"I'm tired of all of this".."I want out".."I want independence"..I guess we've all felt that way at one time or another. Fortunately, many of us came to our senses before we did anything 'stupid'. But sometimes, people end up learning the hard way that the 'spirit of independence' is not at all Godly and that friends and family just want to help. They don't mean to choke us, they don't mean to act like we can't do anything on our own. That the safest place we can be is in their company and under their guidance. Why the sudden 'realization'?
My/our dearest sister is back. She's pale, skinny, nearly unrecognizable but SHE'S BACK! After around 8 months thinking that she was being rebellious, had been influenced badly by friends, and had basically 'gone wild', we are proven WRONG. Maybe not 'totally' wrong since in the beginning she really did decide to go independent and not tell anyone where she was. But most of time, it wasn't her will after all. It just hurts to think that all this time while we thought she was such a 'bad girl' she was actually experiencing unimaginable torture.
Everyone had tears in their eyes as she explained all she was going through for the past 7 months. How she so badly wished she could go to the meetings. How she imagined being with us in the field service. How she tried again and again to escape but only ended up being caught and beaten again. How she prayed and prayed for rescue. How she was put through all kinds of physical, mental and psychological pain .How the minute she lost hope, surrendered trying to escape and felt she had been abandoned by us all, things just turned out in a very unusual way and she was saved.
Her experience just shows that Jehovah is indeed the provider of escape. He never forgot her. Though she did in a way turn her back on Him and sought independence, when things went terribly wrong, He still helped her. He is an examiner of hearts. According to her, during the torture sessions when she was slapped with a bottle of liquor on her face until it broke, when she was punched on her chest again and again and told to 'vomit blood' , when she was choked, kicked, and other inhumane acts, only the first blow hurt. After that, she could feel nothing until it was over. When her captor abused her verbally telling her 'nobody cared', 'your God has left you' , 'nobody will miss you'....what she heard were reminders from assemblies, watchtowers, talks that made her strong.
Jehovah may have allowed her to undergo all these things but the moment she gave up, the moment she said 'Am I really that bad that you have forgotten me?', she was rescued in a short of miraculous way. Things turned out so that her captor practically walked herself into jail without any effort on anyone's part. Everyone involved had to say it was a very, very unusual turn of events and they called her 'blessed'.
Lesson: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER underestimate the power of prayer. All the while, all who knew her continued mentioning her in prayer. She herself never stopped praying.... :"If you wish, save me but if you don't I'll understand, just give me strength to endure because I know this is all my fault".
The reunion the first time she attended the meetings after that is hard to describe. She amazingly was still able to energetically relate all she'd been through but it just took a hug to bring her to tears. I cried, many of us did. It just was and still is too hard to believe that such wicked/demonic people do exist. I went home and cried as I prayed, I just cried myself to sleep. I still shed tears wherever I am when I think of her and I really wonder if I would have the same courage and endurance as she did.
The story is extremely long, and has a lot of details that are too 'graphic' to mention so I'll end this with the words her mum told her captor with through the prison cell:
'What did you say about our God? You said He'd forgotten an abandoned her? It's OUR GOD JEHOVAH who put you in that cell."
