My journey started 40 years ago. I was married with a toddler and a new born baby. Unfortunately, we had got ourselves into debt which I blamed my husband for and I wasn’t coping very well. This was when I said to God ‘God if you are there, please can you help me.’
The next day two Jehovah’s Witness ladies from the Watchtower organisation knocked on my door. I had never spoken to them before as I would always say politely that I wasn’t interested. This time was different though as I talked to them and accepted a book called ‘You can live forever in paradise on earth.’ I did have to pay £1.50 for it though.
By the time the two JW ladies came back the following week I had read the whole book which seemed to surprise them. There were things in the book that I did feel were odd. The fact that in the book it stated that Jesus was now Michael the archangel back in heaven as he had been before he lived on earth, was one of the things that I found strange. Having no prior Bible knowledge at that time I went along with it. After reading the book though I just knew without a doubt that God was real and that He loved me.
I started what they call a weekly Bible study which is actually a study of their own teachings. The two ladies were really lovely and I was being convinced of the fact that they had the ‘Truth’ that the churches didn’t have. In fact, they told me that no-one in the church can understand the Bible and they had it all wrong. One of the ladies was my age with a young family who I got on really well with. The other was an older lady and she seemed extremely knowledgeable.
There was another thing that bothered me and that was the younger one had left the JW’s for a while, as her husband wasn’t a believer and didn’t like her being involved with them. She went back because it was during the time of the Falklands war and she was scared of not being a JW if Armageddon was coming. It did occur to me that we shouldn’t be in a religion through fear as she seemed to be.
When I told my husband that I was thinking of going to the Kingdom Hall, he didn’t like the idea. He had a childhood friend who was a JW and he said that he thought there was something not right about it. He said, “well if you must do something then can’t you just go to church?”. I did start to go to a church but I couldn’t believe the Trinity doctrine (God being Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one God), due to the JW influence, as I still thought they were right. I prayed that my husband would change his mind and join the JW’s with me. I’m grateful to God that He said no to that request!
I was attending a Church of England church which was lovely, but not one Christian could convince me that Jesus was God! Although I didn’t really think He could be Michael the archangel either… In the meantime, I had persuaded my husband to come to a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade and although he really didn’t want to go, he responded to the altar call invitation to accept Jesus as his Saviour. He then started to go to church with me which meant we could go as a family.
The debt issue was still hanging over us as well as my uncertainty about the Trinity doctrine. I spent a long time in confusion and in the end, I asked God to show me once and for all what was the truth – whether it was the JWs, or the church, that’s where I would go. I wanted above all else to be right with God. The next day I walked into the local Christian bookstore and the first thing that caught my eye was a yellow booklet with bold black lettering which said ‘watchout, watchout, false prophets about.’ I bought the booklet and read it when I got home. It listed all the false prophecies made by the JW organisation. I wrote a letter to the PO box address that was at the bottom of the tract explaining my confusion. I received a lovely letter from a man called Doug Harris along with a book called ‘Awake to the Watchtower.’ I couldn’t put it down and by the time I had finished it I knew without any shadow of doubt that Jesus is the eternal Son of God. Not a created angel…
I felt a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and then knew one hundred percent that Jesus was my Lord and Saviour. Doug Harris who had sent me the book was the founder of a Christian ministry to those lost in cults, false religions and the occult. Many have been helped coming out of the false and into the truth of Jesus by this ministry. Doug was a lovely Christian man who has since passed away and with the Lord Jesus. I am ever grateful to him and to the Reachout Trust ministry for their help.
While we were still struggling with the debt we were in, my husband got a job in the Falkland Islands as at the end of the war they needed the infrastructure to be rebuilt.
This job offer meant he would be away for weeks at a time which wasn’t ideal, but this would enable us to pay off the debt quickly. Before it had been finalised, we were driving in the car, and I sensed God telling me clearly that he wouldn’t be going to the Falklands. There would be no need. I told my husband that he wouldn’t be going but he didn’t think that it would be possible not to go as we were in too much debt. I didn’t know how either but I knew.
My husband had an old uncle who was in hospital very sick with cancer and sadly he died. Quite unbeknown to us, he had put my husband in his will and had left him the exact amount of our debt. The money came in a completely unexpected way as there was never any reason to think that his uncle would leave him anything in his will. He knew nothing of our debt. So I was now a born again Christian and free of debt.
The Lord had given me a love for the JWs and I would always invite them in and witness to them. I now stop and chat if I see them with their stands in the shopping centres. They are lost and in need of the real ‘truth’ that Jesus is the Everlasting Saviour. It’s now forty years on and what Satan used to stop me knowing the true Jesus by sending JWs, the Lord has turned around for good, as I now count ex JWs (and ex Mormons) as my Christian brothers and sisters. Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life. Praise God!
Truth Prevails 