In Reply to: Journey questions posted by Zither on April 11, 2006 at 19:32:11:
My breaking away happened over a great many years, and gradually. The more time I spent away from the family and doing so called "system" things the more light came on as to waht the family was. 9/11 was an epiphany for us as seeing the tragedy played out before our eyes, and then receiving the family's spin on it really opened our eyes. Still it took from 9/11/01 to 2/2003 to make the complete break jsut to admit we had spent 30 years of our life believing in a bunch of krap. We went to a Joyce Meyer conference in Orlando, decided to stop reporting and started going to a local church where we felt like we belonged all in the same week. Confiding in church members we had been in a cult was also a great release to freedom. In the space of 3 years I become evrything the family preaches against in the "church system" and life gets better evry day. The year I spent on disabilty for treatment of Hep c. was one of God's favors to help me get things where He wanted them to be. It was a definite life changing experience. Actually leaving the family for us was just a bump in the road. I crdit the love of Christ constraining us with that. Life is awesome, and very busy. I work full time, am carrying 15 credits in university, have different responsibilities in church, which is actually on the job training, and in my spare time I try to keep my wife happy. She's awesome, she puts up with me, and does almost everything inside and outside the house. We always try to have the attitude of no regret, and look at time in the cult many times with humor of how nutty it was, and also with experiences good and bad to help and bless others with.