CoolWaters

Oh shoot. I read this and began sobbing great big huge sobs. He was my first true love. We were married twice. Not a day goes by that I don't have a little conversation with him... If I had known then what I know now, things would have been a whole lot different...and Bob may have survived. It's a hard way to learn the lesson that the bible knows what it's talking about when it says to work through a marriage... Yeah...I think about Becky all the time, too. As well as all the rest of the folks. Just a bunch of kids doing the best we could...with a very flawed and broken cistern...

Dude....my memories aren't all bad...ya know... The stories! Like when Bobby came downstairs and perched on the stair post acting like a hawk...or was that Mike? I dunno...but it was funnier than all get out. Remember Bill Y? His 12 string Ovation roundback guitar! OMG! And could he sing! I went to my first "modern worship service" and ran into him and his wife about 5 years ago. It was the first time for all of us. I sat right next to him during the service. Glad for it, too, because when dancers came waving long banners down the aisles I was aghast. Turned to Bill and asked him if we should walk out or what. Bill having been raised orthodox Jew let me know that this kind of worship was quite common in OT. It was very comforting. And oh lord the food served at that house!!!!! I remember Becky teaching me how to make food stretch for that many people. And the guys in the basement...what a riot! Remember the branch meeting when the 3 Bobbies did their own spin on the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann"? There was Bobby G, Bobby B and Bobby S up there in front singing, "Bob, Bob, Bob...Bob Bobby G. Bob, Bob, Bob...Bob Bobby B. Bob, Bob, Bob...Bob Bobby S." LMAO!!!! That was a lovely home. It figures that Mr K was the one who dropped it. And btw..."your pal Mr K"...funny...NOT! LOL Yeah...it wasn't all a bad trip for me. Thanks for taking the stroll with me. :)-->

ckeer, Ooops! I guess doing things from memory isn't so good after menopause. LOL ;)--> Thanks!

Dear Brother Dove, All these years later and it took having this message board around for me to know the truth of the matter. Thanks for setting me straight. Unravelling yet another bunch of lies I was told...sigh...

So what is the difference between longsuffering and patience that they are listed as two separate fruits?

{{{{{Shelly!!!!!!!!!}}}}} And of course there are such moments in all of our lives. I'll never forget the first time I enjoyed talking with a group of folks from Kansas Neurological Institute without wanting to cast out devil spirits...or even thinking about devil spirits at all. It was like, "Man! I am finally getting over twi mentality!" Hooray for you! :D-->

White Dove...you said the one in Kansas...I know in its heyday Topeka had several homes actually owned by twi...as well as several homes where lots of folks lived together...kids and all. There was 915 Western...which is a THS parking lot now. Then 415 Tyler...which is still there but extremely dilapidated. The one across the street from the VA down on 21st...where Mike and Shiela L lived. There was another one down on the 1000 or 1100 block of Tyler. A couple of the families got in on the deals for the military housing off of 37th Street...there where it makes that little Y off of Topeka Blvd. A couple of homes over in East Topeka. Gawd...I think I lived in at least 5 way homes in Topeka. Then, of course, there were the two homes in Wichita...the Women's Way Home and the Men's Way Home...that were usually held for WOW's coming from ROA each year. A kajillion places in KCK and KCMO where groups of folks would live together. And, gads, I think I lived in many of those, too. I was such a twi groupie. Sigh.

{{{{{Galen}}}}} I think we've talked about this before...unless you were using another name besides Galen, you weren't part of the areas where I lived. My grandmother died the same day Elvis did in June of '77...so this was at least in '76 if not before. Everything rascal and others have said...yep...those were my experiences, too, with twi mentality. And I have to think it was more widespread than isolated...because a person that was "leadership" at the time and pretty much taught me everything I knew about twi said the same things to me just 2 years ago...when my husband nearly died twice in two weeks (cancer one week...head-on collision two weeks later). When I was as emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally broken down as far as I could be broken down I called this person...in desperation...and asked him why these things were happening in our lives...and his exact words were, "Well, anybody can see that your life is $h!t." Even in a more recent conversation with him (just a few weeks ago) he is still badgering me about my believing and telling me I have devil spirits...and I all I wanted to do was continue to be friends with his wife and go to his church sometimes. But all it took was him knowing how bad my health had become...and he blamed it all on my "spiritual choices and believing". He was WOW more than once and corpse more than once back in his twi days. He had been in several areas. He was (and may still be) good buddies with a former twi big whig...who is, imo, a spineless letch...and who triggered the original post of mine here. Rant rant rant....sigh.

{{{{{rascal}}}}} yeah....cruelty called "love"...sigh...I sure hope I'm not facing a whipping in the afterlife! ***************************** WhiteDove!!!!!! ...but no wolf head...

I can't believe you've made me blush! ;)--> It feels better...yes...but only to get it out...again...I should move on...ya think? :)-->

OK...it was a rant...admittedly...I just had had enough of yet another "leader"...ya know... And I think about my grandma...who died of breast cancer when I was 18...and the last thing I said to her was something about her own believing in "the unholy trinity" that took her to her death bed. So high and mighty was I...because I had "the word"...and a "renewed mind"...and she had nothing but death... Her last prayer was probably for me and my daughter. And the self-same yahoo(s) that tried to make a fool of her by lying to her and manipulating her...over her granddaughter and her great-granddaughter...coming around saying things like "I don't even remember some of the people who say I have hurt them".... Rant rant rant.

OK, Friday's episode redeemed the neurotic. I hated him before. He was sort of like the Dr Smith on "Lost in Space". Still kinda is...but he doesn't double cross anybody. LOL I can't believe they took the whole hour fixing the jumper and getting that bug off of Shepard. Hopefully it picks up.

Rant on: "The love of god in the renewed mind in manifestation." What a load. In twi it meant, "by following our directions, you will be showing the love of god". What were the directions from twi? Well, it really depended on who your local "leadership" was...ya know...because twi never really gave any specific directions... But... From way back on trancechat to Waydale to GSI and now GSII I've seen extwi "leadership" either post themselves or letters and other communications written by them posted. I can always tell the ones that are still twi endoctrinated. They all start by informing everybody they are too busy to "sling mud" or "participate in negatives" or some other such condescending drivel. That's a backhanded way of saying "my life is so much more important than yours...even if I dropped so much **** into your life that you were unable to live normally for years to come". Then they proceed to tell you/us how to "renew" our minds so that the "love of god" can be "manifest". Listen up, OK? IF IT DIDN'T START OUT IN LOVE, IT AIN'T A GONNA END UP IN LOVE. Yes, I yelled. I wish I had a megaphone to increase the decibels...maybe the bolding helped. Anyway, once all those fancy words were attached to "the love of god", it ceased being the love of god. The rotten pudding is the proof. So twi sent out all us drones with a man-made qualifier added to the love of god...letting us think that we were shedding love abroad...when in reality we were attaching vpw's disclaimer to that love of god...the same disclaimer he and the rest of the "leadership" used to hammer us all into oblivion...renewed mind... And since renewed mind was determined not by what the bible said but by whether or not "leadership" felt good about it, well, then, we just ran around "loving" people based upon some jerk off's feel good slop. Touting it as god's love. That's a wolf in sheep's clothing. Rant off...for now.

I didn't know we could mix code and html...

To divide families like they do...how in all of the earth could they ever in a million years think they were "godly"? Such a wake of heartbreak and hurt... Oak, I'm glad you're out...I wish it didn't have to rip apart your family...you know I think the world of you and reikilady. Sigh.

I was just getting to know you in a most awesome way. Dang.

Momentary derail here.... I didn't hang around because I was getting blessed along the way. I hung around because I didn't know any better.

Yep mj...and that's why the root question in my mind concerning religions is... To whom do they point when asked, "What is the authority structure of this church?" If the answer is anything but Jesus (not "the word", either..."the word" is not the LORD), it's not a place to be, imo.

To me, the whole ideology of "head" and "body" is the inherent error...someone's always "the boss". It does not matter what group one looks at, the end result of "leadership" gone amok is the same everywhere. Many denominations will not allow a pastor to stay in a church for more than 2 or 3 years because of this. After about 3 years, the pastor becomes more of the "leader" and less of the servant...and it's hard for anybody to keep on the "straight and narrow" when given that much authority for that length of time. Isn't that why there are term limits for presidents? It's like the cancer analogy...everybody can get cancer, nobody knows why some do and some don't....we have some clues...we do our best...but because cancer is of ourselves, we're all susceptible.

Mike, Something that I have recently learned "in my heart" is about the things that come out of my mouth...or my keyboard...which is my mouth on the internet...LOL... Anyway, I am doing my best to watch what I say. It's a real life changer...as exemplified here in this little ol' thread. :)--> *********************** The most awesome thing I learned while relating to spirit as "mother" was exactly what you said...about male and female...man and wife...mother and father... I was drawn to the passage in John 4 about the Samarian woman. (That whole conversation and ministering was very much like a mother, imo.) Then verses 21-24 popped out at me: I have never envisioned that there are two (or more) gods. I simply see many sides to the same god. In twi I was taught that Psalm 23 contained all of the names of God and what each did. I kept that teaching for many, many years...until it was worn out...and I have since lost it in many moves. However, if you look at Psalm 23, you will see that God manifested in spirit really is neither male nor female, but is all in all. We are taught that god prefers a human family to consist of a mother and a father. Now I know many families that are single parent or same sex two parent families. I'm not saying these types of families are "ungodly". Why? Because in the families that I know, there is a balance between male and female input in the upbringing of the children. It makes a big difference, too. Why would god want his family to have anything less? If he is the Almighty, omnipotent Creator, then he can certainly manifest with male and/or female qualities if he so chooses. Why wouldn't he choose? It's such a blessing to be able to minister to survivors of abuse according to what will work in their heart...ya know?

As OM and some others aptly point out...it's the same thing everywhere you go... Maybe it's not twi teaching so much as it's Western thinking...

Ya know, Todd...if I were less spiritually enlightened, I'd want you for my guru. ;)-->

Thanks, Mike. Please let me know when I slip up and point a finger at you instead of talking about your ideas, OK? :)--> Something I have to remember is that I bring the whole my whole life's experiences to the board...and nobody knows what those are except me...and there's no way for anybody to know how things are hitting me. That said... I may have misread your intended meaning. I've been dealing with a situation where the people are very works oriented...they say they're not...that they're looking at "fruit"...but they measure people by circumstances and blame a person's works or lack of works...while they, themselves, show off the things the "believed" for and literally cuss those who have less. So I was bringing that experience to your post. There is no question that it is said that faith without works is dead. In fact, I expect works from myself and from others. However, to put it in as part of the answer to the question of "what is being 'saved'" bothers me because it muddies the waters. The example you used of raising children...a good analogy...and one must remember that there is a personal learning curve involved. Kids learn differently, at different rates and at different understandings. If there is anything in a child's life that interferes with learning, then one cannot expect that child to learn as readily...if at all...as other children. The same goes for learning in the spirit. For example, those of us who came to twi in our teen years have a much more difficult time learning to trust the spirit. Spirit knows this...so it's beyond me to grasp that spirit would expect me to "work out my own salvation" in the ways you have described. When I hear "work out your own salvation", I hear spirit working with me personally to teach me spirit knowledge. For example, I could not grasp the concept of "god" as a father. It was more than I could bear. So spirit introduced me to the reality that spirit is neither male nor female...and that if I need to relate to spirit as a mother, then spirit doesn't mind at all. Through that, I learned to grasp spirit as co-parents in the raising of me. That worked! I can now relate to spirit comfortably. It was a long time coming because spirit had to show me the 40+ years of wrong teaching concerning this matter. I had to get beyond the "devilish" mindset. If my salvation of body and soul were up to me through all of this, I'd have been a goner.

Mike, I refuse to hear you over these comments of yours. Wanna try it again without the insulting comments?

I'm not Sirguessalot, but I've been thinking some more on this subject...and here are some meandering thoughts I've had... Looking at what we have as a record of Jesus' life, it's a different world/life than what many people have been led to believe is "christian"...i.e., Jesus' life was a different life than the life of the apostles...even the message was different. First thing that strikes me as very different: Jesus was not a "christian". Couldn't have been...there was no "christ" yet. Couldn't even have been "born again". So we who participated in twi were taught he had "spirit upon"...and on the day of Pentecost "spirit within" was made available...and that "spirit upon" can be "lost", whereas "spirit within" cannot. And we learned all the associated nuances of twi doctrine concerning bloodline and a "perfect walk". TWI taught that to the point that Jesus' life was made of no importance and the lives of the apostles were elevated to the level of "better things than me [Jesus]"...and twi taught that those "better things" were the "manifestations"...tongues, interpretation of tongues, prophecy, etc. And we forget the life of Jesus...and the things he did...like the feeding of about 5000, the mount of transfiguration, the healings...except for one thing...we were taught to focus upon his "casting out of devil spirits"...and completely lost focus upon his call to service...his life of service. I have been forever drawn to the scene between Peter and Jesus... "Lovest thou me, Peter?" "Yes, lord." "Then feed my sheep." You know the rest. So this question of what are "manifestations" of the spirit is a very good question...because what Jesus manifested was not what we have been taught to believe to manifest... Just thinking out loud here...