A story with a happy ending.
My name is Williams and I have lived all my life in Villahermosa, a city in southeastern Mexico. As a child I was raised in a Catholic family. I was always curious about everything that dealt with man’s desire to know God; in fact, I once cherished the desire to become a priest. The Bible fascinated me. I had my first contact with Jehovah’s Witnesses when I was very young, but it was in my adolescence that everything took a decisive turn. In my inexperience I believed I had found the true religion, so much so that I joined the Witnesses’ organization despite the objections of some members of my family. My younger sister did the same years later.
I progressed quickly, so quickly that at 19 I was appointed a ministerial servant, and shortly afterwards overseer of the Theocratic Ministry School. I came to know in detail the history of the organization, its doctrine and its procedures, both administrative and, in part, judicial.
But in my study of the Bible I kept finding things that did not agree with what the organization taught. I began to see how teachings on which the Witnesses’ doctrinal system is based have no biblical or historical foundation, such as the beginning of the kingdom in 1914, the seven times, etc. Soon more aspects became clear in my mind that are extremely important, given their direct bearing on our salvation, such as the divinity of Jesus Christ, the historical and spiritual identity of the true Church of Christ, and others.
But the last straw was the behavior of several people within the congregation. I can say with a clean and clear conscience that I always tried to follow to the letter what I believed to be the will of the True God.
I thought this matter over for several nights, during which I went without sleep, until one of those nights I woke my family to tell them of my decision to leave the sect. My sister, surprised after hearing me, told me that she had reached the same conclusion but had hesitated to tell me. I believe it was the Holy Spirit who led us to the same conclusion in separate ways!
Needless to say, my family was overjoyed, especially Mom; at last there would once again be spiritual unity at home.
Then I decided to break with the organization.
It was not my intention to hurt the deepest religious feelings of my former companions.
On one occasion the elder, a ministerial servant (quite unworthy in his private life, by the way; I myself witnessed how he admitted to having gotten drunk, and even so he was not disfellowshipped, even though the organization’s rules called for disfellowshipping him) and a person I had instructed some time before came to visit me, and they questioned me about the reason for my absence from the meetings for almost a month. It was then that I declared our desire to leave the organization and return to the Catholic Church, pointing out the reasons why I had made that decision. It was truly an unexpected answer for them, since they did not reply with a single thing to dissuade me or to show me that what I had discovered in my study of the Bible and of history was false. So we resigned, and we felt a great emotion when, after so many years, we took part once again in a Eucharistic celebration. Now I frequent the sacraments and I am working in the Liturgical Ministry of my parish — curiously, the very parish I had gone to so many times as a child.
Today we have returned to the Father’s house, the house of all, which will always have open arms for the children who, like me, were once there and left; but I pray that the brothers who left may one day return to the true Church.
Now we love and adore him who is the image of the Father, of whom 1 John 5:20 says: “We are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life”.
I share this experience because I know there are many Witnesses, especially young people, who use the Internet and read these apologetics pages, which, although forbidden by the Witnesses’ Society, daily open the eyes of many people who seek God with a sincere heart — the God who in many cases has been beside them ever since the baptism given by the Catholic Church, but whom for some reason they ignored and went to look for in other houses. But how can we seek our Father in someone else’s house, when we have had the joy of being born in his House, the Church, the house of all?
Sincerely
Williams Lezcano
Tabasco, Mexico
Update from May 2003:
Hello Fr. NN:
Thanks be to God, since 1999, the date of my conversion, I have been working in the Church. For the past year as an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist; the parish priest also entrusted me with the task of coordinating the 35 ministers there are in the area of my parish community, which is very extensive. It has been a wonderful labor; I try to convey my love for Christ in the Eucharist. As you once told me, work in the House of God is not easy, since our human misery often comes to the surface, but it is then that I contemplate Christ on the Cross and take heart.
I would not know how to express to you in words what the Gift of the Father has come to mean to me; even today, every time I meditate on the saving work of Jesus, the love of God, his mercy, never ceases to amaze me…
In the community where I have been serving for a year, I have learned the richness of Marian piety, so deeply rooted in the people, which they instill in their children with so much love.
I give thanks to our Lord for having allowed me to return to his House; I do not regret it… Christ is here…
Greetings, and may our Mother in Heaven assist you and defend you…
Tabasco, Mexico.
Author: Williams Lezcano
Source: Apologetica.org
