Also, I apologize for the long wait in sharing the winning submissions I received for the bloom of youth writing contest. I'm still waiting to hear back from one of the applicants (so if you submitted a story and didn't hear back yet be sure to check your email!). In the meantime, I've decided to share one of the stories today. (I'll share another one next week) Enjoy, and thanks again to all of you who participated!
My Bloom of Youth Story, submitted by M.S.
I was raised around the Truth my whole life. My mother has been faithful to Jehovah for a long time. Unfortunately my father was disfellowshipped when I was 13, so he has been away from Jehovah for 24 years.
Growing up as a teen I had influences from both my parents as well as young ones in the congregation leading double lives at school. I thought I could just lead a double life myself. And I did, or thought I did successfully up until I was 18. One of my classmates had lost her grandmother in death, so I started witnessing to her about the resurrection hope.
She looked at me and said, “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
"Yes, of course," was my reply.
She said, “If that was really true, why are you with us?”
Wow! It was like my world started crumbling. I couldn’t fool my schoolmates. I couldn’t fool Jehovah. And I needed to make a change... I decided that I needed to be either all for Jehovah or all for the world, I couldn’t do both anymore.
Fortunately I made the right decision. I have been serving Jehovah now for many years. I’ve been pioneering since 2004. (Been to Pioneer School 3 times, 2 of those times with my husband.) And I have been able to serve where the need was great up until August of this year. Now my husband and I are living with my mom in US and hopefully she will be joining us in the pioneer work soon! Serving Jehovah is the best life ever and I really wish I figured that out sooner!
