Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsure
Hello,
My name is Vincent. For all of the seventeen years of my life, I have been raised in the Lord's Recovery. I was surrounded by people immersed in the teachings of Witness Lee before I could walk, and had them drilled into my head ever since I was baptized five years ago. Up until about a year prior, I had accepted the Recovery as the highest way and dreamed of being an overcomer in the way Lee had described it.
Now? I. Want. Out.
And I want nothing to do with its members ever again.
However, I am currently ill-equipped to leave the flock of Witness Lee behind (The earliest I can even dream of saying goodbye to the LC is when I get into University next year... Which would involve a lot of loans). As such, unless a miracle occurs and I somehow move out of the house, I am stuck with my fanatically LC-loyal mother for at least 365 days (my father... I'm not sure where he stands anymore. He stopped going to the Sunday meetings five years ago and has been having a mid-life crisis recently). As such, I have been pretending to drink the Kool-Aid like a good little boy, all the while resisting the urge to projectile vomiting it in the face of the serving one feeding me it, smashing the bottle, and flipping the table being used to serve it (to use a... Questionably phrased metaphor). In the meanwhile, I have been collecting information on the LC's past (things like Daystar, the Lee family, etc) but that only really serves to help my case when the time I can actually leave arises. Before that, all I can do is bide my time...
But having struggled with controlling my anger all my life, I'm not sure how much longer I can wait before I lash out at the LC and do something very stupid.
Help? What should I do?
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Hi Vincent,
You are very articulate and perceptive young man. I wonder if maybe your dad may have similar feelings but has kept quiet so as not to poison you? It would be good if you had a non-LC Christian friend you could talk to. It would nice if some young ones who left the LC would comment here. I know of one family where one of the parents was a grandchild of WL and all the kids (young adults now) have left the LC. One married a non-LC person and they are attending a large baptist church. Not sure about the others, but they appear to be happy. Before I finally left the LC I had to stop attending meetings for the same reason you mentioned, I would get so upset in some of the meetings that I was afraid I would say something in heated anger. I think bro Freedom would have the best practical advice on living in the recovery but not being of the recovery. I don't know how he does it, I would have blown a gasket by now. I know you mentioned that you might need loans to go to college. If your family has financial needs you should qualify for grants and scholarships that you don't need to pay back. If you are the first person in your family to graduate from college there may be more grants and scholarships available. I've worked in higher education on and off since the 1980s.
I hope that you will find a bible without the LSM footnotes to read. There is a NT version without the footnotes that you could read without calling attention to yourself by your mother seeing you read a non-LSM version. You might find it satisfying to read several chapters at a time of the Gospel of John without the distracting WL footnotes. Maybe the Lord will give you a glimpse into His life as a man on earth? Another thing you might do is when you read ministry material like HWFMR you can ignore the LSM commentary and just focus on the bible verses themselves. If you are "forced" to share something you can share why or how the verse was important to you. I did this kind of thing for a while and sometimes I think the Lord really blessed me and others.
I believe our Lord Jesus Christ wants to be your shepherd during the next year. Open to Him about your feelings and situation and invite Him to come in and be your shepherd. Outwardly things might not change, but He's great at working inward miracles in our lives. Be strong my brother, many are praying.