How My 13-Year-Old Saved His Family From Drowning
We kept hearing the ice crack, then we fell through.
Oppressive heat flies buzzing, and we sat on insufferable wooden benches in an old horse barn. We were having “convention”, our cult’s annual meeting place. After a period of silence, to invite the holy spirit, followed by hymns and prayer, the old Worker started his sermon. My son who was 13 listened closely.
We called them Workers, known as two by two cult preachers.
The old Worker said “Please turn to 2 Timothy 3 — we are living in this time we were warned, parents there is a great evil amidst the world called the internet. If you have a computer hooked to the internet, you can enter the realm of satanic thinking. You can find where evil people, people who were once of the truth, now try to destroy us. If you allow your children or you get on the internet and visit these sites, the consequences will be dire. You will willfully be disobeying the holy spirit, and you can lose your precious revelation, this revelation was paid for in the blood of Christ. Fathers, if work requires using the internet, pray first, to be led by the spirit so you will not be tempted to wander.”
Very few of the congregation owned computers. Mostly farmers and blue-collar, the old Worker made those of us who owned a computer feel special, in a guilty way. I had played video games with my kids and wanted them to have a competitive edge in life. Computers were the future. The old Worker wasn’t worried about computers, after all even some of the younger workers had them. He was worried we would go to one website.
https://www.tellingthetruth.info/home/factsheet.php
The website allowed people to explore a different perspective of the cult they were in. It exposed the dark side of “Workers”.
I didn’t dare to click on it. I knew there was the occasional bad apple. I thought the site was just an ex—2×2, disgruntled and ashamed of their inadequacy to be one of us. I was an intellectual coward when it came to questioning my deep beliefs.
My son was listening intently.
The first thing he wanted to do was get home, get on the internet, and find out what that dude was talking about. The force was not yet strong in him, he was still malleable, an easy target of the dark side.
It took him 1 search and jackpot!
He read and learned what the rest of us were too terrified to learn. The ice of our “god spot” was way too thick. We were in a bad cult with evil origins. We were on the dark side. The good force started influencing him.
My sons were great kids. They never made trouble, always helpful and now I look back and wonder how they suffered us so well.
Fast forward to when my son goes to college, he leaves the cult!
My wife and I were terrified.
We blamed ourselves, where did we go wrong? Was it that time we let them watch a movie? The Internet? Should we have been more careful about what books we let them read? Perhaps we should have discouraged reading altogether.
Shortly after graduating college, my oldest son left the cult too!
My wife and I now were in complete shock and terror.
No seed to carry the kingdom’s banner! What would people think? It was always the parent’s fault, we would slowly lose our place. This meant none of the kingdom’s privileges like having a meeting in our home and having worker privileges*. We would fall to the bottom class. The guilt that our sons were facing a lost eternity, a millstone of guilt.
*Workers from overseas, stay at your house during special meetings, if you are “special”.
We decided we would always be there for our boys and perhaps they would return to God. We would hold the high ground.
Our commitment to them went against the cult belief that we should shun them, as they had died, then throw them away like a used tissue. I had seen this happen. I remember a father of seven praying that if any of his children would not serve God as adults they would die in the age of innocence. He lost two small children. When he prayed in thanksgiving for their death it seemed strange and try as I would, I just couldn’t quite understand this.
We could never shun our children, then we heard the ice crack.
Slowly our young son used the Aristotle method of asking questions and using logic and reasoning.
Our sons were both sharp and they read and devoured books like crazy. I thought it was our downfall to encourage them to read. I also knew they would go to college despite the workers telling me it was a waste of time for godly men, far better to take up a vocation.
Each time my son asked hard questions, it challenged my ego, making it like walking on eggshells for him. We could not answer them honestly, we realized he was right. Each time he asked questions, the ice got thinner.
My wife and I fell through the ice at the same time.
Both of our boys threw us a rope and pulled us to shore. They helped us move out of this very uncomfortable and unfamiliar place of not having all the answers. This was a new experience for us both.
The next two years we deconstructed and became a family again.
The rest of the family is still in the cult but we are dead to them. They tried everything and luckily we were prepared for each tactic, thanks to the evil internet and books. Interpersonal relationships with cult members, go downhill fast.
Now we are just worldly scum to them.
My wife and I lost a cult full of many false friends. We remain kind and welcoming but have boundaries. We always like to break the ice given the opportunity. We now have a small group of friends who are real. The strong family is deeply founded on the rock of love.
And that’s how my son’s love saved his whole family.
May 19, 2025