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Jehovah’s Witness

Listen to this Commentary!

By Gabriela Jacobo

A lot of Americans have been rethinking religion this year, in the wake of controversy in the Catholic church and the events of September 11th. Youth Radio’s Gabriela Jacobo grew up in a religious house, but has struggled with her own religious identity for years. She sent us her story.

The little I have of my childhood memories is filled with my mother’s prayers. I remember hearing my mom praying before we ate, and at times before we went to sleep.

My mother spent her childhood searching for a tangible relationship with God.

My mom told me she knew there was a God, but she didn’t know how to find Him or talk to Him because He wasn’t very real to her. But she still believed.

Years later, my mom met a woman when she was walking home from picking us up at a bus stop. And something changed. In a way her challenge with God was over; she not only found God, but after meeting this woman, she found the relationship she had been searching for.

The woman told her about the resurrection, and gave her a lot of hope. My grandmother died when she was only 37 and my mom was 18. My mom says when the woman talked about reuniting with loved ones, she became a believer.

When my mother became a Jehovah’s Witness, she changed all of the sudden — she didn’t wear the same things, and I noticed she became more serious. She no longer smiled as much as she used to. But in her eyes, she had found something important.

My mother seemed to gain the hope that she would see my grandmother again after the Armageddon. It filled an emptiness in my mom that she had ever since she was a teenager, while for me, it created more emptiness. I felt like I lost my mom in many different ways. She still took care of us, but she lost her voice, she no longer told me what she liked or believed in, she told me what the Bible said. She lived her whole life according to the Bible.

My mom’s favorite passages were in the Book of Revelations…and any answer to anything — like who made the sky or who made the trees — was in the Bible. Everything always seemed to go back to God.

Looking through pictures, my mother points out the one of my baptism. I think back then, that event was the most important to my mom; that’s the one that meant the most to her…

When my mother points out pictures of my first birthday, she reminds me how birthday celebrations were always dad’s job, because as a Jehovah’s Witness, my mom couldn’t participate in celebrating anything but God. In so many ways I miss my old birthdays — what little I remember of them — and old Christmases. At times I feel I’ve lost my childhood and the joy that other kids experience growing up feeling close to God.

I tried praying when I was young, and even when I was a little older, I would ask God to let me have a good day, and once I got older I asked him for silly things like letting me pass a test. But it always felt like I was telling someone a dark secret and not getting any response. My brother Jorge felt the same way. He was baptized, and even went door to door as a teenager with Watchtower books, but he stopped going to services with mom when he was 17. "Whenever she gets a chance, she tells me I’ll fry in hell. But she would be disappointed no matter what I did. It’s not like I ever was good enough. So I guess it’s both ways — I’ve lost her but I never had her. She still believes. That’s okay. That’s just the way it goes."

So here we are in a religious house with no religion. It would be nice to have the comfort of God, but it’s somehow more meaningful to me when I can help myself. And make myself stronger.

My mother says she still prays for us, so when Armageddon comes we won’t suffer as much as everyone else. I wish instead of praying to God to express her love for us, she would come to us directly to show her love. Sometimes I feel like I need her more than I need God.

Host Back Announce: 17-year-old Gabriela Jacobo comes to us from Youth Radio.