| I began getting the Plain Truth
at the age of 15. I didn't know there was a local church until three
years later when I was invited. From reading literature about the Ten
Commandments written by Roderick Meredith, I really thought I had to
give up my music or go to the lake of fire, because I thought music was
an idol to me.
I was handed two four-year full
paid scholarships plus a third partial scholarship to study music. One
was for Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA and the other was for a
music school in Tennessee. I think it might have been Belmont
University. I am a direct descendant of Johanne Sebastian Bach, and
didn't know that until my family had our family tree traced when I was
15. I had begun copying music at age 9 and had begun writing my own
songs at age 13. I learned to play every instrument I could get my hands
on. I read lots of books on music and songwriting. By the age of 17 I
had written a Sonata for piano in E minor
and had written many songs and lots of poetry. I could conduct music and
had assisted the band director in giving music lessons from the time I
was 11.
The only reason I would ever
have given up music is if God commanded me
to, and I had been deceived to think He practically had. There were no
ministers around at the time that I knew about. They were so secretive
back then. I thought that the Radio Church of God1 was that you got
baptized by a traveling baptizing team in the local creek, and you did
the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course and listened to Armstrong on the radio and
studied his literature with your Bible. My music teachers could hardly
believe it when I actually turned down those scholarships!
I just got out of
WCG in
January of 1997. The lie that was drummed into me since I was a teenager
was that it was the "only true church," and that "you have to suffer
to build character." And I did, and it nearly cost me my life!! I
have grieved over my music so terribly, but everybody says, "It's
in the past. Just forget about it!" Music was part of my life, and
when that went, a part of me died! Since I have realized that God really
wants us to develop our talents that He gave us, and music is
so
important to Him, I have written some things, and a few things have been
performed in a few churches, but the grief is so hard to overcome. It's
like I've had the life knocked out of me! I'm still trying to get my
health back, which is another whole horror story.
Music just hasn't run through
my head very much like it used to, which was almost all the time when I
was younger. Anyway, I really do need some healing. I'm trying to pick
up the pieces of my life and trying to get back into my music at age 53.
My son is so happy to be out of WCG. Women and children suffered
terribly under Armstrong's government regime!! Thanks for being there.
Write me please! It is so wonderful to know there is somebody who will
possibly understand without telling me to just forget it, as if it never
happened! As if I can ever get back the marvelous life and career I
could have had in serving God and the world with beautiful music!
Thanks.
By Charisse - Child Survivor of WCG
August 22, 2002
Also read:
My Talent of Music Was Never Appreciated
(another child survivor's story about music)
Footnote by ESN:
1
Radio Church of God was renamed Worldwide Church of God in 1968.
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