Hello Everyone:
Last year about this time we at the Huffman household rec'd a visit. I was working in the kitchen and my wife answered the door. I heard loud singing as some carolers launched into an old C-mas std. I stayed in the kitchen and listened and got this odd feeling, when the singing stopped.
Some folks from the assembly presented various gifts to my wife:
Freshly baked dessert bread
A frozen turkey
Pointsetta
Gift certificate for Toys-R-Us
A Christmas card stating how they wanted to be a blessing to us.
A certain brother, who I wd. be glad to see under diff. circumstances, asked for me. I had my wife tell him/them
that I was unavailable to come to the door, and then they left.
I must say that I had some real mixed emotions about this. I didn't want to go to the door and lose my composure(that is, get angry)- also, there was some children with them. I thought about it briefly during dinner and decided to return the gifts. It appeared that the brother whose house I went to in order to return the gifts had company, so I laid them on his porch. I telephoned him to let him know, explaining that I cd.n't on principle accept them. He wished me a merry Christmas.
A little history. I left the assembly about 10 years before, and by now well-known that I had been speaking against the assembly in general, and GG in particular. Not too long before this visit a brother had written me and telephoned me. The short and simple version goes something like this:
" The Lord's going to judge you...it's too bad you've got a family now...." So God is going to kill me or take my family away bec. I spoke against George, and by Christmas time I land on their Christmas Project list? Btw the preceding 2 sentences give new meaning to "ILL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
. They don't even believe in Christmas!!!
This time I won't try to give a long-winded analysis(altho I welcome others insights or comments).
I reckon that some of them meant well. Some of them were there bec. they were supposed to be there. It may be that no one consciously thought of this as manipulation, but it was. Bec. of the past treatment and the seriousness of past and present issues that remain unresolved and uncorrected I cd.n't receive their gifts. Not much has really changed in the assembly was all that I cd. conclude.
