Testimonies

Anne Sanderson:

Not Searching For Treasure, But Found It!

By Anne Sanderson

Being born into and brought up in a Bible-believing family has been a huge protection and help to me in life, yet it led me through a spiritually barren wilderness before I stumbled across spiritual treasure - when I wasn't even looking for it!

I did my Family Tree a few years ago and this served to show me the spiritual journey of my forebears and how some of their decisions in the 1930s had this profound effect on me. The account is written in my book, How Fragile We Are (only available privately) but I will give a mini-sketch of it here to show how wonderful God is at getting families back on track, spiritually speaking.

My predecessors were virtually all members of the Church of Scotland though I had no way of knowing their personal spiritual standing because all my grandparents had died long before I was born. By the time I arrived, with my twin sister, our parents had left that denomination nearly 15 years earlier, and they hardly spoke of relatives or visited them. This, I was told as a youngster, was because we were Jehovah's Witnesses, a denomination that views all others as part of the Babylon the Great of Revelation, due for God's wrath. We accepted that people avoided us because we were ‘true Christians' and so were being persecuted - we never questioning this idea. Only when collating my Family Tree did I discovered that my maternal great-grandparents had been members of the Free Church of Scotland, being married in that church in 1876.

My parents' move to the Jehovah's Witnesses had been precipitated by the tragic death of their first-born, John, aged five years in 1934. They had buried him and were saving up to buy a head stone when the Jehovah's Witnesses knocked at their door. They were thrilled to hear that their little boy would soon be resurrected back on to a paradise earth, for Armageddon was about to erupt and the resurrection would take place shortly thereafter. They eagerly joined the movement. So convinced were they about these teachings, they used the money saved to buy a car to engage in proselytizing for their new faith. Both parents died (in 1973 and 1996) with all hopes for seeing Armageddon and John's resurrection proven unfounded. I saw to the head stone a few years ago when I learned about all of this and located John's unmarked grave.

By then I had long left the Jehovah's Witnesses and was a member of the Free Church of Scotland. How had that happened? Purely by the grace of God! I had become an enthusiastic supporter of my parents' religion in my mid teens, volunteering to do full time door-knocking work and marrying a fellow Witness. We proceeded to bring up our own children in that faith, but by then post-natal depression had taken a severe hold with me. There was no support from fellow Witnesses, just admonition to keep attending all the many meetings and continue the door-knocking work because Armageddon was expected in 1975 and it would be fatal to slacked up now! I truly believed all this and tried my best to keep going. But I was cracking up inside and felt I'd rather be dead than have to endure another bout of depression. One night, unable to sleep yet desperately tired, I knelt down, weeping, and cried out to Jehovah to help me. Nothing seemed to happen at first, yet God had heard that prayer and began to bring me out of that wilderness and into green pastures.

He raised up two people who I met on my door-knocking work, both Christians, and they had a subtle effect on me. One was a Church of Scotland clergyman who listened to me, politely disagreed, and then advised me that my religion was dangerous. This troubled me for some time thereafter. How could he say such decent people as us were dangerous? This caused me to look at the theology section of the town library, to search for possible reasons. I came across a book that bore a famous JW slogan of the 1930s, "Millions Now Living Will Never Die'. But it had been written by a young man who, like me, had been brought up in the JW faith. He, however, had researched into the Watch Tower Society's track record of predictions and tactics and detailed a catalogue that truly shocked me. I obtained all the myriad pieces of literature he referenced and was dismayed to discover that he had quoted accurately, and in context, and that the Society leaders who I revered as being God's only channel today seemed guilty of false predictions, absurd ideas and dirty tactics.

Around the same time, God raised up another Christian, a lady from the Apostolic Church, who also listened politely to me. I was confident I could prove to this lady that the Trinity doctrine was false yet after my explanations, she just said that her Bible stated (in John 1:1) that Jesus is God, and she was going to stick to what her Bible said. I left, dismayed that this lovely lady risked dying at Armageddon because she believed this. (The fact that 1975 had passed without Armageddon escaped my thought processes. I still believed it would happen any day now.)

Yet because I was discovering an alarming side to my leaders, and other books showing that doctrines like the Trinity had biblical support that those leaders had never acknowledged, I found myself searching for the truth amidst the spiritual tangle I was involved in unraveling. At the end of it I emerged with treasure I never knew existed - salvation freely given on the basis of what Christ Jesus had done at Calvary; not simply the offer, the possibility, depending on my working hard at being a good JW (a carrot on a stick) but assured salvation now! I also discovered that Jesus is God and entered into worship that so horrified my JW friends, they shunned me, as I had to be disfellowshipped. No worship of Christ is tolerated in the JWs. It is considered to be anathema. Yet now I was in a spiritual paradise. It was as if I had stumbled across an oasis in a barren land, such was the difference between my JW works and now resting by faith in Jesus' finished work.

And I also discovered the power of prayer. After realizing Jesus is to be worshipped as God, I thought to contact that lady from the Apostolic Church for she would be thrilled to know of my conversion. I phoned her after finding her number in the phone book and she remembered me from two years ago. She had been praying for me! I was astonished. We immediately had a reunion as she was packed up, ready to emigrate to Australia. Then she told me that she had just been praying to God, to ask for confirmation that He had been answering her prayers, when I phoned. Confirmation, indeed! You see how God works through prayer and people to accomplish His salvation?

The Lord graciously led me straight into fellowship with a local Baptist congregation and, after many years with them, into the newly formed local Free Church of Scotland. The depth of spiritual teaching is wonderful and I can continue to play my part in sharing the good news of what Christ has done. My book on how to reach out to the JWs in love was published in 2000 by Christian Focus Publishers, Fearless Love - Understanding Today's Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course, this has not endeared me to the JWs as I am viewed as an apostate by them, but that does not stop me reaching out to them! Others in my family have now become Christians and I am amazed at the wonder of God causing our family detour to come back on track in this way. Some members continue to be JWs but prayer continues that the Lord will be as gracious to them as he was (and is) to me. Truly, the Lord deals with families, as well as nations and individuals. May He receive the glory He is due for His unfailing love