Watered Garden

Thanks, Waysider. I really like the anaology of the car crash. My thoughts exactly on cancer. I decided the only thing I can do for this woman is pray for her. She seems quite happy and convinced. I did want to ask her "And exactly WHAT did you learn?" I don't believe for a minute that God predestinated me to have IDDM, nor do I believe it was brought on as the Lord's discipline or by my negative believing. This is corruptible flesh. I was born wearing a set of bad genes. and I was under incredible stress; less than two years later we were out of TWI (thank God). But lessee, have I actually learned anything? Well, I can count carbohydrates. I can help others who are diabetic. And I can smell a boatload of legalism a mile away. I can also smell a load of theological BS two miles away. And hopefully that is something I learned that I can use to help others. The devil gives you lemons, God gives you a recipe for lemonaide. I've been having some interesting experiences with our church. I truly love the people there and I believe they love God. I decided to stick around to be the little light in the corner, giving off a glow. Or maybe the little mosquito buzzing in their ears that nobody can quite manage to swat. It is refreshing to be able to ask questions in a church type setting. We went to a small group leadership training last night and I asked Mr. Garden if he thought I would get a face melting for asking questions in the question-and-answer session. He was astonished that I would ask. When we arrived, everyone, including both pastors, whom I suspect I made a bit uncomfortable, were sweet as candy. We had a meal together, no serious stuff at all. They think we need a balance between the belief in free will and the belief in predestination. Of course they don't understand that foreknowledge and predestination, as you mentioned, are two different matters entirely. I think most people need less complicated theology and more simple faith. Come to think of it, and I may have heard or read this before, if God predestinated everything (without exception) that is going to happen to everyone, for example God made Hitler the way he was to do the things he did, then THERE IS NO EVIL. Unless of course God is the author of evil as well as good. And that doesn't fit with anything scriptural or logical. It sure doesn't fit with the example of Jesus Christ. WG

Nero, I'm so glad the visit went well. I will continue in prayer for the situation to improve. It is very difficult for people who've been TWI'ers for many years to handle this sort of situation, because of the thought that all negative things are brought on by the individual's negative believing. I thought for many years that my unhappiness in my then situation had been sufficiently negative to bring on IDDM. Now I understand that it's genetics, corruptible flesh, and more then a pinch of ".... happens." The doctors and nurses are being a$$y because they want the bed freed up and it's really nothing personal, just unfortunate. Could your dad could be transferred to another, longer-term ward in the same hospital? Perhaps the social worker could arrange to have a little conference with your mom, your brother and you, (or whoever she wants around for support) in a corner of your dad's room or maybe in a very close by conference room. My mom was the same way when my dad died suddenly. She wanted no part of any of my suggestions, including a phone call to the doctor who gave him the drug that probably caused his fatal heart attack. She refused to let me speak at the funeral service, and a lame-a$$ed minister who had only met him once did the service. I suspect your mom is staving off any thought of practicality by clinging to the hope that your dad will be okay. And it is certainly is possible that he will be 100%. All things are possible with God. Stay faithful and positive. I certainly do admire you! You are a wonderful child to your parents. WG

((((((Nero))))) The hospital where your dad is being treated should have social workers who can help your mom find a support group for caregivers. The social worker in the hospital where I worked was a very caring, emphathetic individual who helped a great many families with all kinds of needs. You might want to speak to him/her about something along those lines. One thing I would suggest, if B*ll Gr**ne does in fact come, is to be ready to love your mom afterward with all the love in your heart. Make sure she knows that your dad has not committed some sin in retaliation for which God has visited him with illness. Make she understands that God loves her and your dad unreservedly no matter what their relationship to TWI. Make sure she believes that God will indeed help her and your dad no matter what this man or anyone else says. In 1994 when I was diagnosed with diabetes, about 14 people came to see me in the hospital. How many offered to pray with me or minister to me? Zip, zero, zilch, not a one. Someone did ask me a month or so later if I understood what it was that I had done to cause this to happen to me! (was born with a bad set of genes) Hopefully, the leadership of TWI have come to their spiritual senses regarding this issue. However, if you can be ready for any assault of the above nature, with verses such as John 10:10 and other verses regarding God's healing and God's love, it will be a very good thing for your mom. I don't know where you are regarding God and the Bible, but she is most likely going to need something like this for herself to be able to deal with any garbage that is thrown in her/your dad's direction. Regarding her not being worthy of a visit from BG, Jesus exhorted his disciples at the last supper to be servants. He said the greatest leader is the greatest servant. This kinda got mucked up in TWI. It is a privilege for HIM to serve HER. That's my stand. And I think I'm in line with the Bible on that one, at least. WG

We were having a discussion yesterday in church that grew out of someone's question about Judas Iscariot. God knew in His foreknowledge that Judas would betray Jesus, but was it a result of choices Judas made, or was he programmed that way by God? It worked its way over to foreknowledge and predestination. Some folks seem to believe in total predestination, God plans everything and you are not really able to make choices. This would seem to me to mean that nothing is evil, because all things come from God. Wars, pestilence, disease all predestinated and all good, because God gives only good gifts. One woman actually told how thankful she is that God predestinated her to have breast cancer because she has "learned so much" going through this. It would seem to me that if God predestinated me to have a terrible disease, then treating the disease is a sin, because God wants me to suffer and die. I completely believe that God has foreknowledge of all things. That's just because He's God, after all. But has He set up all our lives before we are even born, and does He pick and choose everything that happens to us? It was suggested that nothing is evil because everything comes from God. I quoted Romans, "The last enemy to be defeated is death" and the pastor and others said that death is not evil. Dying may be unpleasant, but you can look forward to death because then you get to meet Jesus!!!! It seems to me that there is good vs. evil, and I think one of the most successful weapons in Satan's arsenal is that Christians think God is the author of bad things that happen to us. "Everything happens for a reason," they say. Well, sometimes the reason isn't godly, and sometimes bad things happen to good people because we live in corruptible flesh. I would never, never wish on my son sickness, disease, or death, and he is not a faithful, obedient son. He says he hates me and wants nothing to do with me, yet I am here for him in case he changes his thinking. If I could do anything for him, it would be to heal his body and his mind, and then just wrap my arms around him and tell him how much I love him. Am I a better parent than God Almighty? WG

I like a woman named Elizabeth George. C. S. Lewis is indeed good. Can't STAND the performance-based Christianity Lite! WG

GSG, Unfortunately we had turned the check in. Otherwise, we could have sent it back to the spiritual partner, along with the others. I think they made sure we all had our money in that they wanted to kick out before they lowered the boom. Too bad. WG

When we were dismissed, we had just received a check from one of our sponsors for something like $3000, most of a quarter's tuition. We asked, very respectfully, if we could transfer that to someone we knew was having difficulty getting their second quarter's tuition together. Got a face melting over that one. The money belongs not to you but to the Way Corps Finance Office. They will decide how it is used if not for your tuition. How dare a loathsome worm like you even so much as ask? And then there was the lovely man in Kansas, married to the girl who was my maid of honor, who sent $500 or so relocation money on top of our tuition. God bless him! WG

Well I sponsored my WOW sister, so no one made a deal of it with me. The second year I didn't sponsor anyone, or if I did I wasn't very faithful. In fact I think I sponsored someone in 3rd year FLO who had gone in the WC but she didn't write letters so I didn't write checks. And of course the really bad thing about this requirement was that most of us had little enough after our $150/month for rent and utilities and $6/week for the food program, which did not cover every meal we ate (and did cover many meals we did NOT want to eat). WG

There was a short hallway on the third floor in Rome City (the hall where the little kitchen was located) which had I think about 4-5 bedrooms and one bathroom. One sink, two stalls and a glassed in tub-shower combination. The stalls had wide gaps between the panels, and it was a favorite place for my adolescent son to lurk to try to see women in the shower. I had to haul his butt out of there a time or two. It was a COED bath, meaning if you are in the shower, or brushing your teeth, or using the toilet, any man could come in and do whatever with you still in there. When I found out about this, I about threw up. There were other, much larger bathrooms around the corner on the main hall, but we were informed we were not allowed to shower in the women's restroom there, the coed bath was ours, and we were to "renew our minds" and use it. What great deep spiritual insight was I supposed to gain from having some man I don't know come into the bathroom and plop down on a toilet next to me? Plus the fact that some guy did so while I was in the shower, and stayed in there forever, attempting to carry on a conversation with me all the time. It was the longest damn shower I took while I was there, as there was no way I was exiting the shower until he left. I suspected he was doing the same thing my son did, trying to get a glimpse through the opaque glass enclosure. We didn't spend much time there, we were dismissed not too long after the move to that hall, but I spent most of it trying to figure out how to get a shower when no one else was around. It was the most bizarre situation I had been in. My own husband respects my privacy in the bathroom, and here I am supposed to have a strange man in there with me showering? And chat while I shower and he sits on the throne? And that's supposed to be normal? Spiritual? Okay? WG

Well, I have to apologize and retract my previous statement. I spoke before I investigated. I had NO idea this woman was so fabulously wealthy and self-indulgent. I still think she does help people with her teachings. BUT it's very easy to do the right thing for the wrong reason. I do seem to remember when they were building a worship center or outreach center or soemthing several years, she hammered home the concept that anyone who donated to the building find would receive a special blessing. It's too bad. And you're right Belle, that is what people say about VPW. Only he was a pauper compared to this. Darn! And I think she should know better. WG

I thought of something else, and maybe it has been touched on already, but a lot of face meltings occurred in 1994-96 over money and debt. In August of 1994 I spent a week in the hospital when I was diagnosed with IDDM and we had no insurance. We incurred about a $5500 hospital bill. We were paying it off monthly when our TC's got wind of it. They were also incensed because my husband had gotten a great job, one he ended up loving, and was being trained on second shift. This was fine with me, but not with them. The wife insisted that John had to be home at night, and it was outrageous I was alone every evening. Of course I had a son and a cocker spaniel to keep me company and I did just fine. The husband was indignant that my husband had taken a job at all with asking his permission (AS IF!). The minimog for the city and his little wife met with us at the TC's house. We were on our way to a Christmas party and I was all dressed up in a slightly low cut (but that all that bad) black dress, for which I got blasted by the TC's wife, who said I should never wear it outside the bedroom. We were absolved of the job situation. But the hospital bill came up and we were castigated for that big times. We were ordered to sell a small amount of stock we owned in a fortune 100 company and pay off the hospital bill immediately. To our later regret we did so. We had a lot of money left over, so we bought CD's with it and didn't ABS one dime. I still have the dress. Did all the leaders feel free to stick their noses into others' checkbooks? WG

He's dead? Really? And I was about to get in line for the radical anoplasty we were gonna give him. Guess God will make all things new for all of us in due time. WG

Waysider, That statement from CF&S sounds ever so much like a brick in the groundwork for "all of the women in the kingdom belong to the king," or "it's not adultery if you are spiritual enough to handle it," or some of the other Word-twisting lines they used for seduction of the unsuspecting and unprepared. Just a thought. WG

Outfield, It is just so healing to learn the truth. Remember how PFAL was supposed to teach us to "separate truth from error." I strongly suggest that learning to separate truth from error involves learning something to overcome the error we were taught back then. WG

I gotta say this: If Joyce Meyer has led one soul to Christ, if she has helped one person to live the life Jesus intended, if she is setting people free from bondage, if she is teaching them to claim their rights as children of the Most High God, then God bless her! She can have all the Cadillacs, nice hotels, employees, 18 wheelers, manicures and facelifts (or whatever she has) she wants. Maybe it would be wise to stop looking at what she has and listen to what she says! WG

Let me just add that I have been married for 30 years to the finest man I've ever met, who endeavors daily to embody the life Christ came to gave us. He is the soul of compassion, kindness and patience. I'm so thank that I never had to endure what others have in their marriages. I grieve for those who have and pray that God has comforted your hearts. WG

I just think it is very strange thing that God's instructions to men and women got so warped in TWI. I never saw anyone coming down on the men like they did the women, even pre-LCM I even knew of a couple who were having serious marital problems, and the branch leader who counselled them told me (SO MUCH FOR THE LOCKBOX) that the husband had been beating the wife, and then ordered her out of "his" home. He told me the only reason it was okay for her to leave him, in spite of his drunken rages that resulted in her physical harm, was that he had ordered her to get out. Otherwise, he informed me, she would have been required to stay and be abused. What utter hogwash! And TWI thought they knew more about God than anyone since the death of St. Paul? That is absolutely wrong and immoral and everything else negative you can think of. WG

The obedience of wives to their husbands was a very big deal to LCM. And the sad thing is, it fostered a kind of false submission, at least in me. I clearly remember being told by K***y R***o, "You are to line up your thinking with that of your husband, so that you are always, without exception, totally, absolutely, completely likeminded with him." I remember DM teaching in the class that replaced CF&S (Princiiples of a Believers' Family or something), that a wife should not have very many opinions, but must listen to her husband and learn what his opinion is, so that is her opinion also. She gave me the impression that the wife is to slave herself to death without appreciation or reward. "She bleeds out her life for that home, for that man, for those children." Sounds like fun. Nice attitude. I've been taking a class called "A Woman After God's Own Heart" by Elizabeth George. She describes marriage in entirely different terms than TWI, and makes it a blessing rather than a burden. For years I had been saying through smiling lips and gritted teeth "Yes dear of course dear" when what my husband wanted was honest discourse. I refused to have an opinion, much less state an opinion. I have learned that this is not a godly teaching at all and that marriage is a partnership and not a master-slave relationship. I also distinctly remember someone (a woman WC grad at a women's advance) teaching that the Word in I Peter 3:6 where it says that Sara called Abraham "Lord" is the word "Adonai" which means God. Remember God spoke to Abraham, Abraham spoke to Sarah; Sarah spoke to Abraham, then Abraham went to God FOR BOTH OF THEM? How demeaning; God doesn't want to talk to me, just my husband. Well it's not Adonai, it's a different word, I looked it up in a Young's Concordance, and it's translated "sir, master" essentially a term of respect where she was showing him respect, not worship, not a God-substitute. No wonder so many WC and other marriages failed with this kind of organized fertilizer being spread around the cornfields! WG

This was manipulation at its finest. Nobody wants to die as a result of their disobedience to God's man for this day and for this time and for this hour, and then sooner or later depending on your theology, face God and maybe lose their salvation and be sent to he11 for all eternity. At the least, Jesus Christ Himself would be screaming in your face, spewing saliva on your glasses, and according to LCM, it would be much worse than a "face melting" from the Forehead. When we left, I knew I would die quickly; the minimog of our city said so. But goodness gracious, here I am today, alive and well, healthy and happy, in a nice house with a wonderful husband and a fantastic grandchild. Gee whiz, wonder if LCM et al could have been WRONG? WG

Stuff happens. This is a broken world. How cruel to use a tragedy to emotionally flagellate God's children. I bet no one in that Corps ever left grounds without permission again, or did anything else much without permission again. This incident sounds like the forerunner to the LCM doctrine that disobedience leads to death. When we were very first at Rome City, there were WC cleaning up after the Rock, and the story I heard was that this woman was exhausted from long, hard days at work. She and her husband agreed that she could go home (apparently she lived in the area) and take a nap. On the way, she felt somewhat better and decided to do a bit of shopping. She was involved in a motor vehicle accident that was her fault and one of the people in the other vehicle was killed. This was, according to the MOGFART, because she disobeyed her husband. She was castigated up one side and down the other. Wives were commanded to render unto their husbands absolute, instantaneous and unquestioning obedience. Everyone must obey their leadership immediately. Another incident that had occurred, I believe, in the spring of 1993, was that unfortunate young woman who died in childbirth. He had a hissy about her disobeying her doctors or something. Then there was the LCM statement that drove any regrets I might have had about leaving TWI right out the window: "It is impossible to obey God without first obeying your leadership." Uh-huh. Tell Peter and the other apostles that as they stand before the Sanhedrin. It all boiled down to this: "Obey or die." WG

I vaguely remember some guy who had gotten prayed for who had been diagnosed with brain damage secondary to drug use. Either visited Limb or was around in Athens, I forget which. At any rate, his brain cells were actually regenerating as he learned to love and trust God. His memory was returning, and he actually began to speak much more clearly. I think he hung around limb in Ohio for a few weeks, and then went to HQ as a volunteer. Vague memory. Prayer works. I'll be praying for your dad. WG

Did J**n N*ve die in the wreck? I thought he survived and was blamed by VPW for the accident happening, treated like dirt afterward, his marriage broke up and it messed up his life because of VP's bitter condemnation of him. It is always so surprising to me as I learn more about God, that His ways are higher than our ways and He can be very tender indeed in teaching us to live a more Christ-centered life. TWI perverted God's love into a charicature of an angry, vengeful God who loves to smite His children, never forgets and never forgives. WG

Thank God Hallowe'en is over! Excie nice to see the "real" you again. WG

That is fascinating information. I will try at least some of these tips, if not all of them. I wasn't certain whether the avocado has to be eaten on a salad, or if I can make guacamole with it. Mr. Garden LOVES good guacamole (but he'll eat mine, too! ) I wish I'd known about that experiment when I was working at Ohio State; I would've volunteered in a heartbeat! Thanks so much for posting this. WG

Nice name he gave the spoon wielder. That little boy could be my kid. Usually he was just craving attention. He did get the crap beat out of him on a fairly regular basis. She was very legalistic. The year after we left FWC we went to Word in Business and when my husband spoke to her, she stuck up her nose and looked the other way. Way** seemed more down to earth, but I didn't trust him either. They had been in SC briefly before being recalled to run the FWC upon Mausolf's abdication. He did at that time have his head up LCM's behind so far that daylight would've been a strange experience for him. WG