications with taking him to the Kingdom Hall and getting exposed to cold viruses during the long Vermont winters.

I started receiving a lot of harassment from individuals within the congregation. About my homeschooling the children instead of putting them in public school to 'minister'. I received condemnation for not being at the Kingdom Hall, and going out in service. All of this eventually led to my having a near breakdown. Then I saw something that would begin changing everything in my mind. We were at a week long assembly in Massachusetts. I was walking the halls during a speech, trying to get our youngest to go to sleep. Outside was a member of 'the antichrist' as they were warning us. They were holding a sign. It said, Have you read your Bible today?

My immediate thought was that this person didn't know how much we read our bibles. And then another thought passed through my mind. Have you? And then I started thinking about all the scriptures I had read for the different studies, and my mind was not registering it as 'reading'. I was all over the place in the bible, but I had not 'read' my bible. So I left that assembly with one determination. I was going to start reading my bible. And we did. We started at the beginning and we read, as a family (my husband included), every day. This process took a few years.

As a homeschooling mom, I had begun to look for reading materials for my children and along the way I ended up getting some fiction books that looked to be clean and with moral values. I did not notice originally that they were labeled as Christian fiction. As a JW, I felt I had an obligation to read and know everything that my children were learning and reading. So, on top of all the Watchtower publications and studies that I was doing for the meetings, I was studying over everything my children were learning.

When the nervous breakdown came, my husband and I decided that we would return to dairy farm work, like we had been doing until the year of my sister's death. This gave my husband more time to be with the kids, as we would be living and working at the same location. This was a huge benefit to our family, and of course was met with much more opposition from the congregation. I didn't really care. I was finding much more peace having my husband home and all of us being able to work together.

I did however still do all the studies, but we had moved into a different area and were supposed to go to a new kingdom hall. We never did go there very often. So I guess we had started to make a slow fade, as I here it called today. When we had been in the original area, I use to call on a younger sister of one of my high school friends. She lived in a rough situation and lost her first young daughter in a horrible accident. Her family thought I could help her, as I wasn't afraid to talk about biblical matters. As it turned out, she was the one that was strong in faith. I had gone to her and was blown away with the strength of her faith and the simplicity of it as well. I had tried to use all the taught logic about Greek texts that I didn't know how to read. Her response was, "I don't know how to read Greek, and even if you do, I wouldn't know if you translated it right." I didn't know how to read it and her statement made me wonder why I didn't question what I had been told it said.

There were a few other conversations with her as well, and I always left baffled. Not confused, baffled. Baffled over her unshakable faith. She had also been raised in the Catholic church. I knew she didn't get it there. If I had 'the truth', why was my faith not unshakable? In the spring of 1998, I did something bold. I called this friend, and I asked her to show me how she came to have the faith she had. And her answer was so wise. She told me that as we were raised in the Catholic church, we were always told what to think about God. She went on to say that I had moved to another religion that did the same, but to a greater extreme. She said that if she told me who God was, then she would be another source telling me who God was. And then she said something that seemed odd. "Ask Him to show you Himself."

How was I supposed to do that?! So after a restless night of trying to figure it out, I prayed this prayer. "God, I don't have any idea what C is talking about. Asking You to tell me about Yourself. But I am going to trust that You do. I don't know what way, shape or form this is going to look like, but You do. So, starting today, I am not going to read ANY literature, not from the Watchtower society, not from secular sources either, for two weeks. I am asking You to show me Yourself. The only source I will look at, is this partial Bible." I do not recall or any longer have that Bible. It was a New Testament which included Psalms and Proverbs. It was one that I had picked up at a yard sale before my sister had died, so I felt it was untainted.

That same day, my husband walked into the house at 7am and stated that he had a line on some chickens if I still wanted to get some for a homeschool project. That may seem like it doesn't belong. But it does, because just a few hours after I had prayed, God was already answering. The people with the chickens saw us pull in with our big van and saw the children with us, on a school day. They were a homeschooling family that taught at homeschooling conventions (something we never did go to). They brought us into their home for a moment and showed us some literature they published, and it was easy to recognize that they were 'born again' Christians. They were shocked when they learned that we were JW's. They did however give us their literature anyway.

We went home and I so wanted to get into that literature, but I did not. I just kept watching and listening. The next thing that came up, was just this 'whisper' within me to look at 1 John 2:27. This was not a text that I was familiar with. What I found made me drop to my knees. I didn't need anyone to teach me. He was able to teach me Himself, just like He had already been doing! Now, I did not take this to mean that other people never have other information that can help us understand things. But the idea that I required the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society to teach me the Bible suddenly had been popped. I did believe that the Bible was God's Word. And suddenly I understood. If it is His Word, He doesn't 'have' to have anyone else teach it to us. He is fully capable of doing it Himself. I recognized that He could use others if He chose to, but He didn't have to.

So my years in JWs lasted ten years, my husband and an older sister followed me in, and also followed me out. Neither of them seem to have a very strong faith though. Which may be partially do to my having a great distrust in people. I had this issue as a child, and with events of the last year and a half, I recognize that I have not overcome this issue. But I have God. I know who my Redeemer is.

* I also recognize now, after seeing sites like yours and some other interviews with exjws, why when I approached the elders about a 'sister' who was beating her children severely, they did nothing.
 
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Rosie

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Bible Challenge
Oct 7, 2020
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I was raised Catholic in the state of Vermont. It at least gave me a basis of faith, but not a lot else. As a child I was a victim of incest and when I found out the teachings on fornication and the churches view on a girl not being a virgin at marriage, I become very discouraged and promiscuous. This later led to me becoming the victim of a high school teacher. We use to walk to a vocational center from our high school for afternoon classes, and it was not far from the Catholic church. I new when the priest was in the confessional, so one day I detoured and went to the confessional in search of help. What I got was a rant about my guilt and to make sure that I did not try to blame the teacher. This put a lot of scars on my heart in regards the Catholic church.

In 1988, when I was almost 23 years old and pregnant with my fourth child, married since shortly after I turned 18, my sister was killed in a car accident due to a winter storm on February 12. Her funeral was on the 15th, her 24th birthday. She had gotten married when she was 18 and had 2 children the same ages as my two oldest children 4 and 2. At her funeral, all I heard the priest saying was how guilty of sin my sister was and how she could only receive a right to heaven if we prayed hard enough for her.

*I do not know why the Catholic church in Vermont taught things these ways. The Catholic church I attended with my dad, after my mom died and I became his care taker, in South Carolina did not teach this way.

Between the high school issue and my sister's funeral, I was desperately looking for God, and not believing the Catholic church new him. In September, after my fourth child was born, Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on my door. This was the first time I had ever talked with them. They quickly began a bible study with me, and I thought I had found what I had been seeking. Things moved rapidly forward, and I was baptized. My husband followed in my wake and we stepped into what I would later recognize as quicksand.

While we were in the organization we went out in service at least 2 days a week. We attended all the meetings, Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, Sundays. I studied everything, fully. I looked up every reference, every scripture. I answered every question. I became very proficient in finding texts in my bible. My husband would eventually become a ministerial servant. Which did not make a lot of sense to me. I love my husband and say the following not to make him look bad. I knew when I married my husband that he was not the greatest of readers. But I always encouraged him to do it anyways.

I had read all the articles, I knew what was expected from the organization of husbands and fathers. I had been the one researching and writing all of my husband's talks. About the only thing he studied was his Watchtower study, and minimally. I was the one studying with our children. When they announced him as a ministerial servant, I questioned them. Their response was that he 'let' me study with the children, and by researching and writing his talks, I was being his helper. That may have some truth, at least the last part. But I was becoming frustrated with every second that my husband was home and awake, he was expected to be at the Kingdom Hall or out in service.

We had had two more children. Due to my husband's rarity within the home, I had insisted on homeschooling our children. That may not make sense, but it did to me. If I was going to have to do all the training of our children by myself, I could not handle it being torn apart on a daily basis in the public school. Our youngest child ended up having some breathing issues and this brought complications with taking him to the Kingdom Hall and getting exposed to cold viruses during the long Vermont winters.

I started receiving a lot of harassment from individuals within the congregation. About my homeschooling the children instead of putting them in public school to 'minister'. I received condemnation for not being at the Kingdom Hall, and going out in service. All of this eventually led to my having a near breakdown. Then I saw something that would begin changing everything in my mind. We were at a week long assembly in Massachusetts. I was walking the halls during a speech, trying to get our youngest to go to sleep. Outside was a member of 'the antichrist' as they were warning us. They were holding a sign. It said, Have you read your Bible today?

My immediate thought was that this person didn't know how much we read our bibles. And then another thought passed through my mind. Have you? And then I started thinking about all the scriptures I had read for the different studies, and my mind was not registering it as 'reading'. I was all over the place in the bible, but I had not 'read' my bible. So I left that assembly with one determination. I was going to start reading my bible. And we did. We started at the beginning and we read, as a family (my husband included), every day. This process took a few years.

As a homeschooling mom, I had begun to look for reading materials for my children and along the way I ended up getting some fiction books that looked to be clean and with moral values. I did not notice originally that they were labeled as Christian fiction. As a JW, I felt I had an obligation to read and know everything that my children were learning and reading. So, on top of all the Watchtower publications and studies that I was doing for the meetings, I was studying over everything my children were learning.

When the nervous breakdown came, my husband and I decided that we would return to dairy farm work, like we had been doing until the year of my sister's death. This gave my husband more time to be with the kids, as we would be living and working at the same location. This was a huge benefit to our family, and of course was met with much more opposition from the congregation. I didn't really care. I was finding much more peace having my husband home and all of us being able to work together.

I did however still do all the studies, but we had moved into a different area and were supposed to go to a new kingdom hall. We never did go there very often. So I guess we had started to make a slow fade, as I here it called today. When we had been in the original area, I use to call on a younger sister of one of my high school friends. She lived in a rough situation and lost her first young daughter in a horrible accident. Her family thought I could help her, as I wasn't afraid to talk about biblical matters. As it turned out, she was the one that was strong in faith. I had gone to her and was blown away with the strength of her faith and the simplicity of it as well. I had tried to use all the taught logic about Greek texts that I didn't know how to read. Her response was, "I don't know how to read Greek, and even if you do, I wouldn't know if you translated it right." I didn't know how to read it and her statement made me wonder why I didn't question what I had been told it said.

There were a few other conversations with her as well, and I always left baffled. Not confused, baffled. Baffled over her unshakable faith. She had also been raised in the Catholic church. I knew she didn't get it there. If I had 'the truth', why was my faith not unshakable? In the spring of 1998, I did something bold. I called this friend, and I asked her to show me how she came to have the faith she had. And her answer was so wise. She told me that as we were raised in the Catholic church, we were always told what to think about God. She went on to say that I had moved to another religion that did the same, but to a greater extreme. She said that if she told me who God was, then she would be another source telling me who God was. And then she said something that seemed odd. "Ask Him to show you Himself."

How was I supposed to do that?! So after a restless night of trying to figure it out, I prayed this prayer. "God, I don't have any idea what C is talking about. Asking You to tell me about Yourself. But I am going to trust that You do. I don't know what way, shape or form this is going to look like, but You do. So, starting today, I am not going to read ANY literature, not from the Watchtower society, not from secular sources either, for two weeks. I am asking You to show me Yourself. The only source I will look at, is this partial Bible." I do not recall or any longer have that Bible. It was a New Testament which included Psalms and Proverbs. It was one that I had picked up at a yard sale before my sister had died, so I felt it was untainted.

That same day, my husband walked into the house at 7am and stated that he had a line on some chickens if I still wanted to get some for a homeschool project. That may seem like it doesn't belong. But it does, because just a few hours after I had prayed, God was already answering. The people with the chickens saw us pull in with our big van and saw the children with us, on a school day. They were a homeschooling family that taught at homeschooling conventions (something we never did go to). They brought us into their home for a moment and showed us some literature they published, and it was easy to recognize that they were 'born again' Christians. They were shocked when they learned that we were JW's. They did however give us their literature anyway.

We went home and I so wanted to get into that literature, but I did not. I just kept watching and listening. The next thing that came up, was just this 'whisper' within me to look at 1 John 2:27. This was not a text that I was familiar with. What I found made me drop to my knees. I didn't need anyone to teach me. He was able to teach me Himself, just like He had already been doing! Now, I did not take this to mean that other people never have other information that can help us understand things. But the idea that I required the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society to teach me the Bible suddenly had been popped. I did believe that the Bible was God's Word. And suddenly I understood. If it is His Word, He doesn't 'have' to have anyone else teach it to us. He is fully capable of doing it Himself. I recognized that He could use others if He chose to, but He didn't have to.

So my years in JWs lasted ten years, my husband and an older sister followed me in, and also followed me out. Neither of them seem to have a very strong faith though. Which may be partially do to my having a great distrust in people. I had this issue as a child, and with events of the last year and a half, I recognize that I have not overcome this issue. But I have God. I know who my Redeemer is.

* I also recognize now, after seeing sites like yours and some other interviews with exjws, why when I approached the elders about a 'sister' who was beating her children severely, they did nothing.
Thank you for sharing about your life, we can't make this stuff up, no one would in their right mind. And yet we all lived some craziness in the org. I am so happy that you got your whole family out with you.
 

deebibliophile

Active member
Buddy
Bible Challenge
Oct 12, 2020
137
177
43
I was raised Catholic in the state of Vermont. It at least gave me a basis of faith, but not a lot else. As a child I was a victim of incest and when I found out the teachings on fornication and the churches view on a girl not being a virgin at marriage, I become very discouraged and promiscuous. This later led to me becoming the victim of a high school teacher. We use to walk to a vocational center from our high school for afternoon classes, and it was not far from the Catholic church. I new when the priest was in the confessional, so one day I detoured and went to the confessional in search of help. What I got was a rant about my guilt and to make sure that I did not try to blame the teacher. This put a lot of scars on my heart in regards the Catholic church.

In 1988, when I was almost 23 years old and pregnant with my fourth child, married since shortly after I turned 18, my sister was killed in a car accident due to a winter storm on February 12. Her funeral was on the 15th, her 24th birthday. She had gotten married when she was 18 and had 2 children the same ages as my two oldest children 4 and 2. At her funeral, all I heard the priest saying was how guilty of sin my sister was and how she could only receive a right to heaven if we prayed hard enough for her.

*I do not know why the Catholic church in Vermont taught things these ways. The Catholic church I attended with my dad, after my mom died and I became his care taker, in South Carolina did not teach this way.

Between the high school issue and my sister's funeral, I was desperately looking for God, and not believing the Catholic church new him. In September, after my fourth child was born, Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on my door. This was the first time I had ever talked with them. They quickly began a bible study with me, and I thought I had found what I had been seeking. Things moved rapidly forward, and I was baptized. My husband followed in my wake and we stepped into what I would later recognize as quicksand.

While we were in the organization we went out in service at least 2 days a week. We attended all the meetings, Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, Sundays. I studied everything, fully. I looked up every reference, every scripture. I answered every question. I became very proficient in finding texts in my bible. My husband would eventually become a ministerial servant. Which did not make a lot of sense to me. I love my husband and say the following not to make him look bad. I knew when I married my husband that he was not the greatest of readers. But I always encouraged him to do it anyways.

I had read all the articles, I knew what was expected from the organization of husbands and fathers. I had been the one researching and writing all of my husband's talks. About the only thing he studied was his Watchtower study, and minimally. I was the one studying with our children. When they announced him as a ministerial servant, I questioned them. Their response was that he 'let' me study with the children, and by researching and writing his talks, I was being his helper. That may have some truth, at least the last part. But I was becoming frustrated with every second that my husband was home and awake, he was expected to be at the Kingdom Hall or out in service.

We had had two more children. Due to my husband's rarity within the home, I had insisted on homeschooling our children. That may not make sense, but it did to me. If I was going to have to do all the training of our children by myself, I could not handle it being torn apart on a daily basis in the public school. Our youngest child ended up having some breathing issues and this brought complications with taking him to the Kingdom Hall and getting exposed to cold viruses during the long Vermont winters.

I started receiving a lot of harassment from individuals within the congregation. About my homeschooling the children instead of putting them in public school to 'minister'. I received condemnation for not being at the Kingdom Hall, and going out in service. All of this eventually led to my having a near breakdown. Then I saw something that would begin changing everything in my mind. We were at a week long assembly in Massachusetts. I was walking the halls during a speech, trying to get our youngest to go to sleep. Outside was a member of 'the antichrist' as they were warning us. They were holding a sign. It said, Have you read your Bible today?

My immediate thought was that this person didn't know how much we read our bibles. And then another thought passed through my mind. Have you? And then I started thinking about all the scriptures I had read for the different studies, and my mind was not registering it as 'reading'. I was all over the place in the bible, but I had not 'read' my bible. So I left that assembly with one determination. I was going to start reading my bible. And we did. We started at the beginning and we read, as a family (my husband included), every day. This process took a few years.

As a homeschooling mom, I had begun to look for reading materials for my children and along the way I ended up getting some fiction books that looked to be clean and with moral values. I did not notice originally that they were labeled as Christian fiction. As a JW, I felt I had an obligation to read and know everything that my children were learning and reading. So, on top of all the Watchtower publications and studies that I was doing for the meetings, I was studying over everything my children were learning.

When the nervous breakdown came, my husband and I decided that we would return to dairy farm work, like we had been doing until the year of my sister's death. This gave my husband more time to be with the kids, as we would be living and working at the same location. This was a huge benefit to our family, and of course was met with much more opposition from the congregation. I didn't really care. I was finding much more peace having my husband home and all of us being able to work together.

I did however still do all the studies, but we had moved into a different area and were supposed to go to a new kingdom hall. We never did go there very often. So I guess we had started to make a slow fade, as I here it called today. When we had been in the original area, I use to call on a younger sister of one of my high school friends. She lived in a rough situation and lost her first young daughter in a horrible accident. Her family thought I could help her, as I wasn't afraid to talk about biblical matters. As it turned out, she was the one that was strong in faith. I had gone to her and was blown away with the strength of her faith and the simplicity of it as well. I had tried to use all the taught logic about Greek texts that I didn't know how to read. Her response was, "I don't know how to read Greek, and even if you do, I wouldn't know if you translated it right." I didn't know how to read it and her statement made me wonder why I didn't question what I had been told it said.

There were a few other conversations with her as well, and I always left baffled. Not confused, baffled. Baffled over her unshakable faith. She had also been raised in the Catholic church. I knew she didn't get it there. If I had 'the truth', why was my faith not unshakable? In the spring of 1998, I did something bold. I called this friend, and I asked her to show me how she came to have the faith she had. And her answer was so wise. She told me that as we were raised in the Catholic church, we were always told what to think about God. She went on to say that I had moved to another religion that did the same, but to a greater extreme. She said that if she told me who God was, then she would be another source telling me who God was. And then she said something that seemed odd. "Ask Him to show you Himself."

How was I supposed to do that?! So after a restless night of trying to figure it out, I prayed this prayer. "God, I don't have any idea what C is talking about. Asking You to tell me about Yourself. But I am going to trust that You do. I don't know what way, shape or form this is going to look like, but You do. So, starting today, I am not going to read ANY literature, not from the Watchtower society, not from secular sources either, for two weeks. I am asking You to show me Yourself. The only source I will look at, is this partial Bible." I do not recall or any longer have that Bible. It was a New Testament which included Psalms and Proverbs. It was one that I had picked up at a yard sale before my sister had died, so I felt it was untainted.

That same day, my husband walked into the house at 7am and stated that he had a line on some chickens if I still wanted to get some for a homeschool project. That may seem like it doesn't belong. But it does, because just a few hours after I had prayed, God was already answering. The people with the chickens saw us pull in with our big van and saw the children with us, on a school day. They were a homeschooling family that taught at homeschooling conventions (something we never did go to). They brought us into their home for a moment and showed us some literature they published, and it was easy to recognize that they were 'born again' Christians. They were shocked when they learned that we were JW's. They did however give us their literature anyway.

We went home and I so wanted to get into that literature, but I did not. I just kept watching and listening. The next thing that came up, was just this 'whisper' within me to look at 1 John 2:27. This was not a text that I was familiar with. What I found made me drop to my knees. I didn't need anyone to teach me. He was able to teach me Himself, just like He had already been doing! Now, I did not take this to mean that other people never have other information that can help us understand things. But the idea that I required the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society to teach me the Bible suddenly had been popped. I did believe that the Bible was God's Word. And suddenly I understood. If it is His Word, He doesn't 'have' to have anyone else teach it to us. He is fully capable of doing it Himself. I recognized that He could use others if He chose to, but He didn't have to.

So my years in JWs lasted ten years, my husband and an older sister followed me in, and also followed me out. Neither of them seem to have a very strong faith though. Which may be partially do to my having a great distrust in people. I had this issue as a child, and with events of the last year and a half, I recognize that I have not overcome this issue. But I have God. I know who my Redeemer is.

* I also recognize now, after seeing sites like yours and some other interviews with exjws, why when I approached the elders about a 'sister' who was beating her children severely, they did nothing.
Hi Susan,
Thank you for sharing your story. I came to a similar conclusion. Why would God need an organization or a person to explain his word to me? As you said, he is more than capable of doing that himself. I agree that sometimes he uses others to help us but they are not the end all and be all of his knowledge and insight and they are imperfect. I am glad you were able to come into a relationship with God.

Dee
 

Lori Jane

Administrator
Buddy
Bible Challenge
Sep 18, 2020
2,206
1,064
113
Central Florida USA
simplychristian.faith
I don't know how I missed this thread from a month ago. I just read it today and was so touched. I especially loved this part - brilliant! Thanks for sharing!

The next thing that came up, was just this 'whisper' within me to look at 1 John 2:27. This was not a text that I was familiar with. What I found made me drop to my knees. I didn't need anyone to teach me. He was able to teach me Himself, just like He had already been doing! Now, I did not take this to mean that other people never have other information that can help us understand things. But the idea that I required the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society to teach me the Bible suddenly had been popped. I did believe that the Bible was God's Word. And suddenly I understood. If it is His Word, He doesn't 'have' to have anyone else teach it to us. He is fully capable of doing it Himself. I recognized that He could use others if He chose to, but He didn't have to.