A Unique Reconciliation

BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN BRITAIN

BRUCE was two years old in 1945 when Marie, his mother, last saw him. Following Marie’s divorce, Bruce’s father was given legal custody of him. Suppressing her natural feelings, Marie decided that it would be in her son’s best interests for him to be raised by his father and his father’s new wife, without any emotional pull from her. Subsequently, she lost touch with Bruce completely.

Some years later Marie remarried and had another son, but still her thoughts turned to Bruce. Where was he? What had become of him?

When Bruce’s father died in 1976, Marie attended his funeral. Bruce, now a fine young man in his 30’s, was there with his stepmother. Since Marie still believed that Bruce thought his stepmother was his natural mother, she felt it would be unkind to make herself known to him, especially at such a time. Marie would have acted differently had she known that Bruce had been rejected by his father as soon as he remarried and had been raised by his grandmother.

About this time Marie met Sue, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and readily agreed to have a home Bible study. At the same time, by coincidence, Bruce and his wife started to study the Bible with Sue’s husband, Alan. Soon, however, on account of health problems, Marie stopped her study and moved away.

Marie was again contacted by Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1995. She resumed her Bible study and made rapid progress. As she approached baptism, Marie confided in a Christian elder about Bruce. The elder made inquiries and discovered not only that Bruce and his family were Jehovah’s Witnesses but that Bruce was an elder in a congregation in Marie’s hometown!

The other elders in Bruce’s congregation were apprehensive. If they told Bruce that his mother was going to be baptized at the next special assembly day, how would he react? Did he even know she existed? As soon as Bruce learned the facts, however, he rushed with his family to meet Marie. “The past doesn’t matter; it’s the future that counts in the truth!” were Bruce’s comforting words as he embraced his mother.

In March 1996, Marie, then 78 years old, was baptized at England’s East Pennine Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses—by Bruce. How thrilled Bruce was to gain his mother as a spiritual sister!

[Picture on page 24]

Bruce, with his mother