Where it is Always Winter, but NEVER Christmas
		Lilac's letter on the previous page caused me to think about my own experience of being caught in an "always winter, but never Christmas" sitation.  I began to think of that "White Witch" character and how she reminded me of various people who are Jehovah's Witnesses, specifically, some of the Elders I have known and even my own mother.  Yes, even my own mother reminds of me of that "white witch", I am sorry to say.
							It wasn't always "winter but never Christmas" in my family.  There was a time when before my mother joined Jehovah's Witnesses that there was warmth and laughter in our family.  But I'm not talking about just holiday times that were taken away from us.  It just seemed that the moment my mother made the decision to join the JW's, that everything in our lives just turned that cold, figurative "winter".
	I began to think of how that "white witch" came into our lives.  As in C.S. Lewis' story, the White Witch comes by and sees Edmond and picks him up in her carriage.  He's cold and she offers him the warmth of her own coat and warms him up.  But the White Witch is not genuine, and not sincere.  She's only after something else, she's after Edmond's mind, heart and his loyalty.  She offers him anything he wants to eat.  Edmond chooses "turkish delight", which is a very sweet candy type of dessert, made mostly of sugar with nuts.  After he eats the turkish delight he wants more and more, because he's not satisfied with it.  This turkish delight had some kind of influence over Edmond that caused Edmond to be under the White Witches' spell.He succumbed to the temptation without much of a struggle.  Edmond deceives and betrays his own siblings because of this "turkish delight" and the White Witch's influence. In our own lives, as becoming JW's, the Watchtower was that "turkish delight".  At first it seemed like it was something new, and we thought it was the best spiritual food we had ever tasted.  But the more we ate, the more it turned us into cold, unfeeling people who would think nothing about deceiving others into going to spend winter with us, and how we allowed this turkish delight to blind us to the cruelty of the Watchtower Organization. The Watchtower's "turkish delight" did nothing to satisfy us, even though there was an abundance of Watchtower reading materials, the more we read, the more we studied, it caused us to just feel empty inside, but we just didn't know why. I remember being cold and unfeeling toward my non JW family members.  I remember telling my father, who was not a JW at the time, that he was going to die in armageddon.  I remember talking about my non JW relatives behind their backs and chuckling about how surprised they were going to be when armageddon would strike and how they were going to wish that they had joined with us. I also remember not being a very nice person at times, always ready to turn in another "friend" for not marching in step to the Watchtower's dictates. I spent a complete eight years in that "winter", but when I left, I also left my family behind.  But soon my younger sister joined me by leaving also.  "Aslan" was on the move in our lives!  We journeyed and the ice started to melt and it was springtime.  We met Aslan, but the "white witch" wanted us to come back and she was very angry with us for leaving her. She was cruel and she lied about us, spewing all kinds of deceit concerning why we left her.  As in the Chronicles of Narnia's story, "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe", we see that Aslan gave his life in exchange for Edmond's life.  The white witch wanted Edmond's life, just like the Watchtower wanted our lives.  In our own lives, we learned that Jesus already given up His life for us when He went to the cross.  In Narnia, the White Witch laughs and is happy when she kills Aslan, she thinks she has the victory.  But when Aslan is raised from the dead, it is Aslan who has the real victory, just as Jesus has the real victory in our own lives. The Watchtower's "white witch" no longer can hurt us nor have influence over us because of our own friendship with "Aslan", who in our case is Jesus Christ.