By Julia Kelly (age 17)

What I have to say is not concerning Ricky or Angela. I wrote another article on this site, it still stands as my views on the subject, and I continue to support their families and loved ones in prayer.

I have had an epiphany. I’ve had epiphanies before on a variety of subjects ranging from “What is cool?” to “Does it matter what is cool?” and have, in the past, felt the need to share them with the world. I feel that need now. I figured newspapers wouldn’t be interested and I have no web log of my own to share these things with, but I have this awesome website. So here goes.

I’ve had a rough week. It started off good: I come home from vacation and find a spiffy new website where Family/former Family young people can post their views. That was cool. An article of mine gets posted on this site. That was cool too. I start reading all the entries, they’re all very cool.

Then I start musing the whole incident over in my mind; over and over and over again. I hear what the media is saying, I don’t like it. I hear what some former Family members are saying to the media about the Family, I don’t like that either.

I read some comments from former members that I don’t agree with. I start thinking about these comments a lot. I feel they are wrong, so wrong. I start to get angry at these people. I start to spend a lot of time trying to think of ways to disprove them and humiliate them and expose them. I start to get really worked up.

I start to attack them, sometimes in my mind, sometime verbally. I attack their arguments, their logic, their reasoning. I start to attack their lifestyle and their choices. I start taking personal offense to everything they’re saying, regardless of what it is. I lose sleep over all of this.

I start to get exhausted, I can’t think of much else. My mind is racing with rebuttals, snide remarks, cutting innuendos, and all kinds of things I could say to these people. I start to think they are very evil; I start to think all former members are very evil because of how I feel about a few individuals. I stop doing the normal things I like to do and instead spend the time reading over, musing over, and trying to rebut a few comments I don’t like. I find myself thinking bad things about these people. I find myself becoming bitter. I find myself thinking I have every right to become so.

Then, this Friday: We’re having prayer time and my turn comes. I take the list of prayer requests and find myself reading one put forth by Mama and Peter. It went something like this “That we will not grow bitter against those fighting against us and that we will continue to love and pray for our enemies.”

“What?” was the first thing that ran through my mind. The second thing that ran through my mind was, “If it’s written in the Bible, there just might be something to it.” I put my “righteous anger” on hold for a moment and pray for the prayer request.

I get home from work, go to my room, and determine to find if the Word says it’s okay for me to continue acting the way I have been this past week. It doesn’t. I find that I am supposed to love and pray for those who persecute me. I find that I’m supposed to rejoice when they say bad things about me, as this means extra brownie points for me in heaven. I find that I’m in good company; people said bad things about all the prophets that came before me. I find that if they start to get too nasty, God himself will defend me.

I start to chill out. My righteous anger doesn’t seem so righteous anymore. It seems kind of pathetic. Okay, it seems really pathetic. I laugh at myself for getting so worked up about what some people are thinking, because really, they’ll be thinking the same thing after I’ve exhausted myself trying to get them to think what I think. My chances of converting them are about as slim as their chances of converting me. I realize there’s not as many of these kinds of people as I thought there were. I start to think of all the time I wasted this week, time I could have spent living the life I’ve been trying to so hard to defend to a few people who really aren’t that interested in my opinion. I realize I can’t be thinking “get a life” about certain people when I’m not living mine.

I realize that I have a fantastic life that I would not trade for the world, and I’m going to live it to the full. I’m not going to spend my time shopping around for opposing opinions to get worked up about. Such a practice is about as productive as George Bush, Britney Spears, or Bill Gates canceling budget meetings, concerts, or programming sessions* to find out what people who don’t like them are saying about them online, and then trying to convince those people to not think those things.
(*shows how much I know about computers. What exactly does Bill Gates do on his workdays?)

That was my epiphany.

This really happened. I have no other intentions of writing this than to share with you something that happened to me. I have asked the Lord to take away any bitterness I have harbored in my heart towards our detractors. Believe it or not, I feel Him doing it already. I’m truly convicted by the way I have acted and God helping me, I’m going to change my ways. I’m not going to get upset because some people don’t like my religious beliefs.

And I’m going to go on trying to be the best revolutionary disciple of Jesus I can be by:

* Doing my Christian duty and praying. I’m going to pray for our detractors every day; that they’ll stop doing what they’re doing and find peace in the Lord. I’m going to pray for our former members every day; that the Lord will bless and keep them and make them happy. I’m going to pray for anyone who may be going through what I just went through. I’m going to pray that the Family continues to grow stronger and that we’ll win more souls than ever this year.

* Continuing to support my loving communal lifestyle by spending more time doing nice things for other people with whom I live rather than spending my time getting worked up by millions of little tiny dots on a luminescent screen hinged on a framework of metal and plastic.

* Remembering and fulfilling my life’s commission, the one Jesus gave me: To “preach the gospel to every creature".

* Remembering that I am to “be not conformed to this world". I will remember that if my religious beliefs were easy to believe, everyone would believe them. I will remember that I see things very differently from our detractors because I am “transformed by the renewing of my mind". I will try not to imitate their cynicism and skepticism simply because it feels good to do so. I will remember that I choose to live on another plane that they don’t understand. I will try to have the humility to possibly look bad and stupid and ignorant in their eyes, and choose rather to “suffer affliction with the people of God” by remaining true to the calling and truth He has given me.

* Supporting and practicing the wonderful, unique, and revolutionary doctrines that make The Family different and (insert here: interesting, strange, hated, fringe, unorthodox, really cool, etc….) I intend to continue to consider Jesus to be my husband*, (once I turn 18 I intend to advocate and practice certain other things as well) continue receiving personal messages from Jesus Christ, Joan of Arc, Elvis Presley, David Livingstone, my own personal spirit helpers that have been revealed to me (14 of’m so far) etc, continue to make myself aware of and familiar with all the spiritual forces that help or hinder us, continue to believe and live like the world is about to come to an end, continue to advocate my excellent home schooling, continue to cut back on my intake of modern multimedia entertainment available today, and I will continue to fight my sweet tooth.
(*hey, if 17 year olds can wear T-Shirts saying “I’d party with Ashton", then I can consider Jesus my husband.)

It’s possible that some will pick apart the above paragraph, questioning if I really believe those things or am simply a blind, dumb follower, mindlessly obeying my despotic leadership. Hmmm….I could get really upset about that, but then…… I did that this week and I had a pretty bad week. How about instead I let them think what they want and continue to have a blast doing everything mentioned in the above paragraph….Yes, I like that better.

Oh, one more thing to add to that list.

* I will get exercise. Every day.

Julia Kelly is a second-generation member of The Family International